You’ll have heard this one before, but it was only in researching this article that I found out how it came about. When Dresden was bombed by the Allies in World War 2 (I love these kind of facts, being a bit of a history nerd), a piece of paper bearing a small piece of a sonata in G minor was discovered. This was found to have been composed by Tomaso Albinoni, and was re-worked by Remo Giazotto in 1958 to produce the ‘Adagio in G Minor’. Giazotto claimed that the fragment of paper contained only the bass line, but there is widespread doubt as to whether Albinoni had anything to do with the piece at all.

Either way, it’s a sumptuous piece of music, albeit a little bit depressing. The perfect funeral song, a friend of mine said. But when it comes to classical music, I don’t see any of it as depressing. There’s a nice quote on YouTube about this piece - “He must have had a beautiful soul to write such a divine piece”. Maybe instead of ‘depressing’, let’s call it melancholic. Either way, it’s a haunting piece that instantly gives weight to any image that accompanies it - hence it’s been used so many times in documentaries and war films (Gallipoli, I’m looking in your direction…)

Of course, the fact that it’s in the key of G minor adds to the overall mood of elegy, but the melody to the piece is just amazing, and you might find yourself whistling it when you’re having a shower. It might be one of those solemn showers - maybe you’ve got no conditioner, or whatever. The piece moves almost into the area of opera in parts, with great feeling, before calming down to a kind of acceptance of things.

Whether or not Albinoni wrote the ‘Adagio in G Minor’ is a moot point to most people - any piece of music this beautiful deserves to be there for listeners, and to my mind it makes no difference who penned it. So, have a listen (here’s a video with some nice accompanying images). Would you believe, despite being dead over 250 years, Albinoni’s somehow managed to get his own MySpace page? Even worse, people are leaving comments on his page, wishing him a pleasant day and suchlike! Ah, the Internet.

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Second single from the third studio album by the Liverpudlian group Echo and the Bunnymen called Porcupine which was in itself a successful album in terms of sales. This was at a time when the volume of records sold were a lot higher than they are today. Fronted by the charismatic Ian McCulloch, another English singer that is not shy in voicing his opinions on other bands. With their penchant for drum machines and synthesisers, the band definitely has an eighties sound and feel to it.

Strangely enough the song begins with an excellent high tempo introduction, no slow build up on this one! and to me the song deals with the prospect of a band being dropped from a record label similar to the editing room for a film as seen from the line “Spare us the cutter” and also “Not just another drop in the ocean” and again in the line “Couldn’t cut the mustard“. In fact the song could be about any fear of rejection from any perspective. It must be the biggest nightmare for an artist to be dropped from a label , edited from a film scene etc…maybe not so much nowadays for musicians because of the internet but back then definitely.

Following on from there McCulloch tries to motivate themselves to believe that they are good enough and deserve to be where they are - at least until the next problem arises… “Conquering myself until I see another hurdle approaching.Say we can, say we will ” . All in all I think this song is very open, honest and personal about artists and people in general. Check out a video of the song here.

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Paul’s Boutique is still a criminally underrated gem of an album, and ‘Hey Ladies’ is probably the strongest song on it (although hands up for ‘Shake Your Rump’ and ‘Egg Man’ - hell yeah).

Released just before all those highly-strung musicians brought a court case against sampling, Paul’s Boutique contained over 100 different song samples, from artists like The Beatles, Curtis Mayfield, Led Zeppelin, James Brown and Pink Floyd. There are also loads of different TV and movie samples just thrown into songs seemingly at random. But everything fits together, and it’s a great album to listen to and try to guess the riff.

On ‘Hey Ladies’ alone, there are samples from all over the place. For 1989, it’s an extremely funky song, and mirrors in a way what the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were doing over in Manchester. It’s not a million miles removed from what Public Enemy were doing, either.

Groovy bongo drums, choppy guitar (’mickey guitar’ as a friend of mine calls it, ‘mickey’ being Irish slang for a certain body part), and some great little bass riffs are dotted all over this tune, while the Beasties trade skits about the type of ‘ladeeez’ they like.

The video for ‘Hey Ladies’ is also very cool, done in a retro-70’s disco style, very Saturday Night Fever. You’ve gotta love that yellow suit and hat. Actually, the Beasties also released ‘Shadrach’ off of Paul’s Boutique, and the video for that is absolutely class - it seems to be hand-drawn.

Anyway, check out the ‘Hey Ladies’ video. A song like that simply couldn’t be made today - with all those samples on the song, the band would get lawsuits from all over. But, samples aside, it’s just a really good song, and a great way to kick off any summer party.

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This bittersweet song clocks in at no. 5 on Bruce Springsteen’s seminal acoustic album from 1982 Nebraska which apparently was all done at home on a four track recorder. It tells the story of two brothers from the American Mid-West growing up “laughing and drinking, nothing feels better than blood on blood” as brothers do and eventually becoming men with one brother, Johnny, working for the law while the other, Frankie, a protagonist of the law. The standoff of doing what’s right in the eye’s of the law versus a family bond permeate’s the poignant, vivid and sometimes sad lyrics of this song. Finally Frankie tears across the Canadian Border after commiting another crime as Johnny gives chase - “I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear” . You can find a streaming version of the song here Unusual not find any youtube reference to Bruce Springsteen performing this song. Blood is thicker than water…

note: If you like live music then do yourself a favour and check this guy out. It’s almost a rite of passage for live music lovers…

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I have mixed feelings about Pete Doherty. On one hand, he seems to be a total smackhead and general media prostitute. On the other hand, he does seem to be hounded by the paparazzi, and he can write a great song when he puts his mind to it. I was never big into the Libertines, although ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ was a good song. I’d heard Babyshambles’ earlier single, ‘F*ck Forever’, and thought it was excellent, if a bit rough. But ‘Delivery’ is different class.

First off, the song seems to rip off ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks. It’s got a nice punky feel, clean and trebly, reminiscent of the Jam at their best. The lyrics paint a cautionary tale, though of what I’m not sure. Doherty’s life to date seems to be a cautionary tale, and it sounds like he’s telling his adoring fans not to worship him or his lifestyle, because he’s in pretty bad shape.

Anyhoo, here’s the video for the song. Doherty does his pouting and big eyes, there’s lots of tight-fitting suit jackets and skinny ties, artistic close-ups and everything else. An NME reader’s dream, in other words. Still, good song.

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I’ve been listening to a lot of Panda Bear’s album Person Pitch, the much-hyped solo album by Animal Collective member Noah Lennox. It’s steeped in Beach Boys melodies and layered instrumentation - kind of a Pet Sounds for the 21st century, for want of a better analogy.

At twelve-and-a-half minutes, ‘Bro’s’ is the centrepiece of this album, and despite all the rave reviews from Pitchfork Media et al, it really is worth an objective listen on its own. The way this song builds up, from the first hoot of the owl, is compulsive. It’s obvious Lennox spent a lot of time on this, in the same way that time was spent on ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Kashmir’ and other mini-operas of that ilk.

The lyrics (the chorus is “I’m not trying to forget you, I just like to be alone”) add to the theme of tinkering on a project with the aim of bringing it to perfection. Or as close to perfection as is possible in music.

The song builds up through waves of pure Brian Wilson harmonies, inter-weaving melodies, shivering tambourine, and a real summery feel to it (in spite of the lyrics). Outside of the Beach Boys comparisons, which have been drawn in many other reviews, it’s difficult to find parallels in modern indie music. There is definitely a trend these days towards more ‘dense’ music (M.I.A., Beirut, Deerhoof etc.), but ‘Bro’s’ takes this almost to a logical conclusion, played out over twelve inspired minutes that’ll make you want to come back and listen again and again.

You can listen to ‘Bro’s’ on the Panda Bear MySpace page (check out ‘Comfy in Nautica’ as well). For an almost-complete version of the song, with a nice video, check here. But you’re best off downloading (or, in true retro style, buying the CD of) the album and listening on headphones. True head music.

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This is just a really cool rap song, and it started the whole “G-Funk” craze of slick, slowed-down funk music, really deep bass, and rapping that drew less on staccato lyrical complexity and more on drawling. The beat on ‘G Thang’ is instantly recognisable, and it’s obvious that this style influenced pretty much all hip-hop since.

Of course, this song pretty much introduced Snoop Doggy Dogg to the mainstream, as well as marking Dr. Dre out as a top-notch producer. Snoop’s at his low-down best here, moralising about sex, gangs, and life in Compton. Of course, I can’t sympathise at all with the last two, but when the music’s this good it doesn’t matter. So just chill, to the next episode.

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Delving into a little soul and what better way to do it than with the soul legend himself - Sam Cooke. During his brief time in this life Mr. Cooke defined a genre and left a legacy any musician would be proud of. Probably not his most famous song - that title would probably go to ‘Wonderful World’ or ‘Chain Gang’ but a great song nonetheless that was written around the height of the civl rights movement in the US, Cooke himself was a well known civil rights activist…anyway onto the song.

I don’t know about you guys but I think the guy has a very sweet, infectious voice that is rarely heard in musicians these days (at least the ones that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to), couple that opinion with the simple lyrics makes this song a winner anyday. Check it out if you get the chance. Oh it’s been a long time coming all right.

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You might have heard this song on the ad for Grand Theft Auto 4 - I did, and it was nice to hear it on the TV. I don’t think this song came out as a single, but anyone who likes their LCD Soundsystem loves this song. In fact, their Sound of Silver album is the last CD I bought, and that was only as a gift. I put the album onto my iTunes, and became obsessed with this, the first song.

It’s a really danceable track, and very good for jogging to as well. For a while, I was playing this song twice, back-to-back, and finishing with The White Stripes ‘Blue Orchid’ for a 15-or-so-minutes jog. It’s probably the most played song on my iPod.

Then, at Electric Picnic 2007, I was quite drunk and at this gig, and when this came on I went nuts. One of the best gigs I’ve ever been at, and I wouldn’t consider myself a major dance music fan.

The way it builds up is irresistible. James Murphy (surely the man’s got Irish roots?) knows his Kraftwerk, Eno and Bowie, that’s for sure. But there’s also a bit of Georgio Moroder here, with synth-sounds that sound very like some Donna Summer ’70’s style disco.

As for the meaning of the song, well I have absolutely no idea. Sounds like a guy giving out about living in a city, but I guess only Murphy can tell you that. Truth be told, I’m not really interested. It’s an absolutely cracking tune, that’s all that matters! Here’s the song with nice visuals, and here’s a barnstorming live version of it in Vancouver. Get innocuous!

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First song off the 13th studio album from the infamous New York punk Legends The Ramones. The thing that gets me about this song is how lyrically strong it is and that’s not something I would generally associate with a punk band , maybe I should pay more attention or at least pay more attention to songs Dee Dee Ramone writes.

The song for me is about a guy who was/is down on his luck or has endured a desperate time during his lifetime but is coming out the good side of it, with the help of a friend or more than likely a girlfriend and is a tribute to that person. I listened to this song a lot and I mean I a lot before I finally got what the song is about. One reason for that was me listening to the song via osmosis while another reason is probably the high tempo these punk bands always inject into their songs. Anyway this really a great song so check it out if you get a chance…here’s a link to the video.

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