What's all the fuss about AI and robots? Kraftwerk predicted it over 40 years ago with the Computer World album. Here they are singing about the loneliness of home computer life and online dating. Earlier they had imagined robots playing their gigs. They eventually did.
ChatGPT's favourite band?
Sometimes a piece of music is so familiar you don't listen to it. Sergei Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto is one example, not least because of its appearance in films and other artists' work. But forget all that and listen to a romantic masterpiece. This is the adagio played by Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili.
PS: Sergei is 150 this year.
If you are ever at a loose end you could always download the hundreds of studio and live albums made by jazz musician Miles Davis as he travelled (and led) the jazz landscape from the late 40s to the 80s.
This track is one of the first recordings he ever made.
Some nihilism for the weekend courtesy of one of the first recordings made by the original Buzzcocks line-up on 28th December 1976. Given that boredom was one of the themes of punk's 'rebellion', including against the 'boring' 15 minute album tracks of the time, you might think this fitted perfectly. But in fact it is about boredom with the punk movement itself even though it was only a few months old in the UK.
The guitar solo features two notes repeated 66 times.
Hip-hop is 50 this month. The story goes that it began when Cindy Campbell hosted a jam in the rec room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx to raise money to buy school clothes (you can do take a hip-hop tour of key locations). Hip hop has blurred into and inspired many other genres, notably rap and drill, but at its heart is the DJ, the MC and the B-boys and B-girls (dancers) as well as the graffiti (think New York subway trains).
The album that was trashed at the time only to be considered a classic years later. Yes, a staple of music (and all art for that matter).
Dexy's Midnight Runners were riding high after the success of 'Come on Eileen'. Cue band leader Kevin Rowland changing their look and their luck. This song from the subsequent album 'Don't Stand Me Down' (most critics did) is actually 12 minutes long (and better) but this is the short version. They are still around to tell the tale.
'Uptight' is the song that rescued 15-year-old Stevie Wonder's career (yes, you can be washed up at 15). It is also the first song he co-wrote. Motown songwriters Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby were his co-writers. And check out the drumming by Benny Benjamin.
The BBC Proms have recently started, nearly two months of music at the Royal Albert Hall in London, largely classical, but not exclusively. You can listen to it all on BBC Sounds.
Tonight's concert spotlights the Portuguese musical tradition of fado so here is Song of the Week's own piece of fado from one of the stars of the genre which can be traced back over two centuries (two centuries of melancholy and loss as is the fado tradition).
This song is in fact a combination of two songs, both from the Musical 'Hair', but in Nina Simone's hands it is an anthem. And jeez, does she mean it.
Dateline London, 1968
We each hear something different in music. Ostensibly 'The Very Thought of You' is a love song of contentment. But isn't there a hint of melancholy in Al's voice, a 1930s Mayfair club at 2am, almost empty, the band striking up a last song while the last guest reflects?
Roobarb is a green dog. Custard is a pink cat. This is Johnny Hawksworth's 21-second theme tune.
This one goes out to everyone who has had their name misspelt by your Bulletin editor in emails over the years; and indeed, to anyone, perpetrator or victim, undone by clumsy fingers or spellcheck.
New York, 25 October 1927. The jazz age and prohibition (banning of alcohol) were in in full 'swing'. Bix, burning briefly, comes in with his cornet at about 35 seconds. About 100 years ago.
While Pink Floyd are best-known for the mega hit (and mega hard work to some) albums such as 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'The Wall', their earliest incarnation under singer and songwriter Syd Barrett was as a psychedelic and whimsical sixties band.
The 'video' is filmed in Belgium.
In Mental Health Awareness Week, here's a short workshop courtesy of the Drifters and songwriting geniuses Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
The Smiths are the perfect marmite band. Fans adore them. Non-fans really don't.
This is the first track on their first album and perhaps as good as anything they made. Either way, it's not bad, whatever your feelings about marmite.
Franciscan nun Sister Irene O'Connor began singing when a teacher in Singapore in the 1960s. The following decade, together with producer Sister Marimil Lobregat, she recorded the 'Fire of God's Love' album which has become a cult classic for its psychedelic-folky sound. Have a listen. It might not be what you'd expect, but it is perhaps consoling.
Like people, songs have afterlives, often long after being initially ignored.
The Passenger, from the 1977 album 'Lust for Life', was released as the b-side (the flip side of vinyl singles) of the ignored single 'Success'. But gradually it made its way in to the mainstream until it became a relentless favourite of movie directors and advertising agencies. All of which is great for Iggy though these different contexts can maybe detract from simply listening to the song.
David Bowie plays the piano (and sings).
Some people may find classical music inaccessible. But even people who like it sometimes struggle with atonal works.
Yet atonal music, where there are no discernible keys or typical harmonies, is over 100 years old and Arnold Schoenberg was at its forefront. Written in 1926-8, this short piece is from one of his most famous works. One way to listen is to not expect harmony or indeed anything. After all, life itself can feel pretty atonal sometimes.
On 7 May 1964, in the disused Wilbraham Road railway station in Manchester, UK, the Blues and Gospel Tour pulled in to the platform. And the local TV station were there to film it.
The line-up was the stuff of musical legend and included gospel star Sister Rosetta Tharpe whose guitar playing was hugely influential for the British blues youngsters such as Eric Clapton and Keith Richard.
As Sister Rosetta was being escorted to the platform (see the first 45 seconds of the video below) it had begun to rain. She asked to change her first song. This is what she played.
With thanks to Ursula Martin for the suggestion.
Earlier this month, in Lecture Theatre 2 in the Andrew Wiles Building, a collection of talented Oxford Mathematics students, together with colleagues in STEM subjects and beyond, performed Fermat's Last Tango to sell-out crowds over five performances.
Written in 2000 by Joanne Sydney Lessner and Joshua Rosenblum, Fermat's Last Tango tells the story, in words and music, of a 300 hundred-year-old mathematical mystery and the man who spent seven years trying to solve it. Sound familiar?
This is the full performance. Dip in, as it is fun (and turn on the subtitles).
A song to lift the soul. Plus some shots of Piccadilly Circus in the sixties. Happy weekend.
Term is over, so time to relax with a jazz classic. It's 1960, we're in Milan, and the Count is in town with his band.
And just wait for Sonny Cohn to saunter to the front and start to play.
Musicians make most of their money from live performance these days, but recordings of live concerts can just make you long for the original studio versions. However, there are exceptions. Bruce is one of them. Here is a live version of Hungry Heart. If you want the original for comparison, here it is.
Singer and activist (she doesn't like the title) Peggy Seeger was born in America but now resides in downtown Iffley from where, at the age of 87, she still performs songs about a range of issues from women's experiences to ecological matters. An interesting life.