Swans open their final album Birthing with this slow-burning epic, The Healers, building from ominous beginnings to a deafening crescendo.

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“Life is unfair,” sings Sarah Nixey. “Kill yourself or get over it.” As pop choruses go, it’s a dark one; as dark songs go, Child Psychology is even darker.

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There are two great songs in the pop canon that go by the name of Hallelujah. Leonard Cohen got there first and Jeff Buckley breathed new life into it, but The Happy Mondays came up with their own new song.

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With her bleach-blonde hair, scarlet lipstick and outrageous self-designed creations, Pam Hogg was the archetypal rock goddess. Even though she wasn’t one herself.

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Soft Cell’s biggest hit was the inevitable play-out song at the funeral of Dave Ball. It was never going to be anything else.

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Jimmy Cliff was one of the first reggae singers to enjoy a hit single in the UK. And one of the outliers who turned Jamaica’s national music into a global sound.

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Sandie Shaw followed up her first chart topper in 1964 with Girl Don’t Come – originally released as the B-side of her next single.

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Ray Charles had a hit single in 1963 with his version of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman’s classic song, No One. (more…)

I have to confess I didn’t know the singer of this Northern Soul favourite, Bobby Garrett, was the same ‘Bob’ in Bob & Earl, who sang the mega-hit Harlem Shuffle.

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Samana are a psychedelic-folk duo from rural Wales whose cinematic soundscapes bear comparison to Irish experimentalists Lankum.

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