Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing

Joe writes: Iggy Pop just played this on 6 Music (along with Alfie by Cilla Black). Sometimes hearing a track in an unexpected context makes me realise how brilliant it is. The backing track is super catchy - classic Mickie Most - but what really makes it stand out is Errol Brown's unbelievably passionate vocal.

Like Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, this started life as a B side and ended up being Hot Chocolate's (and, arguably, Mickie Most's) greatest hit.

Barry Louis Polisar - Me and You as featured on the Volkswagen advert

Joe writes: Is this a Bob Dylan pastiche? Anyway, it's very good. Barry Louis Polisar is a children's author and singer-songwriter who provided the opening song for the film Juno. He is very synchable!

Harry Nilsson - One as featured in Boyhood

Joe writes: Another song from Boyhood - I didn't know this smooth Harry Nilsson number until I heard it in the film:

Family of the Year - Hero as featured on Boyhood

Joe writes: I meant to post this ages ago. Boyhood - what a brilliant film. I'm a big fan of the song Hero by Family of the Year; I even included it on my How To Save American Music Spotify playlist:



Hero features prominently on Boyhood which made me realise I hadn't posted it here previously so here it is:

You Ain't Alone by Alabama Shakes as featured on the Dallas Buyers Club trailer

Joe writes: When you hear the whole track, you start to suspect the appeal is more the performance and the sound than the underlying song, but it works brilliantly on the end of the Dallas Buyers Club trailer.

If you want underlying song and all the rest as well, how about Stay With Me Baby by Lorraine Ellison. I first heard this as the closing song to a British TV drama about a self-loathing comedian. It played as he committed suicide at the end by driving down a mountain on a motorbike. I wish I could remember more about it.

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika

Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight

Joe writes: This came on the radio while I was driving through Los Angeles. It sounded so futuristic. It was clearly a massive inspiration for the Drive soundtrack, but much as I love Real Hero and Nightcall, this is on a different level in terms of melody, vocal performance, arrangement, everything.

It has been used on numerous films, TV programmes and adverts, starting with the pilot episode of Miami Vice. Some of those uses, like the Cadbury's Gorilla commercial and The Hangover, have been slightly mocking, which is perhaps why not everyone realises what a brilliant, serious, angry record this is.

The official video is cut to the single version which has drums from near the start, added on the suggestion of Ahmet Ertegun so don't listen to that, listen to this:



And here's a demo version, before the addition of Phil's trademark gated drum sound:

AWOLNATION - Sail as featured on the trailer to The Counsellor

Joe writes: I'm not sure how much I actually like this tune but it's such an obvious, infectious hit. UK radio should be playing this a lot, especially Radio 1, and they are not - yet. It features on the trailer to the new Ridley Scott film The Counsellor.

Also, check this out:

Belle Stars - Iko Iko

Joe writes: While in France I heard this track from 1982 on Radio Nostalgie. The Belle Stars were signed to Stiff Records and this became a hit in the US after featuring on the soundtrack to Rain Man, apparently at Dustin Hoffman's suggestion. It's weirdly futuristic and very Xenomania.

Peter Gabriel - The Book of Love as featured on Scrubs

Joe writes: A cover of the Magnetic Fields with a lovely string arrangement that's reminiscent of Tom Waits. From the YouTube comments I've learnt that it featured on Scrubs, which I guess explains a lot of the 5 million plays.

Flamin Groovies - Shake Some Action

Joe writes: The Flamin Groovies are playing London soon, for the first time in 30 years. Should I go? If I do it will just be to hear this song, which I first heard on Mark Radcliffe's Radio 1 show Out On Blue Six many years ago. It has been a big part of my life ever since. It was produced by Dave Edmunds in 1976 and featured on the Clueless soundtrack in the '90s.

Phosphorescent - Song For Zula as featured on Grey's Anatomy

Joe writes: I didn't go to SXSW this year but I did download a couple of compilations of bands playing the event and felt I wasn't missing much until I heard Song For Zula. Then I saw it on Xfm's playlist, then in Spotify's "most viral" chart, then I discovered it was on Grey's Anatomy, all in the past 24 hours. What a beautiful piece of music, with echoes of Bette Midler's The Rose, Streets Of Philadelphia, and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.

Jim Croce - I Got A Name as featured on the Django Unchained soundtrack

Joe writes: Quentin Tarrantino's current focus on revenge fantasies makes for some fantastically enjoyable films, albeit without the freshness, purity or shock factor of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

In his choices of music Quentin continues to excel and I was particularly pleased to hear Jim Croce getting the Three Dog Night treatment on Django Unchained. Not only that but the version of I Got A Name on the soundtrack sounds like it was dubbed from vinyl, complete with crackle:



Here's a Jim Croce TV performance of Lovers Cross:

M83 - My Tears Are Becoming A Sea as featured in the trailer to Rust and Bone

Joe writes: Had to Shazam this when the trailer to Rust and Bone came on in the cinema. Didn't think I was an M83 fan until the Shazam result came up. Radio 1's head of music George Ergatoudis has written about this on Twitter.

The trailer:




The full song:

the London 2012 Paralympics theme song: Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy (just like that)

Joe writes: Excellent choice of theme for the Channel 4 Paralympics coverage, giving Public Enemy their first hit in a while (it's no. 11 on iTunes UK at the time of writing).



If this is the first Public Enemy track you've heard then I recommend you go for Rebel Without A Pause next, but that might prove difficult as the original version isn't on iTunes or YouTube (it is on Spotify though). Fortunately my favourite bootleg of all-time is on YouTube, Rebel Without A Pause (The Whipped Cream Mix) by Evolution Control Committee, which is the Public Enemy a cappella over the top of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass playing Bittersweet Samba. I first heard this when John Peel played it on Radio 1 in 1994, long before such bootlegs became ubiquitous. It was quite a revelation.

Closing Time by Feist, Leonard Cohen cover as featured on the soundtrack to Take This Waltz

Joe writes: Last night I saw an excellent Canadian film Take This Waltz starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogan. Not only is the film named after a Leonard Cohen track, but there's a party scene featuring Feist covering Leonard Cohen's Closing Time. This sounds like a hit to me yet doesn't seem to be available anywhere except YouTube:

one of the best ELO songs Telephone Line features in probably the best Orange "Don't let a mobile phone ruin your movie" cinema ads

Joe writes: Plan B AKA Ben Drew and Ray Winstone spoof The Sweeney for Orange in a film that can be seen here.



The YouTube comments sum up the variety of opinions about ELO from "This what the Beatles wouldve sounded like in the 70s" (sic) to "many of Vivaldi and Bach's concertos expressed the same beauty, tinged with sorrow" to "Jeff Lynn was a twat. He hyjacked and commercialised the talent of Roy Wood, and tried to pass it off as his own" (sic). My view: Telephone Line and Mr Blue Sky are classic singles.

Ellen & The Escapades - The World's Greatest - R Kelly cover as featured in the BBC's London 2012 Olympics coverage

Joe writes: I've recently become a fan of the transatlantic band Ellen & The Escapades after drinking a pint of  their branded bitter in my local pub (this is almost true). I really like Ellen's voice and they write proper songs. They also cover proper songs, such as R Kelly's The World's Greatest - their version featured in the BBC's Olympics coverage and no wonder, it's lovely.

Here's one of my favourites from their current album, called Without You:

And what about R Kelly? Bump 'n' Grind in 1994 to Ignition (Remix) in 2003 was one of the best runs of singles that anyone will ever release. So many songs and performances that were just streets ahead of any of his contemporaries. Here's his last great single Happy People, released in 2004. It didn't set the world on fire - perhaps people weren't ready for Robert to do his What's Goin' On thing, which is a shame as he did it so well.

Edwina Hayes, whose cover of Feels Like Home features on the soundtrack to the Cameron Diaz film My Sister's Keeper

Joe writes: I have been an Edwina Hayes fan ever since the demo of The Road appeared on a National Band Register CD in the late nineties. There's an all-too unusual purity to her voice and her songwriting. If she had more ambition and nous perhaps she would be huge, or then again, perhaps that would be incompatible with purity.

She made an album called Out On My Own for Warner which featured most of her best songs, but it was  overproduced (not enough focus on the purity).

Her cover of Randy Newman's Feels Like Home featured on the soundtrack to the Cameron Diaz film My Sister's Keeper and I guess the film was just shown on UK TV because Edwina appeared in the lower reaches of the chart.

Here's the original demo version of The Road, a little rough around the edges and very long but who cares when the voice and song are this good:




And here's Bonnie Raitt singing Feels Like Home (Edwina's version is here):

The theme from Prometheus: Chopin Prelude in D Flat Major

Joe writes: I went to see Ridley Scott's film Prometheus tonight which was better than I'd feared, and features my favourite piano piece as its theme, Chopin's Prelude in D Flat Major, also known as the Raindrops prelude.




The same prelude also inspired the theme to the '80s soap opera Howard's Way (sorry, couldn't resist):




Here's a scan of an autographed page from the Paderewski edition of the sheet music: