scratch in the sky is the name of the cryan' shames
album that came out in 1967 from these chicago soft/sunshine pop masters whom also added an amazing dash of psyche to all there recordings...
"a carol for lorelei" starts the album off with bells and association(ish) harmonies!! brilliant
ignore what allmusic.com said about this album they are fools the song writing is up to par with the beach boys and others.
if you dig the Association and The Millennium and other fine sunshine pop groups with that mellow groove get it now. the japanese import is worth the extra for the original back cover art work that the sundazed version didn't recreate faithfully. i love 'em

great acoustic guitar, haunting lyrics... One of the best from this band

The crazy, nonsensical lyrics are probably the best part of this song. I also like the trippy melody and beat.

this is excellent. i've never been a fan of purely instrumental tracks, but this is just too perfect. sets a great mood. almost makes you feel as if you were alone on the beach at night. melancholic, sad, almost cold. the music has a brittle, yet lingering quality which is hard to achieve and yet it is here. so, so good.

i love this song. the music is just right, the singer's voice is melodic and not too shrill. good lyrics, nice mood.

Chris Martin is an angel. This track is very special. A very private song about a very public matter. Namely Gweyneth Paltrow's Breakup with Brad Pit and her engagement to Chris Martin. His vow of love to her. Heartfelt & touching. This Album is very inspired!

vocals this high should annoying, but they work for this song. i love the intro, and the lyrics are quite nice...in that yearning, melancholic way--actually, the guitar playing and the way lyrics are sung fit this mood quite well.

this band only made two records, this one from the 80s and a more recent one which i have not heard.

Rather than single out any song on this record, i'll recommend the album as a whole. A journey to Paradise in sound. Robin Guthrie & Elisabeth Fraser have moved beyond their post punk/goth beginnings to forge a style i would call ambient -rock. This record & the following record "The Moon and the Melodies", with the addition of Harold Budd & Simon Raymonde is also pure heaven.

lilac and deep blue/velvet symmetry where all emotions are filtered thru sound to encase the listener in suffocating oblivion; i drown in good music like i do in a crowd of people, but for different reasons

one step away from twee pop, or whatever it's called these days. lyrics are interesting enough. vocals are tolerable, music is catchy and uplifting. the whole album is, without it becoming extremely sugary.

a very atmospheric song. a quiet intro that slowly builds up. the vocals are frail and mysterious, they feel frail and light. the whole song seems to fade at the end, one keeps expecting it to stop, but it goes on for over six minutes.
it's no "swamp thing" (the obligatory comparison) but a very nice tune nonetheless.

This is (for me) one of the greatest songs of love ever written. The song describes the appearance of a goddess among women and is pure (if at times naive) poetry. The arrangement is simple lead and rhythm guitars and bass with an organ giving a more filled out feeling from the second verse and violin in the fourth. The tone is melancholy but happy, as if the singer is basking in the light of this most beautiful woman. It must have been written for someone, someone lucky to be thought so beautiful. But there is sadness in that the singer may be singing of his unrequited love. Some of the alliteration is fantastic too.

Possibly one of the greatest pop songs I've heard. A minimal arrangement of synth bells and piano over a distorted & looped drum beat.

A perfect piece of contemporary pop music: uplifting and sunshiny, yet with the right dose of melancholia. The production is excellent, as well as the instrumentation with a very driving rhythm section, warm electric piano, guitars and horns. What makes this really stand out is the terrific string arrangement by Richard Hewson (A protegee of George Martin and quite busy arranging during the 70s) which is very floating, sweeping and lush.

This song is an intriguing one for me, I can never get enough of it! It's one of the easy listening classics from the early 70's and is one of the most perfect examples of the "Now Sound" genre, recorded by a Hawaiian bar band led by lead singer Liz Damon. Interestingly, it is a cover of a song written by Chicago soul songwriter Johnny Cameron and it was originally recorded by Betty Everett on the Uni label. I was lucky enough to find a copy of Betty's original version, but unfortunately her version has never been put on CD.

This song has a delightfully slow tempo and dreamy, romantic lyrics that somehow seem timeless. To me, the song always seemed to be in an older style than its early 70's release date would suggest. The bridge features great horn playing and a wonderful descending bass run.

The original 45 on White Whale Records had a song called "You're Falling in Love" on the flip side, and that song too is a classic, in my opinion.

Loud drums and simple recurring guitar riffs are the setting for a melancholy, but rocking look back on a special time. Billy Corgan manages to sound like Mick Jagger. There's a kind of regretful feeling Smashing Pumpkins evoke that I felt in the movie "The Last Picture Show".

Delicate instrumental by Dave Grusin, that grows with each listen and has all the charachteristics of late 60s arrangements i love so much. The instrumentation is diverse, rich, yet subtle with piano, organ, horns, flutes and wonderfully arrangened, smooth strings and some harp embellishments thrown in. The mood is mellow, romantic with a dose of melancholia. Another great instrumental from the soundtrack, "California Montage", has recently appeared on "The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection", while this one unfortunately is only available on vinyl.

Very mellow, beautifully played song. The lyrics suggest a lost love, and a longing for the past that anyone can connect to.

This record always raises my temperature. Honest, charming, and always a delight to hear. The same chemistry that Burt Bacharach crafted comes across here without pretension or compromise. Great mix of loungey now sound and blue eyed soul. A timeless classic, and it doesn't stop there!

i love it very speedy mellow music. Incubus is always relaxing to listen to

I was looking up and down the list and wondered "why wasnt there any Todd Rundgren"? This is one of my all-time favorites from him at his creative peak. Although sometimes his ego and additudes about the music business (and fans) gets in the way of me enjoying his music, on this track he keeps his ego in check and uses his melodic (and commercial) smarts to make this one of this greatest ballads.

This is just an wonderful track, along with a amazing Stevie Wonder meets Brian Wilson all synth production. Also check the solo piano version on his "Back to The Bars" 2-CD set.

A smooth jazz-funk groove with Rhodes and synths playing melodically against each other. It sounds like Azymuth. In fact, it is Azymuth. Conversation, glasses clinking, a girl laughs in the distance. And Silvio's voice comes in, nice and mellow, describing what it's like to have a bunch of friends over for a get-together. Although he's one of Brazil's hippest crooners, a man who specializes in somewhat cliched yet mysteriously cool and affecting love songs, he lays back here and lets the country's greatest jazz-fusion outfit do its thing. How many romantic crooners ever do that?

I know, one is supposed to defer to the Eno-epoch Roxy Music, (and the first two LPs are the end of the world), but this may well be the band's most serene momment. Bryan Ferry is at the top his game here - his vocals are heavenly, his lyrics are brilliantly/brutally witty. Add the floating layers of "Melody Nelson" damaged strings and the effect is dazzling.

Paul Anka sings esperanto? No, it`s just his italian version of "Put your head on my shoulder". I don`t know the year it was recorded, but I think it were in the late 60`s. Although his italian articulation sounds queer to me (it feels like he red the lyrics from a board) "Abbandonati Amore" is a very nice song and the "Hawaiian" melody is still the same as in the original recording!

Ad Gloriam is a beautiful, light, joyous psychedelic pop song. It's built on looping melodic layers of sound by the standard guitar/bass/drum combo as well as piano and background vocals. I challenge anyone not to smile when they hear this track.

An absolutely mind-melting stormer from the king of the bongos, Preston Epps. Epps hit it big in the late 50s with the tune "Bongo Rock" (which was covered to terrific effect by Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band in the early 70s). This tune goes beyond the novelty aspect of the previous hit, though, into some crazy hyper-speed tempos and incredible breaks.

A slow number from Gainsbourg�s classic concept album, �Ah melody� opens with that picked acoustic guitar sound which the group Air have now imitated and made one of their trademark sounds. The arrangement is very bare, with the guitar accompanied by just a vocal, bass, and a spikey, funky drum beat. Later in this short track, strings and Bacharach-style horns slip in and out of the mix, before everything stops abruptly. It�s a great track from what I find otherwise to be a slightly disappointing album.

The album is one of my favourite-albums of all times. And the song itself is one of the most beautiful songs I know... the lyrics, the melody, the arrangement...

The song is actually a show tune - originally from 'Gypsy'. The only place I know this version exists is off Harry Connick's laser disc - featuring a live performance from '91. Anyway, if you listen to Mel Torme belt out this showtune, it sounds, well, like a showtune. I'm not a big fan. It's kind of dimply cheeked-cheesy. Harry sings it like it's an absolute standard. Slows it down, gets a little soulsy and smooths it out... perfect crooner jazz. Unfortunately there is a good deal of talking and tap dancing breaking up the song.

Heard this track on french radio and discovered that it will be released on 12" sometime in May 2002. Alexander Kowalski, a 23 year old based in Berlin, has created a tech house excursion that is extremely infectious. A great driving tune! My only qualm are the vocals which I must admit are mildly cheesy but they grow on you and many people I have played this to end up liking it after a few listens.

Melancholy jangle tune with sweet, haunting melody; discussed the trials and tribulations of those little bands that slip under our musical radar, however worthy. Reminiscent of garage band struggles, all who picked up a guitar in school in hopes of making it big. For those who make it big, hundreds - no, thousands - of bands are still waiting to be heard.

"And never thought it'd go this far / We never thought that / We'd ever go far / Like all my friends who play guitar / Know who we are? / We never go far / Like all my friends who play guitar"

(btw, I had no idea these guys were Christian; never sounded like any Christian music I heard!)

A Detroit take on Kraftwerk,Depeche Mode and European Disco,sparse remote synthetic drums and bass lines,and squelching fat melody lines that you can still hear in todays pop and R and b (Justin Timberlake,Timbaland ,Lady Ga Ga ),lends heavily from Trans European Express but is also looser and a tad more joyous .

For me the best song produced by the Pet Shop Boys for a few years, this mid-tempo number fuses a philosophical yet uplifting lyric with a typically intense, harmonically interesting PSB synth backing. The melody is beautiful and the song and arrangement are considerably more musically daring than much of the contents of their rather disappointing album "Release", which, in its standard single disc form, inexplicably omits this song.

"Always" is available on US limited edition two disc sets of "Release" and on disc one of the "Home and Dry" CD singles.

Opens with a gratuitously twangy pedal steel guitar and Frizzell's creamy melimsa vocals. A really lovely example of early 50s honky tonk music.

To me this is certainly a pinnacle of pure late 60s sunshine pop. Composed by pop genius Roger Nichols the timeless, idealistic lyrics were written by Tony Asher (who wrote most of the lyrics with Brian Wilson on Pet Sounds) not by his regular partner Paul Williams. Sunshine pop hardly gets any sunnier than on this track: great production, strings galore, Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies, great bassline & trumpet and catchy as hell with it's uplifting chord progressions throughout. While the album version (recently included on the highly recommended "The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection") is good already, the single version is just crisper, lusher, just perfect.

A staple Northern Soul fave ,though not a dancer its cool breezy rhythym has been loved and revered by everybody from Dusty Springfield to Joss Stone ,.A relentless verse chorus onslaught boosted by fantastic brass and clen drums with a melody to sit down for .One of this over exposed genre.s unsung artists who is well worth a second look .

Soul Yatra-the band that tours worldwide for Henessey, has recorded an album titled 'live on tour'.
Download mp3 tracks from the album at:
http://www.geocities.com/jazzgoa/soul

Joni Joni Joni. Great poetess of the north! A wonderful merging of folk & jazz here. Some of the most beautiful poetry by this already prolific artist. Also a standout on this record is the bass playing of Mr. Jaco Pastorius. From the poet who said "we are stardust,we are golden,we are billion year old carbon,and we've come to find our way back to the garden. Joni Mitchell "Woodstock"

In my opinion, the best S&G song, from their '68 masterpiece "Bookends". Lyrically beautiful, with a haunting melody and beautiful vocals care of Artie and Paul. A beautiful, soothing song for a turbulant time.

This is a fabulous, lush, orchestrated ballad sung from the point of view of a woman who is totally in love ... the only unusual thing is that it is very serious and sombre, rather in opposition to the lyrical intent. Vastly superior to her forgettable mid-'70s pop hits like "I've Got The Music In Me". Oh, and a different set of lyrics by somebody named Dahlstrom enabled the wretched Helen Reddy to have another hit named "Emotion" -- same melody, but an absolute piece of rubbish. This just proves that a song's worth comes from the arrangement more than anything else ...

There are a number of CDs available which contain this song.

One of the most melancholic songs in rock music. I can listen it over and over again.

This is from a great album that I recently received as a gift. Andalucia opens with a beautiful echoey acoustic guitar. It's a tender, simple song, with delicate guitar playing, entertaining lyrics (like 'Andalucia - when can I see yer'), and a great melody. The atmosphere is enhanced by a steel guitar and some nice multitracked vocals. I guess Cale's voice is an acquired taste, but I find him rather earnest and charming.

Great song with really strange lyrics on par with Love's "The Red Telephone": "Her belly button was her mouth/and she tasted what she'd speak/but the funny thing is what happened to her nose/it grew until it reached all of her toes/now when people say her feet smell they mean her nose." Another version was recorded by Lou Reed on his "Transformer" LP a few years later.

A quintessential Scott track, recorded when he was at peak of his abilities. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground over Scott Walker - people seem to either love him or hate him. I don't really understand how anyone could not be charmed by Scott - sure, he's a crooner and the music backing him is often lush and is rarely 'hip'. But the voice! The words! I've never been really big on either vocalists or lyrics, but these really, really get to me. Angelica's verse is dark and melancholic, and the words speak of regret over a neglected lover. The chorus explodes with emotion, and at this point you should be able to figure out one way or the other whether you love Scott or not. n.b. I always thought this song was composed by Scott, but I was mistaken. As well as being a great songwriter, he had superb taste in other material.

I don't like all of Louis' stuff. Some of it I can't stand. His cover of "Witchi Tai To" from this album really makes me gag. Sorry. But Louis has made more than a handful of wondrous, timeless pop songs. This one captures Louis at his most Beach Boys-influenced. It doesnt sound JUST LIKE the Beach Boys, but, yeah, the influence is there. A stunning track.

sooo gooood

astonishingly beautiful, early 70s brazilian masterpiece. a classical piece disguised as a pop song, with a simple piano playing a wistful melody punctuated by an amazing unexpected ascending chord hook. gismonti sings the original version, with a string section and morricone-like wordless vocal backing him. for the final minute the key changes and the vocals and accompaniment stop, and the solo piano veers off into satie territory, before resolving back into the refrain. gismonti re-recorded this a few times, after finding success in europe as an avant/classical composer. this song also inspired the guitar and mandolin trio agua e vinho, who cover it on their self-titled album along with a few other gismonti compositions.

Acoustic cover of the hit song in the 1970's by original artist, B.J. Thomas.

Apart from their hit songs, I have only recently got into The Smashing Pumpkins and this track stands out for me as brilliant. Great lyrics and a steady pumping beat make this difficult to not listen to over and over again. I think you need to invest time in their songs before you start to like them. That was definately the case with this song, on first listening it didn't really stand out, but now I would put it alongside 'Ava Adore' as one of the best tracks on the album 'Adore'. Also listening to 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' at the moment, another album that grows on you once you put the time in.

Brilliant melancholy synthpop trac. from a bootleg compilation with tracks from the german 80's new wave magazine Flexipop, wich used to come with flexidiscs and tapes.
Been trying to dig up information about the band, without much luck. from the minimalist sound of this song it may even be just one person.

It's a simple song, (complete with a preset 80's synth drumline)
yet it's very effective in conveying a romanticised sense of loss and dread. It's a good song. You can listen to it on sunday afternoons.

This is from "Flying Saucer", which for me is the record of the decade. It's electronic synth-pop w/ 2 female vocalists. There's an youthfulness and innocence about the music that makes me think it'd be a good soundtrack for a manga. There's some grown up melancholy there, too, on some of the songs.

A song about personal body space. I know that this doesn't exactly sound electrifying, but the song itself does. In fact the whole album this is from is filled with fantastic lyrically unorthodox songs, most of which are extremely good.

During this very skilfully constructed song, we hear some of the most lyrical, expressive sounds ever to be played on synths. We hear that slightly strange vocal performance style that makes a virtue out of sounding uncool - but it's always very musical.

Tony Mansfield is an absolute musical genius and innovator. After the three new Musik albums, he went on to produce A-ha's first album and a few records for other artists, but never seems to have had the recognition Trevor Horn recieved. I wonder what he's doing now...

A trippy sounding track from the One-man-with-variou-people-helping-out band "Netherfriends. A Korg making weird sounds in the background, piano, a nice drum beat, and some pretty good vocals too.

Birgit Lystager is incredible, a Danish cross between Astrud Gilberto and Karen Carpenter with really artily written and composed pop songs. It's hard to choose just one tune from this magnificent and scarce album, but I'm often unable to get that "Eyes and hair and legs, oh what a sight/She's a flash of light in darkest night...." chorus out of my head for days at a time. To the above two chanteuses I might also add a dash of Joni Mitchell because of the conversational lyrics and melodic savoir-faire (maybe I should also mention Francoise Hardy right about here as well!). The arrangement is lush and expansive with more than a hint of Bacharach (whose "Another Night" is covered spectacularly on the same album). All this is already more than enough, but lovely Birgit also opted to go the extra mile and pose stark naked on the gatefold LP cover, tastefully exhibiting her considerable assets. (Heh heh, he said "assets.") In any event, this song, and the album it comes from, would be completely brilliant no matter what she looked like. Extremely hard to find, but WELL worth the search. I recommend Soulseek.....

I feel like very few people fully appreciate the music of Donovan, which is a shame because he may be the greatest musician of the psychedelic era in the 60's. Atlantis is his best song. A sort of whimsical and beautiful song which tells the story of the lost continent. Probably the best psychedelic song there is. It lacks the self-indulgent meandering that plagued the Grateful Dead, and lacks the obvious drug references of most psychedelic music. It's not overly rock and roll, but not overly folk either. A brilliant song with a very strong, beautiful melody.

Emm Gryner is a Canadian woman now resident in Los Angeles.

Her songs tend to be melancholy and confessional and can become a bit much after a while. Nevertheless, I think she is a great talent who will continue to mature.

'Atlas' is more upbeat than most of her work...if you get a chance to see her perform do so, she's very dynamic.

Here is her website: http://www.deaddaisy.com/ - you can order CDs directly from her.

For me, this perhaps the absolute apex of the much-admired Italian 'Easy Tempo' series of compilations (it's on Volume 8). The formula is similar to other tracks I've recommended - a sexy wordless vocal, a light bossa beat, some strings. But that really doesn't tell the story! The chord sequence is extremely catchy and uplifting. This is a truly incredible three minutes.

A perrenial sesonal classic given a veneer of French disco sophistication,its appeal lies in retaining the melancholy of the songs intent whilst infusing the proceedings with something more up beat and Parisienne ,so the song runs at am exhaustive 8 minutes but leads you out of a forboding autumn and takes you nearer the optimism of spring. All achieved through the genius of arrangement and Miss Jones empathy with the song

The tune of this song, and the way it plays out just get me everytime. I love a song with a good beat and an interesting melody.

The song is a slow melancholy song with a hint of vengeance building up in the beginning. The song then switches to a breakdown, including screaming "baby" by Robert Plant the singer, gives you goosebumps.

A psychedelic Exotica classic. It really must be heard to be believed. For starters, Magne raises the genre's hallmark bird calls way, way over the top. Some of them sound like Donald Duck, some sound like theremins. Then there is the spaced-out arrangement which integrates the bird sounds and pushes the familiar melody in totally bizarre directions.

This chap Mick Thomas is extremely sentimental, and if you want to get into him, you have to expect to have your heart strings tugged pretty regular. However, if your make up is unashamedly sentimental as mine is, you can really get into this very plain, open and beautiful style of singing.

This one is one of Mick's best - I haven't quite worked out the genders on it (some people think he is singing as a woman in this one) but he certainly takes the place of a rather downtrodden, unconfident person. The chorus is very delicately judged:
I'd have baked a cake
if I knew you were coming
but now that you're here
it's time we did some talking
who'm I trying to kid?
I knew you'd be coming around

The backing is slow, but expressive hawaiian guitars subordinated to the lyrics. Mick's voice itself is incredibly expressive - he's a big old chap, and his voice has a lot of power but also it seems to have the sound of experience behind it. He also has a brilliant range -I've tried to sing this many a time and it's very hard.

Peers and close friends of Stereolab, Birmingham's Broadcast are one of the most interesting alternative pop acts in the world. This song is an example of their extraordinary skills in crafting a haunting, beautiful melody to go with a sound that's like a son of the band The United States Of America and Ennio Morricone. These folks took four years building their own studio. Can't blame them a bit as the results are simply stunning.

Nice chord sequence. The melody of the lead vocal and its delivery tend to grate on me, though. I'm fairly sure this song was the inspiration for "Dirty Postcards" by the Korgis, which will of course be well known to all who read this.

This track is only available on the japanese reissue of "Garra" as a bonus track. I can only assume it's from the same session, if so it's completely beyond me why this gem has been left out, maybe it didn't fit in the context of the album since it's incredibly mellow with great flutes, horns, piano, oboe and silky strings and possibly didn't properly mix with the rest of the songs on the record.

An addictive and perfect track, which fuses several of my obsessions (vocal groups, Ennio Morricone-style chord sequences, Brazilian pop) with incredible power. The song is a Brazilian standard, written by Baden Powell, but this version is very different to any other I've heard. This recording opens feverishly with brass and strings, maintaining a doomy and very serious mood throughout. All the same, it manages to be extremely groovy, with rock drums and a twangy guitar accompanying the strings and harmonizing vocals. The arrangement is quite brilliant and never sounds crowded, with a stark feel produced by the different parts dropping in and out. The part of the track which to me is pure genius is the instrumental break in the middle, which sounds like it's excerpted from one of the coolest of Morricone's late 60s B-movie soundtracks - honey smooth strings, blended with some excellent drums and a cool trumpet part. The vocals are also rather gripping - always very serious sounding, and often wordlessly chanting the melody.

This is a very beautiful track.

Very 'West Coast' late-60's sound. Quite reminiscent of Jefferson Airplane.

Very sweet, very melodic/melancholic.

Strings. Strong female lead vocal.

I originally heard it many years ago on a vinyl album by a group called 'Mojo' which is what The Mojo Men were apparently calling themselves in 1969.

I searched for the song for years, confused by the change of name & eventually found it on their CD compilation.

It's another one of those songs that should have been very succesful, but was just stuck in the middle of a flop album

Pat Fish of Northhampton, England, is not a rock star for reasons which might include his naturally reticent and embarassed nature, excessive amounts of Oxford education, and the vagueries of the marketplace, but would not include his songwriting talent, which is massive, if perhaps a wee bit limited in scope (no weird chords, all songs about heartbreak, drunkenness, or cannibalistic fantasies about the Prime Minister). "Big Saturday" is a rousing near-rock number in Pat's heartbreak mode. His singing is liquid, soulful (but not shouty), tender, and helpless in the face of love...a love that MUST remain unrequited for the good of other friendships and sundry considerations of duty and fidelity. At least, I think that is what is going on in this simple, yet devastating tune. For more info, see http://www.jazzbutcher.com/htdb/albums/sex.html

An even funkier hit single than "Sledgehammer" ? which had an epic groove but was too slow to actually dance to ? "Big Time" is a sardonic response to yuppie materialism with the funniest lyrics of Peter Gabriel's entire career. (The ending of the song, stopping just before the obvious punch line to all this discussion of how preternaturally huge everything in Gabriel's charmed life is, is a small moment of brilliance.) But the brilliance of the song is in the way it ties all that Gabriel had been learning about African percussion and Middle Eastern melodies ever since the days of his third solo album and ties them all into the service of a walloping great groove, making plain the connections between North Africa and Stax-Volt once and for all. The combination of talking drum and wah-wah guitar owes as much to Booker T and the MGs as it does to King Sunny Ade, which is both the key to "Big Time" and a clue as to why Gabriel's later, more explicitly world music focused albums just aren't as much fun.
(AMG)

A superb song from Cale's first solo LP after leaving the Velvet Underground. Very melodic, lushly orchestrated and sophisticated, an absolutely impeccably-crafted pop song. I really love the echo effect on the whole thing, coupled with Cale's ultra-fluid viola playing. A great album from start to finish, actually.

A key track from Julian Cope's fragmentary second solo album, 1984's Fried, "Bill Drummond Said" is the only song on the album that resembles the swirling psych-pop of his old band the Teardrop Explodes. This is no doubt intentional, as the lyrics take aim at the group's former manager, Bill Drummond (later half of the Timelords, the KLF, and the JAMS), albeit in a typically vague way. The lyrics are skeletal enough that several interpretations might be brought to them, but they seem to recount a dream in which Cope witnesses his former manager in the act of strangling an unidentified woman to death. In contrast to the vaguely unpleasant lyrics, this is by far the catchiest and sweetest tune on Fried, with a dreamy folk-rock sound to its ringing 12-string guitar riffs and breathy harmonies. Coming between more disjointed and edgy tracks like the bizarre fairy tale "Reynard the Fox" and the Syd Barrett-like ramble "Laughing Boy," "Bill Drummond Said" sounds downright bubblegummy. Unsurprisingly, the always combative Drummond got in the last word with his answer song, "Julian Cope Is Dead," a sarcastically folky acoustic tune from his odd 1986 solo album The Man in which Drummond claims that in the waning days of the Teardrop Explodes, he had suggested that Cope commit suicide to make the band famous and laments that the singer didn't take him up on it.
(AMG)

If you like progressive instrumentals, I urge you to give this song a listen. One of the best, most intense and melodically well-crafted instrumentals I've ever heard. Off their first album, "The 1st Chapter".

This song is mostly carried by Leonard Cohen's voice, which meshes really well with his "longing/loving/musing on a wasted life" style lyrics. It moves really slowly, but that makes it nice.

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.

Regular visitors to this site will know I'm partial to this song and to the era of this recording. But nothing could have prepared me for the mind-blowing grooviness this Petula Clark version from 1968. It has a 'slightly too slow to dance to' funkiness, kind of like the tastiest version of 'Watermelon man' you ever heard. The arrangement has piano, bouncy drums, peppy brass, flutes, and to top it all, some beautiful strings adding some complexity to what is basically a simple bluesy composition.

Isn't it great when you come across a track and just think 'this is the best thing ever'?

The entire CD is great - 28 of Petula's grooviest tracks. I recommend it!

An exciting instrumental version of Los Bravos' hit single, done sitar-style. Playing pop music on the sitar must be difficult, since it never was the most melodic of instruments. Lord Sitar is the best I've heard of the psychsploitation musicians that briefly came into vogue around 1967 or so.

An AMAZING rearrangement of "Eleanor Rigby". Earland kills on organ, and he's backed up by the incredible Melvin Sparks on guitar and Houston Person on tenor sax. An absolute classic of Hammond jazz.

Just a perfect, perfect pop song. Makes you wanna dance and groove along, but at the same time it's soo unbelievably sweet and a just a liitle melancholy. It starts with a drum beat, and then there's this bass-and-drums groove for a few seconds. Then a little sweet electric piano line enters, just before the voice begins singing the melody: "I'm drinking stars up in the sky, you know where you are / I'm driving cars around your house, it seems so fun". When it's time for the chorus ("So listen to my bubble go pop / I'm coming in, I'm coming over the top"), the main voice sings over a backing vocal doing an "ooh" harmony, and then there's absolute genius backing vocal, where the word "pop" becomes "papapapa". After that, a little guitar riff/solo, along with a very cool electric piano line. Then it just repeats everything all over again one more time, for infinite happiness. The time for a middle break has arrived. A new funky bass groove with lots of different "papapa"s harmonizing together. Now, go back to the first bass-and-drums groove, with a jazzy, relaxed guitar solo, and then it's just grooves and grooves and heavenly harmonies, "Blowin' bubbles".

This is on my playlist for summer barbeque season. It's an unrelenting saxophone hurricane, with a beautiful warm sound, and great melodic soloing the whole way through. I love the tense break in the beginning that evolves into a total explosion, later punctuated with ecstatic moaning. A great groove.

Considering how much I like this track, I'm surpised I didn't recommend it earlier. To me this is the standout from the band's seminal 1991 album 'Loveless'. To MBV fans, this track might seem an obvious one to recommend, but I think it sums up their appeal very well, with its beautiful ambient noises and simple but catchy melody. MBV's trademark use of weird echoey effects on the vocals and guitars is in full effect, and it's quite beautiful.

Put some SPF-40 on your ears before listening to this unadultered mix of bossa-pop sunshine from the duo of Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) and Beck session man Smokey Hormel.

An infectious guitar joined by percussion and horn slinks around and through Miho's precise, breathless vocal.

Four plus minutes of aural ecstasy. (You have to work awful hard to make something sound so easy.)

Kind of like a drole walk through rainy streets in Europe somewhere. Light, jangley echoy guitar reminds me of Ocean Blue, The Smiths and more but in a more mello mood. No one seems to know who Brandi Ifrgray is... he sang for Shadowplay before releasing two very cool CD's "Le Mutant" and "Stargazer".

This sounds like it should be a generic bossa nova cash-in film song, but instead, it's strangely haunting and gripping to my ears. While it's a sweetly orchestrated piece (a bossa nova guitar and beat, a flute melody, and a Stan Getz-esque tenor sax, backed by a subdued orchestra) I feel as if there's something menacing just beneath the surface. However, it's so subtle, this could be in my head. It's taken from the 'The Glass Bottom Boat'; maybe I have to see the movie and decide.

Written for Phil Lesh's dying father, this song flows beautifully, and is moving and poignant with an unorthodox melody. The opening track of the Grateful Dead's best and most beautiful album, and proof that you don't need to take drugs to enjoy the band.

OK, OK, OK........I know that many of you hipster types out there are probably wincing at this recommendation, but...deal with it. I'm sure that most people are all too aware of this track, and probably avoid it at all cost, but in my humble opinion, this is one of the best pop radio songs ever recorded. I think I heard it first when I was about 12 or 13 while on summer break from school. I was immediately drawn to the eerie, repetitious, heavy delayed intro guitar line. Granted, it has some cheezy lyrics, and a fairly melodramatic tone overall, but this song will forever hold a special place in my heart....awe.

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.

I can never get tired of this song! The overlapping vocal harmonies are wonderful. A good example of Brian Wilson's genius at creating a crafty, intricate production supported by a simple melody. Why this wasn't a huge hit I don't know (I believe it was their last single at Capitol and wasn't promoted very well).

Breathe Out is one of those songs that no matter how many times you listen to it it still rocks. If you a metal head then you will appreciate the quality of music Nothingface throws at you. They are very heavy but melodic. The lead singer has a unique talent in which he can reach high notes as well as growl so deep he will make you shit yourself. Every time I hear this song all I can do is bang my head and scream along to the insanity that flows within my head.

From a time when soul was shaking hands with disco,on this beautiful midtempo ballad the two genres are happy to live in a harmony.This is a track that is allowed to build upon a soft disco beat layer by layer ,a deceptive melody allows optimism to drip drip then flood your senses,leaving you feeling good about life and for once a song that is as long as you want it to be.A song that somehow takes you high without leaving its musical ground .

A stand-out track from "The View from the Hill" (1996), Justin Hayward's best solo album since "Songwriter" (1977) and one of Hayward's best ever ballads. All his trademarks are here - haunting melody (with the simplest but most beautiful intro), emotive lyrics, complimentary arrangement and that unmistakeable glorious voice.

great melodic rock with fine lyrics.

Great brooding mid-60s melodrama from this obscure British girl singer. A terrific stomping number dealing with the age-old teenage theme of heartbreak. "Burning in the background of my mind/are memories/and they seem to haunt me."

Relaxed and melancholic song... E's beautiful lyrics and the tasteful use of effects make this a song that stays with you the rest of the day.

Purest AOR - the lyrics are about rejecting a divorce petition. Pretty moving though - no jokes in this one ("darling you may do your worst/ because you'll have to kill me first"). This whole album is extremely good if you are interested.

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.

-soft at first, has rock-ish bridges and soft ones too!
-melodic voice, really smooth
-male singer

Sounds almost like a country-rock interpretation of their own early-60s hits, with absolutely breathtaking harmonies that prove that Brian wasn't the only gifted composer in the band. But what is that instrument in the background, a mellotron, perhaps? Great lyrics: "Have you ever been down Salinas way?/where Steinbeck found the valley/and he wrote about it the way it was in his travelin's with Charlie."

This song grabs you and doesn't let go. Catchy, melodic and flowing... It's very hard not to listen to this song without bobbing your head along with it. The slurred southern drawl of the lead singer, and the sparkly melody really put you in a specific place and time. A very cool track, and one that's perfect for drinking to.

Melancholy but hopeful. This is a gentle song, with acoustic and electric guitars, electric piano, bass, drums, and voice. Excellent lyrics, terrific mood.

There's a little story here, punctuated by flashes of images and moments.

The song is written by Henning Ohlenbusch who has worked with Chris Collingwood (Fountains of Wayne), Mark Mulcahy, and Lloyd Cole. If those names mean anything to you, then chances are you will enjoy this warm track.

"Captain Future" was an end-70s Toei Animation science fiction series directed by Leiji Matsumoto (The same team who did all the clips for Daft Punk's singles from the "Discovery" album). For the german release of the series a whole new soundtrack was recorded by Christian Bruhn. The title track is an incredible mixture of funk and disco with sequencers and analogue keyboards galore and very Edda Dell'Orso sounding vocals providing the lead melody (the similarity is striking, but the vocals were performed by Bruhn's wife Erika).

A great track, sung in spanish by Nancy Ames. It opens with pulsating horns, a wall of strings and an insistent latin beat. Everything quietens down in the middle, and Nancy sings accapella before the song explodes into action again. The way the brass, strings, flute, bossa guitar and fiery pop vocals are all crammed into two minutes is pretty cool. The whole thing is extremely catchy and intoxicating.

In 2004 this album, along with Spiced with Brasil, finally made it onto CD.

everything about this song is pure beauty.

This is a jazzy, haunting track from an LP I bought in Brazil last year. I've tried hard to find information about Jean Kelson, but the only mention I've found (other than those I've made myself) is in one of Ed Motta's excellent archived radio shows at his official site (http://www2.uol.com.br/edmotta/sala.htm). Ed plays a different track from this album, Munganga.

Catolé sounds musically like a variation of Baden Powell's classic 'Berimbau', and opens with an incredibly catchy refrain featuring piano, percussion and trumpet. Gentle male voices then come in and flesh out the melody. The entire album is great. I wonder what the chances are of it coming out on CD...

This song is simply unreal. It starts out in a kind of 4/4 samba groove with a highly prominent cuica and a funky strummed acoustic guitar chord progression before the super-catchy pizzicato-violins riff comes in, and Abilio's mellow voice singing the melody. It's sunshiney and catchy, with a bit of a haunting aftertaste, very Brazilian. I can never hear this song enough times!! Abilio Manoel is a Sao Paulo-based singer-songwriter from the late-60s-70s (still active) who wrote a few moderate hits without attaining even a Marcos Valle level of popularity. Good for Marcos, since Abilio's work would have caused me a few sleepless nights if I were him. And both on the same label, too! Abilio's stuff is hard to find, but very worth the effort.....I've already given Dusty Groove the heads-up about the CD....

The recording may be raw, but this song reeks of pure insane genius. 60's-inspired organ-fueled sleaze. The band boasts the former organist of "The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black". This is one of many instrumental numbers consisting of guitar, organ, shakers and what sounds like an old drum machine. Shamelessly derivitive, lo-fi and spooky. It's one part surf and equal parts garage and swing. Henry Mancini-meets-The Mummies-meets-The Stray Cats.

This is my favorite Serge Gainsbourg song after Ballade De Melody Nelson

One of the better known Blind Melon songs of of their self-titled debut, yet still fairly unknown. This song is a personal favorite of mine and preceeds No Rain on the album tracklist. Lead singer Shannon Hoon's voice plays off the acoustic guitar beautifully and his simple message is clear, change is okay. My favorite lines in the song plead with us clear and simply that,

"When you feel your life ain't worth living you've got to stand up and take a look around you then a look way up to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die. "

Some may not like this song, but others will fall in love with it. I've grown up listening to this song and i have continued to love it.

Fun Fact:

Lead singer Shannon Hoon donned a question mark on his head and performed this song live on The late show with David Letterman shortly after Kurt Cobain's suicide, in his own way dedicating the song to him.

You might be familiar with Francoise's incredible 1971 album La Question, a track from which was recommended by another user almost four years ago (Oui, je dis adieu). I managed to get a friend to copy the album for me at the time, and I recall being very taken by 'Viens', the first song. I put this track on a compilation but somehow never really savoured the album as a whole.

Recently I found I could get the album on CD, so picked it up (along with another interesting Francoise album, 'If you listen').

The difference for me now I have the CD is vast, and I'm now able to appreciate the album in all its glory. The clincher for me is the blend of percussive Brazilian guitar, beautiful strings, and the Melody Nelson-style sparseness of the arrangements.

I chose this track to recommend because of the bizarre extra dimension brought by the fact that Francoise is just scatting - there are no words - and the intermittent moments of complete silence, which are surprising and really hold the attention. Parts of the chord sequence remind me of Henry Mancini (in particular, a track called 'Softly' from the Mr Lucky soundtrack), while the overall effect of the sexy echoey vocal naturally brings to mind Ennio Morricone's work with Edda Dell'Orso.

More godlike melody from monsieur Arnaud Fleurent -Didier. This one, the title track, taken from his tribute to the french singers and songs of his youth (serge, polnareff and son).A largely acoustic number with a bit bossanova, chansons, strings, a female voice and that extra magical melody chord that only Arnaud seems to be in possesion of. You need this man in your life, right now.

Simple Mind's second single, "Chelsea Girl", was an apt follow-up to its predecessor "Life in a Day", an epic chant, a shimmering melody, and a sing-along chorus that paid spell-bound homage to Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico, in her role within Warhol�s movie of the same name.

Producer John Leckie gives "Chelsea Girl" a lovely delicate quality, especially across the long, tinkling keyboard intro, an aura that barely dissipates even when drummer Brian McGee and bassist Derek Forbes's kick in with their thumping rhythm. The band were proving to be masters at these juxtaposed styles, creating rock solid bases and overlaying them with much more fragile and elegant melodies and atmospheres. Here, those latter are close to effervescent and, as the band shift down into the long bass-driven, overlapping tag teamed vocal outro (a playful lift from Roxy Music�s �Mother Of Pearl�, but no matter), absolutely crystalline.

On album and onstage, �Chelsea Girl� remained fans' favorite, on 45 though, it inexplicably crashed and burned, and didn't even reach the UK chart.
(AMG)

A rather beautiful, melancholic song. Very West Coast 1968 sound, at it's emotional, sensitive, melodic best.



This song and artist should be and should have been far more well known.

The guitar is simple, yet effective and the melody is easy to get into. This is the perfect summer song for me.

The guitar is simple, yet effective and the melody is easy to get into. This is the perfect summer song for me.

It has been argued that Joéo Donato was the first to play a bossa nova rhythm on a recording (playing the accordian on "Eu Quero Um Samba" with Os Namorados), but whilst his contemporaries from the early years of bossa, such as Gilberto and Jobim, were happy to expand on the traditional bossa sound in later years, Donato went a number of steps further. The first track "Chorou, Chorou", from a fabulous album titled "Quem é Quem" is not even the best track off the album, but the opening bars give an idea of what the whole album is about. It's playful in melody, often subtly funky in rhythm and over all, a great album. This particular album also contains my favourite interpretation of "A Rã" by Donato. I'll have to recommend more songs from this album at a later time, because it really is great.

Despite couple of questionable decisions over the arrangement and mix, this is an extremely good song with an excellent lyric.

Particularly good is the harmonically-driven chorus, but there are a number of subtleties, as is evident from the opening instrumental sequence.

Why does he insist on recording his voice with so much distortion? It could almost drive you crazy...

Pink Floyd are heard at their best with this piece of film music, keeping it simple and atmospheric. I find so much of their output over-ambitious, but here I think they got it right - a short melodic vocal section followed by a very simple organ chord sequence repeated to a very slow fade. This manages to sound gently, atmospherically organic and hypnotic where so often Floyd sound ludicrously overblown.

cute little song about a girl stalking someone she's fallen in love with, listening to the "clip clops" of his shoes. the melody in the song is very similar to "cosmonaute" by stereo total, only more upbeat (it was written by brezel g�ring from stereo t., so i guess that's excusable). kahimi's ultra-bright voice fits this song perfectly.

(there's WAY too few sweet and uplifting songs about stalking, by the way.)

It's in waltz time, with a strummed electric guitar intro followed by female vocals, bass & drums. There's a short female vocal counterpoint part, then the louder chorus. Towards the end the song changes key with a solo guitar figure, joined then by bass, then the the synth & drums enter in a musical explosion that's really cool.
I did'nt like this song at first, liking the rest of the album("Winds Take No Shape") better but the song has grown into one of my favorites on this record.
The full album is one of my favorites of the decade, second only to "Flying Saucer" by Astronaut Wife.

An exquisite and much-sampled version of this nice tune from the Valley of the Dolls soundtrack. The slow, funky beat is simply one of the sweetest you will ever hear, and the harp melody is ethereal and beautiful.

Most so-called "progressive rock" was really progressive pop, but not this track, which does rock out and which has a great big guitar hook (you'll know it when you hear it), which resolves several different ways within the song, i.e. the band were creative. It kicks off the last of their big three LPs ("Jumbo" and "Rockpommel's Land" were the first two), and according to the liner notes was a concert favourite.

This track wasn't what I expected. My previous favorite version of this song (although I have many) was probably the one by Mel Torme on his 1962 album 'Right Now'. And since that version was arranged by Ogerman, I had expected this version to be simply an instrumental version like Torme's recording - a cool, finger-clicking, jerky pop number. In fact, there's something much cooler and more sophisticated about this version.

The tune is picked out first by an organ, and then by the brass and woodwinds before returning to the organ, which then jams around the main tune. A really beautiful string section comes in early on, creating some unusual chords that really add to the song and work very well alongside the 'cool' effect of the organ and rhythm. I wish Claus had recorded more songs with this mixture of percussion, jazzy instrumentation and lovely thick string parts. A few tracks on one of his other 60s LPs, 'Latin Rock,' come close, but I'm not sure any of them are as nice as this one.

there is something very modern about this song. it's a timeless tune that was later reworked by godzuki on the album pop romantique. brillant song and my personal bardot favorite.

The most beautiful, sensual song I have ever heard in my life. It feels like a warm, tucked-in, comfortable sigh from a lover nestling in on your shoulder, holding you ever tighter while whispering words of love in your ear. Try to top that.

The Divine One pours herself into this number completely. Her serene confidence breathes a kind of hyper-life into the lyrics. But the way she caresses the melody and strokes it so adeptly with her brilliant vocals sends me right over the top every time.

If I ever fall in love again, the woman of my affections will, in my wildest, most fantastic dreams, melt with me on this.

Please excuse the sap...

Just one minute and twenty seconds long, this a perfectly distilled piece of Brazilian pop/mood music. The song consists of a simple, beautiful chord progression, which is repeated over and over. João sings a simple vocal over his guitar, and then some brass and strings come in to join him. The arrangement is stunning: sweeping and beautiful, with a delicate, sparkly sound at the beginning and end. It sounds very like the work of Claus Ogerman (who arranged the tracks on 'Amoroso', which appears on the same CD), but in fact, it's arranged by Johnny Mandel. Although this was recorded in 1980, it has a timeless feel. The entire Amoroso/Brasil CD is quite incredible. It took a few listens to really hit home, but has now become one of my 'desert island discs'.

Beautiful vocal song from a little known italian soundtrack. The italians just couldn't do no wrong in the late 60s/early 70s, this just floats gently along with a flutes, harpsicord, sweeping strings and chorus. Nice, light vocals on top of it, can't identify the female vocalist though.

A great song that almost defies explanation. Suffice it to say there is a lot of the WB influence here. An incredible mix of young male melodrama and orchestral excess, but as genuine as it gets. I read mixed reviews of Don Gants voice from most people when they hear this album, but if he nails it, it's on this track for me, no question. The more I listen to this stuff the more timeless it becomes. My favorite line : "I turned on the today show and wished it was yesterday..."

The first track from the first of Joni�s �jazz� LPs of the late 1970�s is all about opposition and equilibrium, (as are all her songs from this period). It is both richly melodic and dense/chant-like in structure, empty and lush in arrangement, its propulsive/hypnotic groove studded with Jaco Pastorius� weird, atonal bass speed bumps. Joni�s words/voice/performance is likewise wildly romantic and knowingly jaded simultaneously. The song is the sound of best singer/songwriter ever elegantly/effortlessly pushing the envelope.

David Snell is an amazing harpist. This track was originally released in 1975 and is from the "On the Side of Angels" album. Since then, it has been found on a variety of compilations; The Mighty Mellow, Cinemaphonic 2: Soul Punch and many others. A great jazz track.

Singer\songwriter Paul Brady deals with Folk music . This song is in my opinion up to the level of Bob Dylan \Neil Young . Its melancholic but still up-beat .I like the lyrics a lot : " Tonight were gonna paint this town, were gonna drink champagne till we both fall down ,we'll find some other crazy dream -tomorrow" . Its hard to explain ,but the song moves me very much, the song is pretentious in some ways , but Bradys simple(but not dull) singing makes it not sum up as such.

acoustic guitar, soft sounding song but it has very strong vocals performed by Bryon Mack.
I like the song because it has a very pleasing melody and the vocals can really be felt, they aren't just heard.

Lovely melody, heart-achingly poignant lyrics with a rush-of-blood chorus.

Reminds me of my college days where I first heard of STP while watching MTV at about 4am instead of sleeping or studing...the video I saw was actually for Sex Type Thing, but after getting the CD, I found Creep to be one of my favorite. I actually like most of the items on this CD however. This song's got a pretty mellow sound to it, with a very strong and powerful set of lyrics that blend quite nicely.

An amazing and atmospheric track by this famous German vocal group. There are no words, and the music is produced largely accapella - from what I can hear, there's just piano accompaniment, with some incredible vocal effects that range from beautiful to plain bizarre. The trills and glissando effects are other-worldly, but what really steals the limelight is the tradeoff between a bizarre kitten-like voice and a deep foghorn at 2:12 (featured in the clip)!

None of this will make sense until you hear it, so let me just add that the whole thing has a really pleasant, lazy mood that strongly reminds me of that amazing scene in 'Wild at Heart' when Laura Dern is sat on the car at the gas station and Glen Gray and the Casa Loma band's 'Smoke Rings' is playing.

Very nice sound to it, you got your basic instrument set in this one, I like it because of the lyrics.. They're not totally simple. It's easy to understand today's pop and stuff like that, but Deathcab actually puts some more effort into their music.

a song perched on the end of Shack's half realised album'H.M.S Fable'album-a haunting folk ballad that is close to death and as beautiful as a sunny winter's morning...the melody spooks you and as the head brithers are no starngers to the perils of hard drugs it makes the song even more poignant.the Head brothers continue to remain the U.K's most underrated songwriters-sort of like the older,wiser and more sussed father's of the Coral and all those new scally psych bands that will never be anywhere as good as this...investigate!!!

Many people think that Petula Clark first came to the US when the song 'Downtown' topped the charts in 1965. However, she actually came to Los Angeles in 1959 and recorded an album of Jazz songs. Among the many treasures produced during these sessions is 'Darn That Dream'. She sings this great song with all the innocense and charm of a hopeless romantic whose desired love is just out of reach. Her resignation to unrequited affection for her unavailable romeo is interrupted briefly by a soaring interlude from the orchestra. The sweeping melody almost suggests that she is dreaming of being held in "his" arms as they dance across the floor of a dimly lit ballroom. In the end she must come back down to earth and awake to the reality that she will never have the man of her dreams, however she refuses to give up the hope that one day she will get her happy ending. I know I'm rooting for her!!

Incredibly haunting melody from East Germany's 60s sci-fi series. This song brings half remembered experiences of things yet to come into my mind. Quite soothing.

This is one of the best British pop singles of 1968.

Love Affair had already had a Number One hit with 'Everlasting Love' & a top five hit with 'Rainbow Valley' and went on to have a few more hits, including this one, before changing their lead singer from Steve Ellis in 1970 and slipping into oblivion.

Their sound was quite influenced by 'The Phil Spector Wall Of Sound', but with a 'Swinging London' slant.

Great melody. Great lyric. Tremendous pop orchestral arrangement. Wonderful lead vocals from Steve Ellis, who sounded like a sort of British Len Barry.

I think this song is probably one of the best pop singles I've ever heard.

It never happened in the USA and after it fell from the charts was rather forgotten in the UK, overshadowed by the groups more famous 'Everlasting Love', but, in fact, this was their strongest single.

Very much of its time, but what a tremendous time it was, musically and otherwise.

Had it been released under different circumstances, this song might have been one of the enduring soft-rock classics of the early 70s. It's got a catchy, haunting melody and one can easily imagine it charting alongside Bread or Seals And Crofts or whoever.

Best Of Friends were essentially the East Coast-based songwriting/guitar duo of Bing Bingham and Joe Knowlton. I'm not sure how, but Eumir Deodato and legendary bossa nova producer Roberto Quartin took a shine to them and recorded this album for Brazilian release on Quartin's eponymous experimental label of the early 70s. The album even features Dom Um Romao on drums. It's actually a straight-forward pop-rock album of its era, with little to no Brazilian overtones. This same duo would later make an album on RCA as "Joe And Bing."

This title track was also covered by Astrud Gilberto on her 1972 "Now" LP, arranged by (coincidence?) Mr. Deodato himself....

On "Aja", Donald and Walter reached the zenith of their perfection, with an unsurpassed attention to sonic detail and texture. In fact, the recording of these 40 minutes of music took them about a year of studio work. They assembled an incredible array of the finest session musicians around at the time, creating 7 timeless tracks of jazz-rock fusion, impeccably engineered and produced by Roger Nichols (this is the other Roger Nichols!) and Gary Katz. "Deacon Blues" is certainly one of the most heartfelt, mellow tracks they ever created. It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly effortless they create this elegance in the harmonies and chord progressions.

an atmospheric l-o-v-e waltz.

This is a strange song and it hits me in a strange place. The melody is very pretty, yet complex and unexpected and there are odd washes of moog at times. It's a Christmas song and has a Christmas feeling but not the familiar fireside one. Instead it's the cold alien blank expanse of snow and that pulse of stars. Kate Bush is a genius at creating this precise, complicated emotional terrain. Also, being a genius requires you to risk making a fool of yourself and Kate Bush certainly isn't afraid to do that. She's like that eccentric high school drama teacher I never had. In this song she turns herself into the snow that falls over the white city. "Jumpin' down with my paraCHUTE! Oh see how I fall."

Melds punk, new wave and hip hop into a seemingly cute package. Although I'm not all into riot girl, or angry girl music, this is an exception. Bikini Kill's frontwoman Kathleen Hanna has very well written lyrics. The whole album is something to check out. So... check it out.

If the free design had come from greenwich village and opted for a more folk pop approach they could have sounded like the candian siblings Chuck and Mary. Their songs perhaps doesn´t have the same strong song hooks as "the design" but way more make up for it in their timeless sound and magical voices. Especially on this heartrending track which you can find in an orchestrted version on their second album or acoustic on their first.I´d go for the acoustic one.

I'm surprised to find I haven't recommended this song before. An enchanting piece of futuristic pop written by Ennio Morricone, this great tune was part of the score for the wonderfully stylish Mario Bava movie 'Danger: Diabolik'. Christy, who also sung on some Piero Piccioni scores, was (is?) a heartfelt 'belter', and here she sings the italian lyrics, which are peppered with English phrases, especially passionately. There is a cool echoey effect on her voice, giving the whole affair an other-worldly, underwater feel. Musically, it's a very catchy psych-pop track, with a twangy, rocky guitar. It's quite short, but extremely powerful.

Upon first listen to this tune, I was sold! Available so far only on 12", the track starts off in a traditional congas ala samba vibe with dashes of upright bass. Then the simple but colorful piano melody kicks in and your booty is ready to move. Although this is a modern dancefloor stormer you cannot help but hear its nod to a bygone era in Latin music. If it wasn't for the quick tempo I would think this fine example of a dancefloor delight was created in the late 60s, early 70s.

So beautiful and quietly emotional as a lot of shoegazing is. One of their longest songs... it starts out with the wailing guitar melody that's repeated throughout and accented by Miki Berenyi's calm and melancholy vocals, but the instrumental parts are really the most prominent parts of the song. The best part is at around 3:53 when the guitars go crazy. the whole thing seems very representative of sadness and getting to that point where you just can't hold it in anymore and you start weeping hardcore. it's a good song... the only one that can make me cry over and over again.

"Destination Unknown" sounds the least dated of all of Missing Persons' hits, most likely because it was their most melodically satisfying song. The fact that it's also Dale Bozzio's least mannered vocal performance, with none of her trademark hiccups, helps considerably as well. Her helium-pitched voice ? Dale Bozzio sang like a new wave Betty Boop ? keeps this song firmly in the Missing Persons tradition, but the low-key backing vocals by her male bandmates on the chorus are a nice touch. The lyrics are typically lightweight, your basic high school-level musings on alienation by someone who has just learned the word "existential" but is unclear about what it actually means, but Ken Scott's light-handed production and nice touches like the staccato programmed drum fills on the chorus make it pleasant on the ear regardless.
(AMG)

dreamy, ultrascandinavian mellow forest music played on drums and electric organ. beautiful. simple melodies that make me think of mist, small cabins in the woods, owls and little lakes.
try listening to this when you're far from civilization. it's amazing.

Gorgeous, sensitive piano-driven ballad with Valle and Nascimento trading lines. This reminds me of how rare it is to find a duet with two men (makes me wish I knew Portuguese to understand the lyrics!). Beautifully sung and arranged, the tune is pretty much an ideal melding of Valle's and Nascimento's sounds.

mellow, beautiful, haunting song...good for summer night listening

Often miscategorized as an Aphex Twin rip-off, it seems that Chris Clark took IDM's last fresh breath with his first album, 'Clarence Park'. This song is one of the examples that demonstrates just how much potential this man has. He's able to juggle rhythms and melodies while constantly tweaking the dynamics of the actual sound waves. Few people play their Electronics like Clark.

Featuring a strange assortment of melodic percussion instruments, brass and punctuated with animal calls which are only equaled by those of Roger Waters on Pink Floyd's Umma Gumma, this is BY FAR the strangest (and coolest) version of this song ever recorded. The Residents must have developed their whole series of Mark of the Mole albums after hearing this recording. "Diga Diga Doo" was originally a show tune for a Broadway review called The Blackbirds of 1928.

Chris Montez had two musical periods. Two shots at the limelight.

It's his second musical era (1966-68) that I like the most.

In 1966, Herb Alpert produced 'The More I see You' & with it, Chris had a huge international smash single. It was a cover of a 1940's tune given a sort of 1966 Beverly Hills treatment & was very nice.

Unfortunately the pairing of Chris & Herb didn't produce anymore hit singles but they went on to make four very nice albums.

This song is from the third album, 'Foolin'Around' and it's one of my favourite Chris Montez songs.

There have been a few retrospective Chris Montez compilations and they always seem to leave this song out, which, frankly, baffles me.

It's sort of Rio meets Beverly Hills 1967 in sound.

It's also my favourite version of the song which was also covered by Astrud Gilberto and I believe, many others.

The balance of beautiful, introspective lyrics (which are mostly spoken rather than sung), and lonely instrumentation combine to create a top-notch stunner. As a whole the album Dinner Music is a very eclectic and interesting assortment of songs. I wish "the lights wouldn't turn low and it wouldn't be time to go", but the way this song captures the feeling of yearning and melancholy is absolutely perfect.

One of former drummer Brian Bennett's best tracks. Mellow space funk with synthesizers, a deep bassline and weird sounds. Almost gives the feeling of floating around in space.

Gypsy Punk? The whole "Unza Unza Time" CD is full of tracks played with full tilt and bravado comparable to the most energetic punk rock. Gypsy/Eastern European melodies and harmonies sound very honestly and convincingly. English/German/Serbo-Croatian? lyrics are full of irony. Overall very energetic and convincing Eastern European ethnic music with the right dose of rock decadence and insanity.

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.

This is pure fun, a track with that 'easy cheesy' sound which many people love to hate. But wait, this is brilliant! Although rather clunky and an extremely 'square' take on 'hip', this is quite magnificent, honestly. Backed by a relentless beat, Ronnie plays the tune on 2 pianos, while for the bridge section the superb harmonies in the Beach Boys original are played out beautifully by the London Festival Orchestra. Although it's something of a guilty pleasure, I have to recommend this track very highly. Listening to it now on headphones, I notice that it even has that stereo effect having each piano come out of a different channel, an effect used to great effect on his version of 'soulful strut'.

Quite possibly the most beautiful soul ballad of the late 60s.... despite being a slow song it is incredibly uplifting.... it speaks of holding out for someone you truly love when temptation surrounds you, which fits perfectly with my mindset. "Just remember that lovers have sorrow.... just remember we'll make up tomorrow". Immensely touching, beautiful and timeless.

Hard rock song, quite energic, but also melodic. That voice full of rage sounds great to me.

Drunken sounding ska instro. Mellow goodness.

This whole LP will make all you Ed Lincoln fans happy. It is a group led by Wilson Neves, the percussionist on a lot of major Bossa releases including all the Eumir Deodato LPs released on Equipe. This track is not the Elton John Kiki Dee version but the earlier Burt Bacharach version. The whole LP is loaded with great organ heavy instrumentals and dance-floor-burners performed by an extremely tight combo. Best of all its available on CD as part of the Odeon 100 Anos series. A lot of groups on the Parlophone label could crank out the cheesey sixties-organ sound and Bacharach covers but not many could match the rythms of Das Neves. How do they say it - ritmo calliente!

By late 1983, when Altered Images' third and final album, Bite, was released, Altered Images were already dead in the water. The group had never made any particular headway in the US, where their blend of Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Monkees (not to mention Claire Grogan's bizarre, baby-talk hiccup of a singing voice) was just a little too weird for mainstream tastes, and in their native UK, their colorful look and bubblegummy 1982 singles "I Could Be Happy" and "See Those Eyes" had forever typecast them as a kiddie-pop band. Grogan was already branching off in her second career as an actress (she played the title role in Bill Forsyth's 1982 cult classic Gregory's Girl), and Bite seemed like a mere contractual obligation. For the most part, it sounds like it, too, but the brilliant single "Don't Talk To Me About Love," which led off side two, was a welcome surprise, and possibly the best song they ever did. Mike Chapman's production recalls his work with Blondie, while the disco-tinged electronic beat, chicken-scratch electric guitar part and rubbery, melodic bass part all sound closer to New Order's "Blue Monday" than Bananarama's "Cruel Summer." Grogan herself is in an entirely different mood than usual, with her newly-lowered singing voice (and slightly improved enunciation) displaying a rueful, almost petulant edge that suits the cranky lyrics. Only at the very end does she shoot into her usual helium-pitched unintelligibility, with an air of "See, I can still do this, I just choose not to anymore." Coupled with the most indelible chorus of the band's entire career, it all adds up to a minor masterpiece. Sadly, however, nobody wanted to know.
(AMG)

A super-sweet bossa-pop tune. From one of Burt's solo LPs, but actually sung by an unnamed female trio who do magical things with the hypnotically pretty melody line.

I'm beginning to sound like and old record, because it seems I'm repeating myself in commenting on songs... but this another recommendation. If you have read other comments on my fave songs, I guess you'll know what to expect. A strrrrrrrrong melody, backed by a great orchestration. Butterscotch only made album and a couple of 45s. Take it from a devoted popfan... this is one hell of a tune !

A song whose verse is achingly beautiful for its harmony, melody and arrangement - so much that it stopped me in my tracks when I heard it playing in a record shop recently. Interestingly it took me many years of familiarity to really appreciate this track, which is in stark contrast to "God Only Knows", which I have loved since the first time I heard it.

Basically any song off his album Dragonfly is good...but I especially liked this one. Upbeat and mellow, like any Ziggy Marley song. Very cool.


"We're on a ride that never stops..."

I'm a sucker for soft lilting melodies, and I have to say, Justin Hayward always delivers on that. This song is just beautiful with lyrics that go "Time waits for no one at all, no not even you..Don't leave me driftwood on the shore" You get transported to some mythical time and place, that only Hayward can take you too.

Not sure what to say about this one. It makes me feel sick. In a good way. It's very beautiful, especially when you listen to the lyrics, and � well, it just makes me feel like I've had too much candy, or like I'm bloated on wistfullness. His (Roger Taylor's) voice is very emotional. The slide guitar is lovely, too.

This song is a great trancy piece of work! It opens with dialogue lifted from the soundtrack of the cult classic 1980 film 'Flash Gordon. "Klytus, I'm booooored.... what plaything can you offer me today?" "... the inhabtants refer to it as the planet... earth..." "how peaceful it looks"... The song then goes to a great drum break and a voice not unlike Alexander Scorby reading cryptic Bible-like phrases, "the mountains shall drop sweet wine and the hills shall melt"

A nice change from watching Wizard of Oz with the Dark Side of the Moon soundtrack, if you know what I mean...

Like most of the bruces' work, this song is melancholic but dreamy. It's an acoustic piece, with a fast pace and at least two or three less minutes than most bruces songs, which at times have reached 14min.
Great lyrics. Conor Oberst, from Bright Eyes and Desaparecidos, has taken much inspiration from this band.
Very good for melancholic nights where you don't plan on killing yourself. :o)

My favorite track from the latest Goldfrapp LP.
The song takes AM-Radio sunshine pop and exposes the concept to English psychedelic folk at its most radioactive.
The resulting mutation is both sexy and ominous.
The groove is languid, but insistent.
The samples and the synths sound dusty/dirty.
The strings/guitars/harps brood luxuriously.
And then there is Allison's lovely/creepy voice/melody: all woozy sex appeal and little girl menace.
It sounds like that image from the film "Blue Velvet" - lovely summer lawn under which throbs thousands of huge bugs.
Wonderfully slurred....

Acoustic gritty melancholic guitar, bossanova with electro Rap..haunting melodic chorus