Other News

Burt Bacharach died last week at the age of 94. Together with lyricist Hal David he wrote some of the greatest popular music (incidentally, he was classically trained). Just Google and stand back in awe.

Here's Sandie.

Brian Wilson was responsible for most of the Beach Boys' greatest music including the famous Pet Sounds album. He also suffered from severe mental health issues as well as substance abuse. This home recording is from 1976.

Wilson's health improved subsequently, enabling him to enjoy the acclaim he deserves.

Slade are most associated with the glam rock era (and Christmas) which is not surprising given what they wore, but the music has proved influential in subsequent decades on bands such as the Ramones and Nirvana. They probably had less influence on spelling bees though.

Viktor Ullmann was an Austrian composer, conductor and pianist who died in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1944. He composed this piece the previous year while in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

There has been a lot of academic research in to sleep recently (notably by Oxford academic Russell Foster), but for those of us who struggle with the old shut-eye (and age doesn't help, we warn you) then how about Max Richter's 2015 Sleep, an eight and a half hour concept album based around the neuroscience of sleep. Its companion album, From Sleep, from which this track is taken, is only one hour long. The quick nap version, if you like. 

You have to admire anyone who can stay at the top of their game for over 20 years, especially in the world of popular music (and maths, of course). Beyoncé Knowles-Carter remains as commercially and critically successful as ever with this song high up in 2022 song of the year lists.

If you don't want Beyoncé swearing at you, here's the radio version

Dance away the January heartache with a Dobie.

Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou is a 98-year-old Ethiopian nun whose solo piano music came to prominence in 2006 as part of the Ethiopiques collection. She was trained in the western classical tradition though her music has been described as bluesy, freewheeling waltzes with the influence of the chants of the Orthodox Church. It might all sound a bit obscure, but it is well worth a listen.

Christine McVie, singer and songwriter with Fleetwood Mac, died this week, Christine was part of the band's most commercially successful period, but its first incarnation was as a blues band led, as on this track, by Peter Green.

Ageing musicians playing the songs they wrote when young can be a little 'awkward'; but in this case Paul Weller makes it work. Boy About Town from his Jam days is a song about a defiant 21-year-old. Nearly 40 years of life later, with the same words, it is something different. 

Young first, then older.