Linda Lewis was the first female black British singer I ever saw on TV. They were a rarity in the early Seventies – in fact she’s the only one I can think of.

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Soul singers don’t come much better than Marvin Gaye and this deep cut comes from a session in 1967 – the year he brought us his best known tune, I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

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Happy Beltane to all the old hippies, from the most famous pop idol to come from my neighbourhood, Stoke Newington.

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Here’s wishing all my gloomy gothic friends in black all the very best for World Goth Day.. with the help of the patron saints of goth.

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Soul singer Al Wilson had a hit with this anti-racist allegory before Donald Trump appropriated it 50 years later as an anti-immigration parable. Because he’s an idiot.

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Peter Gabriel performed A Whiter Shade Of Pale as a punk parody – or was it a tribute? – at Knebworth in the summer of 1978.

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I know there are people – many people – who hate this prime fillet of cod reggae. They probably hate cricket too. In both cases they are mistaken.

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I really tried quite hard to like Nina Hagen, the so-called Godmother of German Punk. She was beautiful, glamorous and a little bit frightening – like a grown-up Toyah.

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Here’s the mid-nineties classic by KRS-One that might well top the hip-hop hall of anti-cop fame were it not for a certain earlier song by NWA.

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Oh how I love this single, from the opening keyboard run to that rat-a-tat-tat drum figure… and Julian Cope’s exuberant vocal. Then the breakdown with the burbling bassline and skittering hi-hats when he sings “It’s true.”

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