Here’s a sweet slice of Northern Soul to warm the cockles of the heart on the longest night of the year. Listen carefully and you can hear the guitar of future Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch.

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Lots of good films this year, and a massive revival in cinema receipts thanks largely to an old-fashioned head-to-head with Barbenheimer over the summer. And I’ve just noticed that five of my top ten have female directors, which must mean #MeToo has had some sort of impact in cinema.

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Here’s a slice of French hip-hop from the soundtrack of the Marseille-set cop drama Blood Coast (aka Pax Masillia) by a member of the city’s best known rap crew IAM.

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Gotta confess it took me a long while to take Olivia Rodrigo seriously. First there was her background as a Disney princess in High School Musical. Then there was her phenomenal pop success.

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Brian Auger is a name that rings a distant bell to me but ought to ring a lot louder. He’s a bit of a zelig, turning up with his Hammond organ in the unlikeliest places ever since the ’60s. Not just his organ either.

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This one is properly obscure, though you may well recognise the tune as Dawn Penn’s vintage reggae classic No No No.

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I’ve never listened to anything by Yoko Ono. I grew up hearing the propaganda line that she “broke up The Beatles” and subsequently formed an uninformed opinion that her music was experimental rubbish.

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When I first heard Xmal Deutschland in the early 1980s I thought I was listening to something new by Siouxsie And The Banshees. I’m sure I was not alone.

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Devon Ross is an American multi-hyphenate: model turned actor turned musician – not just an MTA but an ATM.

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This came on the radio the other day and I was reminded just what a startlingly original song it was. And it still sounds as fresh and innovative as it did 33 years ago.

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