Well, i guess musicaltaste is a rather safe place to recommend some Free Design without getting laughed at. It always strikes me they haven't been more popular back in the late sixties. "Kites Are Fun" is one of their more popular and one of their best tracks for sure. Uber-jolly, playfull, catchy with superb vocal harmonies, gentle guitar, flute, bass and drums and some keyboards.

A classic, congenial, groundbreaking electronica score to Ridley Scott's movie "Blade Runner". While the most significant cues like "Love Theme" and "Memories of Green" were included on numerous compilations before, it took 12 years for the soundtrack to get released officially. Since Vangelis "recompiled" the music for the soundtrack, adding new music, reworked cues and left out parts of it, it's the best sounding but far from complete version of the soundtrack. Due to this fact there have been a huge amount of unofficial bootleg releases over the years, mostly private releases put out in small quantities. Even after over 20 years since the soundtrack has been recorded it still sounds fresh and highly evocative as ever before. The feeling throughout the soundtrack is a neo-retro, future-noir mood with grand soundscapes created with a mass array of various analogue synths. Especially the wonderful use of the Yamaha CS-80, with it's somewhat organic, sweeping, harmonica-style polyphonic sound gives the music such a remarkable feel. On "Love Theme" though Vangelis prominently features pretty much the only "real" instrument on the whole soundtrack, a saxophone played by Dick Morrisey.

In his home country France Benjamin Biolay often is praised as the "nouveau Gainsbourg", he's a singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, orchestrator and plays various instruments. His debut album "Rose Kennedy" shows the impact "Histoire de Melody Nelson" had on him, as this is also conceived as a concept album. The track "Rose Kennedy" sounds very 60's in its instrumentation and feel, with lush, rich strings, warm Fender Rhodes keyboard, gentle and dreamlike vocals with a sparse dose of electronica and some samples thrown in.

Does it get any more happier and sunnier than this? This is a true sunshine pop / jet-set lounge piece with a fast paced beat, lush strings, woodwinds and a catchy melody. The style reminds me of Bacherat's 'Pacific Coast Highway' and Alan Hawkshaw's 'Girl in a Sportscar'. Just imagine your self beeing on the French riviera, crusing around in your sportscar with a beautiful girl at your side and you are the king of the world as you drive into the sunset.

I can be very wrong here, but it seams that this is the title song for the movie with the same name, made in 1998. I could have sworn that this was a piece from the 1960s, the sound, the arrangement, the instruments, sound incredibly accurate and realistic. I found this song on the excellent 'Jet Set Society' compilation from our own eftimihn on this site, a brilliant pick.

A heavenly pop vocal track, one of the last tracks ever recorded by Dino, Desi and Billy. The production (by Stu Phillips, who did the Hollyridge Strings and some cool soundtracks) is dreamy and soft, perfectly matching the idealized lyrics (the world seems so wonderful...etc).