Soak up the sounds of our Summer issue playlist

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Plucked from the pages of our latest edition, we’ve got the soundtrack to your next three months right here

You know the drills by now… As you explore our Summer edition (Opens in a new window), let this specially curated playlist accompany your reading. It features the anthemic rock of cover star Bryan Adams, the unmistakable groove of Femi Kuti, and the timeless songwriting of Amy Macdonald. Alongside a deep dive into Afrobeat, you’ll also find tracks from Cast, OneRepublic, Echobelly, Gwenno, and many more. Whether you’re basking in the heat or sheltering in the shade, there’s something here for everyone.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

“A few years ago, I was playing TRNSMT Festival in Glasgow. Just before I went out, I panicked a little bit, because I had a look at the crowd and they were very young. Most of them might not even have been born when my first album came out. I thought to myself. ‘They’re going to hate this!’ I was quite nervous because of that, but they were so into it. It was so amazing for me to see young people who, at that point, had been through so much with Covid and having exams cancelled and everything like that… It was so inspiring to see such carefree happiness when they’re bombarded with these shit news stories day in and day out. That’s where the idea for Can You Hear Me? came from. It’s a protest song for the younger generation.” — Amy Macdonald

KING OF THE KERB

“When I was a student, I was living in a flat in north Soho in central London, just off Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. It was a time when there were so many characters in that area… Being a naïve 18-year-old student looking out the window, there were two strip clubs across the road, and I used to watch people going down into the basement… They all had these shady characters and you knew they had a very interesting history… The song was a fantastical version of one of those guys.” — Sonya Madan (Echobelly)


SUMMER OF 69

“I demoed that song three times with Jim [Vallance] in its entirety, and recorded it in its entirety twice, because I knew the arrangement wasn’t right; I knew that the performance wasn’t right, and I wasn’t going to give up on it and settle for something that wasn’t brilliant. I drove everybody insane because I knew that it needed to be something extraordinary… In the end, the fire that ended up being needed for the song, I attribute to Pat Seward, the drummer.” — Bryan Adams

OGA DOCTOR

“A song like Oga Doctor, for instance, the horn melody is kind of complicated. I don’t think if I released it in the past, people will have understood it as much as today. And the topic is more relevant today than before. It’s when you ask the question of, why are there not enough female gynaecologists… I think there is a lot of abuse in the medical profession, and in my days, women didn’t know they had rights. So you see, now it’s more relevant and probably the right time.” — Femi Kuti 


DANCING ON VOLCANOES

“In many ways, the journey of this song epitomises my life’s philosophy – to follow your creative instinct and to constantly be open to embracing new ways of doing things and of unexpected paths emerging in front of you. Music is always about capturing and documenting a moment in time for me, and Dancing On Volcanoes is a song about remembering how important those moments that we share collectively are.” — Gwenno

I AIN’T WORRIED

“The lyrics came together from my typical gobbledygook of gibberish and slowly coalesced into the song. As far as the movie’s concerned, the whole movie is very stressful and it’s the only three minutes that’s not stressful. So, I just came up with the phrase, ‘I ain’t worried ‘bout it.’ Like, whatever happens, I ain’t worried. Right now, we got this. And the rest is history.” — Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic)

FINE TIME

“I had the verse for a long while, but I didn’t do nothing with it. When I left The La’s, I had the name Cast and the band was forming… I really had taken a leap of faith. I’d left the most iconic band, with the greatest songwriter of a generation, and all of a sudden, I had these ideas and I was like, ‘Well, you really have got to nail these songs now John.’ So I’m walking around and I always had something bubbling. Fine Time was one of them songs.” — John Power (Cast)

ROXANNE

“There’s a line in the verse that says, “Shorty drive a poodle with no top”. That was something that was spat out in the room. It was Arizona that said it. We were all like, ‘What is a poodle with no top?’ Arizona was like, ‘I have no idea.’ I remember really fighting for it and being like, ‘I think we need to keep that line.’ It just felt right for some reason.” — Lauren LaRue