Velocity Girl came out of Washington D.C. and burned brightly but briefly in the early Nineties, blending pop melodies and noisy guitars.

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Bill Callahan turned away from his lo-fi smog persona on his 1998 album Knock Knock, and this heartbreaking tune.

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The Magnetic Fields singlehandedly defined a unique musical genre that might perhaps be called indie-cabaret.

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What I love most about Bonita Applebaum is that it’s musically a hybrid of reggae, jazz and hip-hop – and even a sitar sample.

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A Tribe Called Quest laid down a marker as one of the more original and eclectic voices in hip-hop with 1990 single Bonita Applebaum.

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It remains a source of regret that the one time I went to see Pavement, on the NME’s Brat Tour back in 1997, I spent most of their set chatting to friends in the bar.

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The first time I heard of Asha Bhosle was when she became the subject of Cornershop’s chart-topping song Brimful Of Asha. I dare say the same is true of you.

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R.E.M. joined a long list of artists when they began covering Wichita Lineman on tour in 1994 and finally released it as a B-side two years later.

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Here is Earth, Wind & Fire’s exuberant slice of funk Happy Feelin’ sampled, sped up and retooled for the dancefloor by Groove Armada.

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Loser is one of those freak hits that captured the zeitgeist, launched a career and defined an entire music style. And it was all an accident.

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