Grandaddy are a unique group whose characteristic blend of swirling synths and psychedelic guitars has been wrapping fans in a warm blanket of beauty for the ears for more than 30 years.

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Norma Tanega’s song came out nearly 60 years ago but was given a new lease of life after half a century in obscurity as a TV theme as the theme music of What We Do In The Shadows.

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On the surface, this is little more than a thinly disguised rewrite of Like A Rolling Stone. But there’s something special about it too… especially that familiar guitar sound. Those licks, borrowed more or less straight from Mike Bloomfield’s on the Dylan song, are played by a young session player called Jimmy Hendrix.

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Sometimes a song seeps its way into your consciousness and just lodges there. Such was the way with this one by the Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

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New year, New Order. This was a landmark release in so many ways when it came out in March 1983. Firstly because it marked the moment postpunk merged with electronic dance music, and made the link between 70s disco and 80s house music. Secondly because Blue Monday went on to become the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time.

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Here’s my last playlist of the year, for December 2023. It’s a vibrant mix of ’70s hard rock and ’80s kitsch’n’disco, vintage funk and soul and ambient house, old-skool blues and nu-soul, plus a bit of dub reggae and some festive themed numbers for Christmas recently past.

Three hundred million YouTube viewers can’t be wrong – when it’s time to celebrate, this is the song. And what better time to celebrate than the turning of a new year.

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Kae Tempest and Loyle Carner teamed up to make a South London double act in 2014, blending poetry and hip hop to poignant efect in Guts. 

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Ever since I first heard their name, which was long after they broke up for the first time in 1991, I’ve had the idea that The Replacements were the ultimate “critics’ band.”

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Vivian Stanshall was one of those great British eccentrics. I came across him in my teens on John Peel’s radio show, where he regularly narrated extracts from his satirical saga Sir Henry At Rawlinson End.

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