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Eurovision 2026 – musicology blog
Live song analysis from May 16, 2026 Welcome to the Eurovision live musicology blog, now in its 16th year. For context, here’s the 2020 10-year corpus research summary, and the archive of all the...
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Trends in Christmas songwriting
[Joe’s comment] I appeared on CBS this morning, in discussion with journalist and songwriter David Pogue about What Makes For A Great Christmas Song? (video link). Here’s the first part of the...
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Personification!
This week Tony and I explored the theme of personification in song. Personification is a literary techniquethat songwriters have empoyed to express emotion through metaphor rather than direct...
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Instrumentals!
This week Tony and I explored some instrumental music. Instrumentals – or what Eduard Hanslick might call ‘absolute music‘ – are rare in the charts, but on the show this week we heard a few examples...
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Trending!
This week Tony and I trended (hopefully…). The rise of social media has meant that a song’s popularity is no longer dependent solely on its chart performance. Songs now explode online, fuelled by...
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Holidays!
This week guest presenter Johnny l’Anson and I went on holiday! Vacations of all kinds have inspired songwriters across decades and genres: our show featured rock-inflected rest, reggae relaxation,...
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Flat 2s!
This week Tony and I discussed the flat 2 aka the minor second— that is, the second note of a diatonic scale that has been lowered by a half step (a semitone for British listeners). It is often used...
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Comebacks!
We’re back! In celebration of our return to BBC Radio, Tony and I enjoyed musical renewals, revivals, and resurrections. This week’s show explored the art of resurgence: artists who defied industry...
View ArticleJoe Bennett on CNN: Brian Wilson’s songwriting legacy
As most people will know, Brian Wilson sadly passed away today, aged 82. I talked to CNN’s Max Foster about his songwriting innovations and musical legacy. Here’s a Spotify playlist I put together of...
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Literature!
Words: Joe Bennett, John Pierce O’Reilly This week Gordon and I hit the books. Music has been a literary subject for centuries: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night famously suggested music to be “the food of...
View ArticleHarmonies!
Words: John Pierce O’Reilly, Joe Bennett Audio mashup: Joe Bennett and Rafi Waters This week Gordon and I tuned in to the world of harmonies! Vocal harmony has been an important part of Western music...
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Ghost Stories!
Tonight Gordon and I celebrated Halloween on the show. In celebration of all things spooky, we explored a sinister selection of eerie ear-worms, creepy chords, and hair-raising harmonies. Every lyric...
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The Stratocaster
This week Gordon and I explored one of popular music’s most beloved instruments, the Stratocaster. For the uninitiated, it’s a solid-bodied electric guitar, first released in 1954. It introduced...
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1564!
Tonight on the show, Steffan Powell was sitting in for Gordon, and together we explored one of the most well-used and enduring musical formulas in pop: the 1-5-6-4 chord progression. This sequence is...
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It’s saxophone week!
This evening, Gordon and I were among the woodwinds, with an entire show dedicated to the saxophone. The single-reed instrument was designed around 1840 by Belgian Adolphe Sax. Sax invented two groups...
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Controversial and banned songs
Full show – Chuck Berry, Loretta Lynn, Elton John, Paul McCartney/ Stevie Wonder, Mercyful Fate and the “Filthy Fifteen”, Kendrick Lamar This evening, Nick and I entered possibly dangerous...
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12/8 Time Signatures
In tonight’s show, Gordon and I listened to songs in 12/8 time – that’s 4 beats to the bar, with each one divided up into three beats. Depending on tempo, 12/8 can give you anything from a soulful...
View ArticleMercury Prize winners and the art of album craft
Tonight, guest host Connie McLaughlin and I will be talking about (and listening to) the Mercury Prize, which famously (sometimes controversially!) focuses on the album as a whole, apparently...
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Songs with no intros – and Oasis
Too Good by Arlo Parks: No intro! This week on the show, Gordon and I are listening to songs that come straight in. No faffing about – no chord loops, drum patterns, secondary hooks, or scene-setting...
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Did Mariah Carey plagiarise “All I Want For Christmas Is You”? (answer: no)
Mariah Carey performs at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony in New York in 2014: Photo: Charles Sykes/AP via The Guardian Another week, another spurious music copyright...
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