Despite '2002 - A Hit Song's insistent chorus of "it's gonna be a hit, hit, hit!", by the end you're not convinced, "it's not gonna be a hit is it Free Designers?" "No� I'm afraid not Rum. To be honest it hasn't a hope in hell. Oh yeah we're bitter, of course we are, but, you know, when you're in the idiom of soft rock you can't get away with angst, you've got to maintain this 'pleasing' fa�ade, so that's why we sound so jolly, so 'up' on this song. But yeah, it's hard..." Yes, they may, as they sing, have "sealed it with a kiss" but the cracks show. And it's that that makes this song particularly memorable. It's fascinating to see the rips in their Peter Pan wonderland, a place where they usually spend their time flying kites, blowing bubbles, befriending dolphins. And so this palpable excitement you hear in their heady harmonies is not fuelled by a surefire optimism of success but by an almost delirious desperation, "hit, hit, hit, sure to be a hit, hit, hit, gonna make a hit, hit, hit" they sing, panting, shaking nervously, craving that big fix. The track is a flip-side to the Byrds' 'So You Wanna Be A Rock'N'Roll Star'. Both are bitter recipes for pop success but whereas the Byrds are pissed off that any talentless buffoon can follow their recipe to success get a hit, the Free Design are pissed that "We did all this last time, and it did not work!". I guess you have to suffer for your art, and maybe the Free Design were having too happy a time. Or maybe their hair didn't swing right or their pants weren't tight.

For someone like me, the strangest thing about getting really into Roxy Music is the overt rockiness of a lot of their material. Even on this track, which is one more of their slower, more mournful numbers, there are a lot of very heavy rocky moments. They work pretty well though, and I'm certainly not complaining.

The atmospheric opening is breathtaking, and Bryan Ferry's vocal as he sings 'I've opened up my heart' is incredibly beautiful. The words and music seem to meld together in a very pretty way, but then before long the track mutates into a stomping, carnival like passage that clearly influenced Nick Cave to a considerable extent. Throughout the song there's this interchange between delicate, melodic verses and the rowdy, discordant section. Like another favorite Roxy track, 'Just like you', this song finishes with a clever chord change.

I'm sure many people would find 'Bitter-Sweet' much too dramatic and serious - perhaps some days I would too - but it does have an incredible elegance and style that makes me keep on listening.

Lewis Taylor is a major musical talent, and his first album stands as a landmark among modern soul / R&B productions. Imagine Prince on a roll, with the Beach Boys on backing vocals and Jeff Beck adding psychedelic guitar. He does it all. Sweet falsetto vocals, funny lyrics and a worldwide groove. You'll want more.

Close Up And Reak is a lovely album but this is my favourite track. It's a bittersweet tale of a person's (possibly Jane's), gradual loss in humankind. The song opens with a wailing violin which then introduces a soft, acoustic blanket of intsrumentation topped with Jane's wistful vocals.

This song is SO bittersweet: "Oh, sometimes I think that you're avoiding me/ I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates; you've got a brand new key." And her voice is pure heaven, she's got that raspy-ish thing goin on, but she just sounds like an angel who smokes a pack a day. I guess you could call this folk music.

This is the record that pretty much kicked off the whole 'bastard pop' genre - where a clever bootlegger would fuse the vocal track of one song with the backing of another. Here we have Public Enemy and Herb Alpert (Bittersweet Samba, from Whipped Cream...).

The reason this record (unlike most of the other mash-ups) works so well is that it sounds like a genuine collaboration - the parps of the Tijuana Brass and Chuck D's rap spits meld perfectly. It's a smart-arse idea that becomes a work of art.

This song is quite possible the greatest break-up song ever written. "Come fuck me up/Steal all my records" Wry, and emotional and bitter. Ryan Adams proves why he's a brilliant songwriter.

It's a situation we can all imagine ourselves in - an ex-partner is getting married, we're invited, we get drunk and embarrassing at the reception. Twinkle, aka posh girl Lynn Ripley (who went to school with Camilla Parker-Bowles!) is a lyrical genius and this unbelievably good little number was relegated to the B-side of her final 60's single, Micky.

This song contains one of my favourite song lyrics ever. Pondering why they split up, Twinkle admits it was because she wouldn't have sex with him until they were married and says "it was a woman that he wanted, not a lady". How great is that? I thought she was going to say "...not a girl" first time I heard it and was taken aback by the simple brilliance of that turnaround.

Plus, well an American friend has nicknamed me Twinkle because I'm her favourite Brit-girl and I can live with that.

Punk Rock - Agressive with cert....fuck off... listen!!!
www.purevolume.com - PIGS BLOOD CHERRY BITTER
www.tramavirtual.com.br - PIGS BLOOD CHERRY BITTER

One of the finest moments of she-glam ever, Siobhan Fahey's long-buried-but-about-to-be-unearthed-for-reconsideration third Shakespear's Sister record has many harrowing moments of brilliance, but none moreso than "Do I Scare You". Opening with a swirl of Eastern-cum-goth keyboards, boasting "there goes the year/in doctors bills and sleeping pills", Fahey's voice squeaks, snipes, and snarls throughout, ultimately climaxing on the verge of pumping lyrical lead into a deserving partner (and listener) by the final bridge. I can't think of a celebrity meltdown on disc that was ever this catchy.

Leiber and Stoller give Brook a Bacharach/ David feel on Brooks debut single for Cotillion and indeed it is the flip side of an unremarkable version of thier "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". Brook just does nothing with the song. (Cissy Houston's, for my money is still the best version )
"Do You Own Thing" is a little gem however, with a sympathetic arrangement a long way from the R'n'B sound Leiber and Stoller are famous for. It starts with the trademark trumpet found on all the best Dionne Warwick sides and a wonderful string arrangement and a bitter/sweet lyric.

Outstanding Swedish psychpop, sounds like the aural lovechild of an orgy between sigur ros, hansson & karlsson and radiohead's karma police. gorgeous stringwork. ends in a psychedelic freakout.
the whole album is pretty good (imo the best swedish record of 2004), don't hesitate to buy the swedish import if you come across it..

The first line says it all: "I've gone as far/as I can go with this crap". A classically lush pop tale of infidelity. This bitter duet featuring Emma Pollock of the Delgados has a brooding feel reminiscent of great orchestral pop of the past, especially that of Barry and Bacharach.

During the early days of 1982, I was as a 'wet behind the ears' 19 year old suddenly sent to a faraway war in the (previously unheard of) Falkland Islands. This deeply haunting, passionate and heart-rendering track by the much missed Faith Brothers, encapsulates much of the mood, confusion, passion, patriotic pride and dark bitter reality of that horrific time. Now no longer naive at 42, my mind still screams and my heart still aches ... as I listen .. and remember.

Along with 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' (Eric Bogle, The Pogues et al), I believe 'Easter Parade' to be the finest song ever written about the utter desperation of war ... and life after the tea and medals have been dished out.

Would love to know if any Faith Brothers music is available on CD. (Tapes worn out and faded in the sun - a bit like me!). Can anyone help?

A superb tale of wronged love and wounded pride performed with a mighty swagger, drenched in latin rhythms and horns, but with that bittersweet humour and English setting that have been hallmark's of Kirsty's whole career.

There are so many songs from Kirsty that I love in so many musical styles, but the "Tropical Brainstorm" album is really the best thing she ever did. She has absorbed the influences from her travels in Latin America, but the album is no pastiche, it is pure MacColl. Whilst occasionally missing its mark, it has so many fine, joyful and wryly funny moments, and, to me, all the signs of an artist entering a new, fiercely creative and joyful stage of her career.

Sadly we will never know where Kirsty's musical journey would have taken her.

In which Costello lands the role of Smokey Robinson,a bittersweet lament to the unluckiest man in love in the style of The Miracles at their best,the usual lyrical brilliance assisted by the wonderfully eclectic Attractions,a pop masterpiece in the form of homage to one of his own idols

This is one of these sensationally sensual, wonderful instrumental tracks only the italians could pull off in late sixties/early seventies. This is the title theme to "La morte cammina con i tacchi alti/Death walks on High Heels", one of the numerous gialli (thriller movies with that special italian touch) to come out of italy in heavy doses from the late sixties up to the mid seventies. Wonderful scores have been one of the constitutive elements of these films and while the scores that Ennio Morricone did for these movies (e.g. "L'ucello dalle piume di cristallo/Bird with the crystal plumage, "Cosa avete fatto a Solange/What have they done to Solange", Una lucertola con la pelle di donna/Lizard on a womans skin" or "Le foto proibite di una signora per bene/ Forbidden fotos of a lady above suspicion") have been long released, a lot of excellent music is still locked up in the vaults of CAM, Cinevox and other italian soundtrack labels. Thanks to the hard work of the guys at DigitMovies a lot of these scores now successively get a proper, remastered release (often for the first time ever), music otherwise would have been lost in oblivion forever. Stelvio Cipriani may not be remotely as well known as Morricone (who, naturally, overshines just every other italian composer), but he was very prolific in the heyday of italian cinema, scoring an equally wide range of different genres from westerns to gialli and from romantic movies to italain police (so called "poliziotteschi") and crime movies. This title track of "La morte cammina con i tacchi alti" doesn't have to hide behind the best of themes Morricone did, in fact the orchestration does sound very Morricone itself with an uptempo-ish bossa nova beat, lush strings, wonderful harpsicord and a female voice carrying the main melody with a bitterweet tone. The voice is delivered by Nora Orlandi, one of the very few female soundtrack composers and she could easily be mixed up with Edda Dell'Orso here. Wonderful stuff, recommended for anyone who enjoys the "Mondo Morricone" comps.

With Saint Etienne being one of my favourite groups of the last decades (and possibly the best british pop group today) it's really hard to pick a track, it wouldn't be hard to recommend dozens of amazing tracks they did the last 15 years. That said, "Fascination" is the only new song they produced since Finisterre (2002) and it was included on their first compilation released in the US. It doesn't really matter if they embrace a more late 60s style a la Good Humor or a more electronic or dance approach to their music, due to Sarah Cracknells distinctive voice and Stanleys and Wiggs' ear for strong melodies it always sounds essentially Saint Etienne. This one is a heartfelt, bittersweet song, with an almost Hip Hop-ish basic beat, lush synths, floating harp-like electronica and a great piano melody.

A beautifully lilting modern waltz. Bittersweet fingerpicked guitar in the background and a wonderful haunting voice, I'm assuming Inara George herself. I'd love to learn more about the artist. A beautiful song of the bitter side of love, "fools in love they think they're heroes, because they get to feel no pain, i say fools are lovers' heroes, i should know, i should know because this fool's in love again." I just love songs like this. I first heard it watching Grey's Anatomy. So I looked on Amazon at the playlist for the soundtrack and found it. Definitely a great song in my book.
She has a website: www.inarageorge.com and unfortunately she just finished a tour.

This is a simple but rather bitter pop song, although on the surface it sounds quite sweet. If I recall correctly, it was written about the singer that Twinkle was seeing at the time. The gentle arrangement features acoustic guitar and some brass. It's not hard to hear why Morrissey liked this song enough to cover it with The Smiths.

Twinkle has a lovely clear voice, and much as I respect Moz, this version towers above the one done by The Smiths, which suffers from a strange mix of production styles. That said, I have a strange mix of emotions on hearing the song, since I heard the Smiths version at 14, but only got into this one in the last few years.

Perfect synthesizer punk rock.

"Baby, just don't, 'cause we can't go back
My baby, hold your tongue 'cause it's worse like that
My baby, it was different 'cause we all did junk
Oh baby, lock those photos back inside of your trunk
My bittersweet memories
Remind me how we used to feel
All damn summer with our head full of pills"

Y'know...I really like the latest Dandy Warhols album, in spite of myself. I've never been able to stand them, as they are as about as close a thing to actual rock stars as we have here in Portland. As a result, there's just an awful lot of bitterness in the air. I think that I finally came to the realization that their particular brand of coke-sniffing antics are precisely what I want out of a rock & roll group. I want there to be rock stars on the grand 70s scale again. Somebody has got to inherit Mick Jagger's rightful place as the man to be. I'm not saying that Courtney Taylor should be that man, but at least he's on the right track. This song in particular...as strange as it sounds...it reminds me of the Offspring, but in a good way. And that's the way with a lot of this album. There are songs here that remind me a lot of Beck, ones that remind me a lot of Frank Black and of course the obvious Stones pastiches. In short, there's nothing earth-shatteringly original...but hasn't rock & roll always been about copying what's come before and trying to make it your own? I mean, where would the Beatles have been without Chuck Berry?

This magical track is from a 1965 single produced by Rolling Stones impresario Andrew Loog Oldham. It's a folky pop song with a manically strummed acoustic guitar and constant beat. There's some more full orchestration (brass and strings), but it's slightly hidden in the mix. The charm of this song for me lies in both Nico's bittersweet delivery ("I'm not saying that I love you/I'm not saying that I care/If you love me..I'm not saying that I care/I'm not saying I'll be there when you want me") and the catchy chord sequence in the verse. Some of the bridge sections are slightly corny and obvious musically, but Nico's majestic vocal lifts the song and makes me want to hear it again.

This song was to be a key moment in the reformation of Echo & the Bunnymen. Ian McCulloch originally wrote "Just a Touch Away" back in the mid-Nineties, in the midst of the Electrafixion era, but felt it inappropriate for that band. Over time, the singer found himself shelving more and more songs, as it became ever more evident that Electrafixion's days were numbered. Eventually McCulloch played a demo of the song for Will Sergeant, who was decidedly impressed; soon after, the pair turned out the lights on Elektrafixion, re-united with Les Pattison, reformed Echo & the Bunnymen, and began work on their new album, 1997's Evergreen. "Just a Touch Away" would take pride of place within, its evocative atmospheres and haunting lyrics creating an eloquent showcase of the band's new styles and sounds. Today, the song is Sergeant's favorite track from the set, proving McCulloch was right to have so much faith in it all along.

It's hard to recommend a single track from this album, the whole thing is a classic of California pop. I'm glad it's finally been reissued on CD.

Mark Eric Malmborg created a genuine masterpiece with this recording, which has a bittersweet mood throughout that reminds me of "Pet Sounds". I originally came across this LP in 1989 when I found a copy at a thrift store (it had once been in the collection of the local public library!)and just looking at the cover I figured it would be great, and it was!

"Lynn's Baby" is the last track on the original LP and is a beautiful song about a girl who has been seduced and left with an out of wedlock baby by an older, manipulative guy who's left her after the usual empty promises...rather an unusual theme for a pop song! The combination of Mark Eric's voice (somewhat reminiscent of Brian Wilson) and the gorgeous string arrangement are enough to really bring out the goose bumps.

This CD is one that I absolutely can't recommend enough to fans of the beautiful 1960's pop music.

Regularly I fall in love with songs that have a harmonic, perfectly tuned voice chorus like "miracles". The Fender Rhodes keyboard and a moderate bass-line completes the relaxed mood.
I immediatly feel this bittersweet mixture of good times memories and melancholy.

The sound is just perfect. The piano part has been stuck in my head for years. Its another one of those rainy day songs that kind of make you stop everything you're doing and just sit there and listen.

An instrumental arrangement using only strings, this piece starts out slow and builds. Its overall tone is sweet and full of emotion. Very seldom does one encounter a song of pure aesthetic beauty, with no ulterior motives or elements, but this is one of those songs.

Max Richter has been influenced by minimalistic modern composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but his work has its own distinctive feel. This song, among others by Richter, was featured in the 2006 film Stranger Than Fiction.

I could recomment almost any song Pedro The Lion has recorded, but this recent song embodies most of what PTL stands for: quiet, folky, melancholy lyrics but also angry, hard and bitter. You can download this song from the label website: www.jadetree.com

To me, songs like this best express the genius of Brian Wilson. Listen to the tender lyrics and vocal on this...this is the happiest he has ever sounded. (Given the time that this was recorded, it's almost depressing...this was probably also the last time in his life that he was truly happy. What the more poetic call bittersweet?) Yet, this is so mellow and unassuming. It's blissful, joyous - and above all else, madly in love, as evidenced by the spoken "I love you." at the end. The writing credits lists Wilson-Love, but all I can hear is Brian here. Mike Love was never this genuine.

As for the arrangement, it hints at what was to come with "Pet Sounds". Fender bass! Tambourines! Harpsichords! It's a beautiful thing, and Sonny Bono built his career off of it. Sleep well, sweet Congressman.

a very beautiful cover of the radiohead song done by norwegian-swedish jazz quintet atomic.
bittersweet.

Driving and discordant, bittersweet, sad. This song is the most beautiful thing I've heard this week. In the mixtape of my head this comes right before Johnny Cash's "Don't bring your guns to town." A song you should listen to after you watch the evening news tonight... (released free as part of the protest records project: http://www.protest-records.com/ which is somehow associated with sonic youth.)

my favourite tune on the newest issue of dusty fingers. the dusty fingers series is a compilation of rare and obscure tunes mostly from the 60s and 70s. the styles cover funk, jazz, krautrock and tunes like this one. it's a bombastic pop song with strings and a huge brasssection, which i come to admire more and more in the last time.
the intro is sooo cool. bitter spoken words by nancy about love and pain.
well, take a listen yourself.
last words: check out the dusty fingers series, there are a lot of true gems on them...like this one!

This is how indie pop music should sound, at least for me: bittersweet, light'n' fluffy, airy, harmonic and late 60s oriented. Or as the band describes it: The music makes you think of the time when Herb Alpert and Burt Bacharach was young, Brigitte Bardot looked good, and Serge Gainsbourg was alive! Their whole second album, Instamatic Lovelife, is very consistent in quality and thus highly recommended.

A glorious and beautiful epic of a song, that swoops and soars from verse to chorus, sung in Boo's trademark bittersweet voice. If the world was a fair place, this song should have been a massive hit single and brought Boo the mass recognition that he deserves but that has always just elluded him.

The best pop song of the year taken off what is probably the pop album also. I can´t remember the last time i was so uplifted by a pop song. It is like the best song the avalanches never recorded only with proper vocals.

An accusatory narrative on his marriage to Motown owner Berry Gordys daughter.Sweet but bitter not the same as bittersweet.Strangely compelling with no distinct melody ,bridge or chorus and the title only mentioned in the last few bars .However you feel after one listen an intimacy with the songs creator and this confessional opus .In places you can hear four or five Marvins pleading and apologising and blaming.I think in this instance it would appropriate to use the word genius .The moral being never marry the boss,s daughter.

Fantastic piece of gentle soft rock, filled with simple and effective bittersweet lyrics. Soundwise, delicado appropriately described it in his review as a "cooler and classier take on the Chad & Jeremy sound with superior performances, songwriting and arrangements". I can absolutely subscribe to that description, the whole album is a long lost softrock gem.

A foray into blues and r&b from a neo-Mod group.

In what is another of Neil Hannon's best songs, we hear his superb bittersweet lyrics emerging from an intricate and intermittently lush backing. As usual, the chords are not particularly complicated or unusual, but are extremely well-chosen.

Brilliant, in spite of the strange choice of sangria near the beginning, with its forced accent on the second syllable.

nice bitter sweet Irish-punk dittie

That the Church's initial breakthrough song would yet become a millstone around its neck might not have been clear at the time, but one understands pretty easily why the band was anxious to escape its shadow after subsequent efforts clearly showed the tune as the building block it was. But "The Unguarded Moment" isn't a disaster at all - indeed, for a young band to come up with such a great effort early on and get some airplay and attention for it was as clear a sign as any that something really special could yet result. Marty Willson-Piper's flat out lovely introductory guitar and the sinewy blend of his and Peter Koppes' instrument on the main melody sets the tone, while the stripped down verses and quiet rhythm changes throughout give a great taste of the band's incipient ambitions and tweaking of an established formula. Steve Kilbey's quietly rueful but still clear and strong lead vocal adds a nice air of calm melancholia, while coming up with some fun lyrical images here and there ("Tell those friends with cameras for eyes�").
(AMG)

A song about mass Irish emmigration to the United States which happend during the The Irish Famine of 1846-50 (the population droped from 8 million to 5)and also refers to the second wave that left during the 1970s/80's due to unemployment.

A sad and bitter song with strong Irish pipe/fiddle playing.

Any label searching for the perfect pop cover to resurrect from the forgotten early-90s (as with "There She Goes") would do well to give several listens to this equally bustling-yet-melodic paean to the bittersweet tang of youthful somethingorothers. Jangling electric guitars, singalong choruses (it doesn't get any easier than "come and see/trampoline"), mumbling, presumably insightful scatting over the reprise, layered harmonies, and a throwback yowling guitar solo. Merely sneering, "I already have one Oasis album," does not excuse you from the obligation to hear and love this song!!!

This is quite a serious question if you ask me, but then again, this might not concern too many people and unfortunately The Crooner isn't able to give an answer. But if you expect some mockingly ironic, tongue-in-cheek lyrics about mademoiselle Longet it surprisingly isn't. It's quite on the contrary actually, a heartfelt homage, though rhyming "footsteps on the sand" with "pussywillowland" might appear cheesy of course. The music itself is a fluffy piece of indie-pop with a bittersweet tone, with soft male vocals, soft synths, a great vibraphone playing throughout and some airy, well, Longet-esque female vocals in the background.

To judge by the coverphoto of mrs Shannon this song doesn´t refer to her own personal situation. So, for at least this writer, to see that it was penned by her boyfriend at the time, Blake Wescott, makes a bit more sense. Anyroads, When you live life alone is one of those songs that could have been so much more. A bit properly edited and structured I believe that Burt Bacharach would have considered it among his best. Certainly, the verse is up there with the best burtinspired pop ever. In the chorus though, Barbra Streisand enters the stage and smudders it with a bit too much melodrama to make it the 24 carat gold classic of a song it could have been. But if you have read this far into the text do check it out.