Playlist

Starting up a new feature: each week I'll go through the best songs I heard that I'd never heard before. Hopefully it'll be a good place for people to discover some new tunes:

Allure - Jay Z. I'm working my way through Jay's back catalogue (at least his pre fake-retirement stuff) and searching for the hidden gems. This is one of those songs that keeps the same tempo throughout, so you can keep putting it back to near the start and have it playing on constant repeat (heavily recommended).

Atmosphere - Joy Division. I've practically out played every JD song there is but never got into this one until a few days ago. Ian Curtis' voice sounds so weird, it sounds intrusive, like he's speaking to you directly through the speakers. The floaty backing track sounds so optimistic for JD. Fantastic video too.

L.A. Women - The Doors. The Doors were in the crapper by this point and the album this is from is downright terrible, but this one song is classic Doors: you can really hear every member of the band working together, and Jim Morrison's voice, altered by years of drug abuse, sounds scary and out of control.

I Can't Help It - Michael Jackson. I can't be the only one excited for the new album, even if it is just a few remastered demos. This one's from the first album of Jackson's "adult career". Repeating the main title line he just sounds so intense.

There's A Man In There - Birdland and Lester Bangs. I just read the Bangs biography (brilliant, by the way) the other week, and the impression I got was that his music was terrible, but this is brilliant. Bangs' voice is so powerful and it takes on extra meaning when you find out the lyrics are about the death of his father.

Let Me Go - Gary Barlow. Not my sort of thing but every time I'm at the gym this song is playing so it was only a matter of time before I started playing it at home. My mum walked past while it was on and started laughing hysterically and told me she thought it was a joke song, so I guess not everyone likes Gary. Catchy though.

The Rolling People - The Verve. I'd only ever heard their hit singles so I decided to give their album Urban Hymns (where all their hit singles are from) a whirl. Most of the shorter tracks are throwaway but they had a great talent for longer, jam session type tracks. This is the best example.

Retrograde - James Blake. The best track from his album Overgrown which I was long overdue in getting around to. I shouldn't have to explain: it's practically bleeding pure emotion.