When it comes to Filipino funk, you could write what I know on the back of a postage stamp. I didn’t know it existed, and I didn’t know it was called Pinoy Funk.

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Here are The Hives again, returning to the fray in their forties with a new song that shows they’ve lost none of their spark after 26 years together.

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Country veteran Rodney Crowell teams up with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco on a collaborative album called The Chicago Sessions.

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Hannah Hu and The Specials perform their spellbinding reggae-fied version of the Talking Heads song Listening Wind from their classic album Remain In Light.

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Aretha Franklin had a US hit with one of Elton John’s early flops, Border Song, when she put it out in 1972 – two decades before they sang it together.

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I can’t pretend I was listening to disco music in 1979: I was parading around in a leather jacket festooned with badges proclaiming punk bands and anti-social slogans.

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In the pantheon of disco music there are two moments that tower above all others. The first is Donna Summer’s I Feel Love – surely the greatest disco song of all time – and this is the second.

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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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