A Song A Day

M'Bamina - Kilowi-Kilowi (c.1982)

Pasteur Lappé is a Cameroonian funk master from Douala, born in 1953. After moving to Paris in the late 70s to study journalism, he discovered his true passion for music and befriended African music stars such as André-Marie Tala, Joe Mboule, and Fela Kuti.

A cover of Michael Jackson's "We've Got A Good Thing Going" from his 1972 album Ben.

This sparked a major ripple effect. When Warren G and Nate Dogg sampled McDonald’s groove for their 1994 hip-hop classic “Regulate,” those 1960s soul legends got credited—and paid—all over again!

Artie Butler (Arranger/Conductor): Though credited as the arranger and conductor, Butler played almost all the instrumental tracks himself. He was the mastermind behind the song's famous, eerie atmosphere by manually adding a different layer of heavy reverb to each individual instrument and voice track.

Chilly - Dance With Me (c.1978)

Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Fire (c.1979)

After recording one of their darkest albums, 1984's The Top, the Cure regrouped and shuffled their lineup, which changed their musical direction rather radically. While the band always had a pop element in their sound and even recorded one of the lightest songs of the '80s, "The Lovecats," The Head on the Door is where they become a hitmaking machine. The shiny, sleek production and laser-sharp melodies of "Inbetween Days" and "Close to Me" helped them become modern rock radio staples and the inspired videos had them in heavy rotation on MTV. The rest of the record didn't suffer for hooks and inventive arrangements either, making even the gloomiest songs like "Screw" and "Kyoto Song" sound radio-ready, and the inventive arrangements (the flamenco guitars and castanets of "The Blood," the lengthy and majestic intro to "Push," the swirling vocals on "The Baby Screams") give the album a musical depth previous efforts lacked. All without sacrificing an ounce of the emotion of the past, which songs as quietly desperate as "A Night Like This" and "Sinking" illustrate. With The Head on the Door, Robert Smith figured out how to make gloom and doom danceable and popular to both alternative and mainstream rock audiences. It was a feat the band managed to pull off for many years afterward, but never as concisely or as impressively as they did here. - allmusic.com

...an 80's deep cut

Gregory Isaacs - Cool Down The Pace (c.1982)

EPMD - You're A Customer (c.1988)

Alemayehu Eshete Andarge was an Ethiopian singer, widely known as the "Abyssinian Elvis" for his dynamic performances and his fusion of traditional Ethiopian music with Western rock and roll influences. 

Ann Peebles - Come To Mama (c.1976)

LA Times

Shintaro Sakamoto - Mask On Mask (c.2011)

One Way - Mr. Groove (c.1984)

The Merry-Go-Round - Time Will Show The Wiser (c.19767)