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.
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.
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).