“Le vent nous portera” (translated as “The wind will carry us”) is a song by French band Noir Desir from their 2001 album des Visages des Figures. It was released as the first single from the album and reached number one for four weeks in a row in the Italian Singles Charts, as well as […]
Delia Derbyshire
Delia Derbyshire was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She carried out notable work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s. She approached the careers office at the university and told them she was interested in “sound, music and acoustics, to which they recommended a career in either deaf aids or depth […]
Cheek to Cheek
“Cheek to Cheek” is a song written by Irving Berlin in 1934–35, specifically for the star of his new musical, Fred Astaire. The movie was Top Hat, co-starring Ginger Rogers. In the movie, Astaire sings the song to Rogers as they dance. The song was nominated for the Best Song Oscar for 1936, which it […]
Riders in the Sky
“(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend” is a cowboy-styled country/western song written in 1948 by American songwriter, film and television actor Stan Jones. A number of versions were crossover hits on the pop charts in 1949. The ASCAP database lists the song as “Riders in the Sky“, but the title has been written […]
Sweet Child O’ Mine
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” is a song by American rock band Guns N’ Roses, released on their debut studio album, Appetite for Destruction (1987). In the United States, the song was released in June 1988 as the album’s first single, topping the US Billboard chart and becoming the band’s only US number-one single. In the […]
Fever Ray
Karin Elisabeth Dreijer is a Swedish singer-songwriter and record producer. Dreijer was one half of the electronic music duo the Knife, formed with their brother Olof Dreijer. The Knife released their eponymous debut album in 2001. The duo gained a wider international recognition following the release of “Heartbeats”, the lead single of their second studio […]
Warpaint
Warpaint is an American indie rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 2004. The band consists of Emily Kokal (vocals, guitar), Theresa Wayman (vocals, guitar), Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass, vocals), and Stella Mozgawa (drums). According to Jenny Lindberg in a 2011 Guardian interview, the band originally went by the name World War 4 and changed […]
Love Letters
“Love Letters” is a 1945 popular song with lyrics by Edward Heyman and music by Victor Young. The song appeared, without lyrics, in the movie of the same name performed by Dick Haymes, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1945 but lost out to “It Might as Well Be […]
Stormy Weather
“Stormy Weather” is a 1933 torch song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem in 1933 and recorded it with the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra under Brunswick Records that year, and in the same year it was sung in London by Elisabeth Welch […]
Amelie (Soundtrack)
Amélie is the soundtrack to the 2001 French film Amelie. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was introduced to the accordion and piano-driven music of Yann Tiersen by his production assistant. Greatly impressed, he immediately bought Tiersen’s entire catalogue and eventually commissioned him to compose pieces for the film. The soundtrack features both compositions from Tiersen’s first three […]