Blog: The World's Greatest Music

Joe writes: I just ordered Washed Out's album from Rough Trade . I am quite interested in Washed Out but really just wanted to get my hands on the mix that comes with it. Some classics, some lesser known songs by well known artists, but just about every track is a killer. Washed Out - Rough Trade Mix by Abeano on Mixcloud

Joe writes: for me the best song Wolf Gang so far is their album closer Planets. It's an odyssey in melody of the kind you don't hear too often nowadays. It reminds me of ELO and my favourite Procul Harum track Salty Dog.

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Phil writes: Sinatra introduces a live performance of this by describing it as a 'folk song'. It isn't of course but it follows the patterning of numerous folk songs and some of my favourite twentieth century songs also involve the same kind of sequence ('Please Come To Boston', 'A Bang On The Ear', 'Love's Been Good To Me'). Here the stunning arrangement, consummate performance and underlying pathos combine to great effect:

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Joe writes: So says a comment on Loca People by Sak Noel on YouTube. Quite.

Joe writes: I finally got around to listening to F.b-17, the act from Libya that The Guardian wrote about . They have a really good song No More Lies which sounds like a possible European hit. Have a listen on MySpace .

Joe writes: I wrote about Miriam Makeba here after she died. Now Milk & Sugar have done a version of Pata Pata which gives me an excuse to post these two wonderful tracks again. Miriam Makeba - Nongqongqo (To Those We Love) from An Evening With Belafonte /Makeba Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata

Joe writes: lovely Brazilian track that is, rather surprisingly, a hit in Italy

Joe writes: Lovely and much-synced track that I just heard for the first time.

Joe writes: Even if she had emerged in the early seventies when great folk rock was in abundance, I think Laura Marling would have been considered a major artist. In the current decade, she is in a class of her own.

Joe writes: the new Michael Kiwanuka single is another lovely one http://soundcloud.com/stayloos e/michael-kiwanuka-im-getting/ s-AnqMd

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Joe writes: I find their track a frustrating listen because they've sampled the Otis vocal that comes just before the climax of Try A Little Tenderness, so all the way through you're waiting for him to go "try a little, try a little, try a little, TENDERNESS", but he never does. So here is Try A Little Tenderness with that wonderful trumpet intro: and I've Been Loving You Too Long:

Joe writes: I must admit I hadn't heard of Spycatcher until they were added to the Radio 1 playlist but this is the best British rock track I've heard for a long time

Joe writes: I really like the new Yuck single but it is incannily like a composite of Teenage Fanclub singles off Grand Prix, so much so that I wondered why Greg James was playing Teenage Fanclub when I heard Shook Down on his show today. Yuck - Shake Down: Teenage Fanclub - Mellow Doubt: Teenage Fanclub - Sparky's Dream: Teenage Fanclub - Neil Jung: While I'm on a Teenage [...]

Joe writes: When she was 14 and looking about 34, LeAnn Rimes released this amazing song originally intended for Patsy Cline . Later in her teens she began to look and act her age and achieved her wish to make pop music with the likes of How Do I Live and Can't Fight The Moonlight, but those are the kind of songs anyone can do. LeAnn is probably the only artist in the last 30 years who could have recorded Blue.

Joe writes: Friend Crush could be this year's Young Folks. Such a good lyric and tune.

Phil writes: Joe's Lee Marvin post reminded me of this. You don't need a conventionally good voice to create great music. I guess we all knew that (Dylan being the most well-known example) but this is maybe an extreme case. The original recording just featuring the unnamed 'vagrant' is amazing enough but the arrangement here and the addition of Tom Waits takes it to a whole new level for me.

Phil writes: Although he wasn't killed on 7 July, he wouldn't have been killed at all if 7/7/2005 had just been an ordinary day. I happened to stumble across this track yesterday, a quietly powerful and moving account of his death and a great song. For anyone who wants to be reminded of the appalling facts see the Wikipedia article here .