What a strange and compelling song The Letter is. And how strange to realise that husky blue-eyed soul voice comes from a 16-year-old boy. (more…)

Heard on its own, this melancholy ten-minute guitar apocalypse by Funkadlic would be impossible to categorise. (more…)

Everything about this sleazy song by Serge Gainsbourg is fantastic. Except its problematic subject matter – paedophilia. (more…)

If you’re going to be known for just one song, then you might as well make it a great one. Like King Floyd’s solitary hit Groove Me. (more…)

Big lady, big voice, big hair – Jean Knight had it all. Mr Big Stuff was her takedown of that guy all women know, the one who thinks he’s God’s gift. He’s begging to be taken down, and Jean did the job for us all in this stone-cold funk and soul classic. (more…)

During the seven years of my youth in Germany, I don’t think I heard a single note of music from my adopted country. The year I left school that changed. (more…)

The O’Jays exchanged smooth soul for fat funk when they recorded For The Love Of Money at Philly’s Sigma Sound Studios. (more…)

It may not have been the first time I heard it but the first time I took notice of this song was over the opening credits of Jackie Brown in 1997. (more…)

Leonard Cohen’s song So Long Marianne reminds me of my first job, and the time I left home and moved to London when I was 17. (more…)

I discovered Can at the same time as I discovered Faust and Gong. My reason was not a sudden interest in the avant-garde at the age of 16. It was far more simple than that. (more…)