Sunday Music

Another Sunday and some more music. In case you only read my music posts I'll repeat from one of my earlier posts, last Sunday was Father's Day so I didn't have time to post anything. One day I'll be organised enough to get things written in advance so we won't have any missing weeks or long parts of the week without any posts. 

Originally I'd planned on using this song when I posted Here's the thing but I decided it didn't fit. I think it would have come across as a little narcissistic in the context of the post. Without that context I think it's time to post Regina Spektor's cover of Radiohead's No Surprises. I think this version really highlights the clarity and pureness of her voice.

On the basis that more people need to hear Fela Kuti and people who have heard some Fela Kuti need to hear more of him here's his song Water No Get Enemy. At the very least you should all own The Best of The Black President, two discs of music and the DVD 'A Slice of Fela'

His 'N' Hers was Pulp's fourth album and their breakthrough. It was nominated for The Mercury Prize but narrowly lost out to M People's Elegant Slumming, which is a superb album title. Back to Pulp, this was the album that broke them to a mainstream audience in the UK and lead to them being labelled as part of the Britpop movement. Their next album Different Class came out at the end of 1995 and won the 1996 Mercury Prize. This is the title track from His 'N' Hers and serves as a perfect example of their mid-90's output.

Possibly my favourite hip hop track ever Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy. If you're from the UK you may now this better from the 2012 coverage of The Paralympic Games. Channel 4's usage of the track lead to the track reaching number 4 in the single charts 5 years after it's original release. The themes of persevering and not giving in to outside pressures and the tribulations of life of course tie in perfectly to with The Paralympics but the songs success really is down to how good it sounds. A lesson in how well songs can do with the right amount of exposure. If you still need convincing to listen to this, the horns are sampled from a Shirley Bassey track.

 Trenchtown Rock by Bob Marley & The Wailers. You should know this is a great track already. This is from the Live album recorded in London in 1975. It may be the greatest live album I've ever heard.

As promised I'll be including a track by Trick in every edition of Sunday Music for the immediate future. This week it's Tricky's cover of Something In The Way, originally by Nirvana. As you can imagine it is very different from the original and very much worth listening too.