Sunshine and new choons

RIP, Phil "The Collector" Swern, BBC radio producer for six decades, the man behind Ken Bruce's "Popmaster" quiz, and famously the owner of every single that entered the charts since they began in 1952...

On this beautifully warm and sunny late summer day, it seems fitting, methinks, for a wallow in some of the "newer" music that has caught my ear of late...

Let's open proceedings with something suitably sunshiney, its video featuring gorgeous young things cavorting in some exotic location, in various states of undress:

Disclosure - She’s Gone, Dance On

[the song samples Ennio Morricone - Dance On from the film Così Come Sei (aka: Stay As You Are) (1978), in case you were wondering]

By complete contrast - a holiday road trip much closer to home, to accompany another classic-in-the-making from one of our favourite bands:

Pet Shop Boys - Feel

Here's a faboo discovery - weird, indeed:

Allie X - Weird World

Next, the return of not just one, but two house favourites!

Bright Light Bright Light & Ultra Naté - Every Emotion

This track apparently took four years to get finished! It's good, but what took so long?

Clean Bandit, Anne-Marie, David Guetta – Cry Baby

To conclude, saving the best to last - when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, this happens. Love it!

The Blessed Madonna & Kylie Minogue - Edge Of Saturday Night

As ever, I welcome your thoughts, dear reader...

Hot choons for a drab summer

The weather today is truly schizophrenic - one minute warm (if breezy) sunshine, thunderstorms the next... I was hoping to get some pottering done in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers - there are more small plants that need "potting on", and I want to move some pots around, to shift ones that have gone over out of the way and give prominence to some specimens that will keep the show going during what laughingly passes for "summer" - but it seems like every time I set foot outside, it goes dark again.

How about a selection of "newer" music that has caught my ear of late, to take our minds off it?!

Here's something that is indeed brand new, or is it? It's got a really familiar 80s vibe, and sounds like something else - but I can't quite put my finger on what:

Julian Perretta - Save The Night

A very welcome return to form for our Patron Saint of Tortured Torch Songs Mr Marc Almond - covering a Northern Soul [of course!] song I featured here back in February:

Marc Almond - Gone With the Wind (Is My Love)

To my ear, this one sound like something Kylie might have thrown out during her time with Roc Nation - yet The Guardian's Barbara Ellen gushingly described it as the "song of the summer". We'll be the judge of that! The video's rather hot, however:

Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso

Speaking of hot... Veering off into Gay Pimp or Cazwell territory, Mr Todrick Hall's back - and he's on heat! [Thanks to Mistress Maddie for this one.]:

Todrick Hall - FLEX

Another one that reminds me of something else [Format B - Chunky, as featured here, perhaps?] - here's yet another irresistibly catchy number from Monsieur Guetta:

David Guetta x MORTEN x Prophecy - Kill The Vibe

Calming things down a tad, here's the beautiful new one from Pet Shop Boys, with Mr Tennant in a very retrospective mood indeed:

Pet Shop Boys - A New Bohemia

And, saving the best to last - memorably summed up by a commenter as "Eliza Day got resurrected and rode off into the sunset" - here's Our (aforementioned) Princess Kylie, in an inspired duet with a gay cowboy!

Orville Peck & Kylie Minogue & Diplo - Midnight Ride

As ever, dear reader. let me know your thoughts...

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...

Our spectacular Madeira geranium is almost in full flush in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers [click to embiggen]

Having spotted that not one, but two great composers were born on this date, this gives me another perfect excuse to inject some class into this blog...

...with a twist, inevitably.

Whoever would have come up with the idea of putting Gabriel Fauré [born 12th May 1845] and David Guetta together? This lot did...

The Piano Guys - Titanium (David Guetta) vs Fauré's Pavane

[I didn't even recognise the David Guetta song - it's here, fyi]

Even weirder, whoever would have thought this piece of music-as-artform that was a surprise hit back in 1981 was based upon a work by Jules Massenet [born 12th May 1842]..?

Laurie Anderson - O Superman

Indeed, Miss Anderson even subtitled the record "for Massenet". According to a column by Olivia Giovetti for Operavore:

"The work, a breakdown of Massenet’s "Ô Souverain, ô juge, ô père" from Le Cid, channels Massenet’s text through a vocoder, layering in several other elements that obscure the source material but amplify its heart..."

Here's the original - see what you think. Apart from the fact that her lyrics "O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad." are an evident pastiche of the song's title, I can't hear it, myself!

Jonas Kaufmann - Ô Souverain, ô Juge, ô Père (Massenet)

I wonder what either composer would have thought...

Musique...

The other week, I did the boys (fnaar fnaar). Today it seems it is (mainly) the turn of girrrlz to provide some of the music that caught my ear lately...

Another French DJ, another fab collaboration! Spanish Cheryl Cole-wannabee Soraya provides the vocals for Antoine Clamaran again on this rather smutty little number:

Antoine Clamaran feat. Soraya - Stick Shift

The mistress of all she surveys, the fantabulosa Miss Sophie Ellis-Bextor returns with another song that is being hyped as this year's "summer anthem":

Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Starlight

Oh, and Shitney's back too...

Britney Spears - Till The World Ends

From the faintly ridiculous to the sublime - Miss Alice Gold:

Alice Gold - Runaway Love

Another Gallic DJ David Guetta's fave singer Miss Wynter Gordon talks dirty...

Wynter Gordon - Dirty Talk

And finally (not a girl singing, but the DJ is apparently a lady by the name of Mia Moretti...) I couldn't resist posting this fabulous little number by some band calling themselves Autobahn Voyage...

(You Say) Tomato from Autobahn Voyage on Myspace.

One love

Just because it is a grey and damp morning again, I thought a little pick-me-up was in order. Here's the brilliant new collaboration between dance genius David Guetta and the budding bitch of dance music Estelle - I love this song, and the video is brilliant too. Happy Friday!

David Guetta feat Estelle - One Love