Instrument
13 tracks.
Whilk & Misky
The 2014 breakthrough of the London duo Whilk & Misky: a barefoot, bossa-nova-tinged acoustic song with handclaps for percussion, played on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show and later carried onto dance floors by a Solomun remix.
Lilly Wood and The Prick, Robin Schulz
Robin Schulz lifts a mournful 2010 French folk-pop song onto a bouncing deep house beat, Nili Hadida's bleak prayer and a looping guitar riff becoming a number one across Europe in 2014.
Hindi Zahra
Hindi Zahra's smoky voice glides over a lilting, desert-blues guitar and soft percussion in Beautiful Tango, a slow dance of a song that sounds like dusk in a small room.
Gin Wigmore
Stomping drums, chanted backing vocals and a shout-along hook frame Gin Wigmore's gravel-edged voice in a proud anthem for everyone who never fit the flock.
Corinne Bailey Rae
Corinne Bailey Rae's sun-dappled soul-pop single is a gentle invitation to let your hair down, all breezy guitar, soft horns and a warm voice telling you to grow into yourself.
Broken Back
Bright acoustic strumming over a gentle electronic beat, Broken Back's first single sounds like optimism earned the hard way.
Ayọ
Ayọ pleads for a lost love over acoustic guitar and a gentle reggae lilt: the 2006 debut single, recorded with a live band in five days in New York, that made a German-Nigerian singer a star in France.
Asaf Avidan & the Mojos
A cracked, ageless voice over a few acoustic chords: the original Reckoning Song from 2008 is a campfire confession about growing old, four years before Wankelmut's remix turned it into a European number one.
Angus & Julia Stone
Soft guitars, sibling harmonies and a daydream of flying away with someone: Big Jet Plane drifts in slowly and stays with you long after it lands.
Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague turn the Dead Kennedys' punk satire into a hushed bossa nova sung by Camille, a 2004 cover whose softness makes the lyric more absurd and more unsettling than the original's noise.
Mirwais
Mirwais, the former Taxi Girl guitarist who would soon produce Madonna's Music, sets a vocoded voice against stop-start acoustic guitar and retro synths: a 2000 French electro single that reached number two on the US club chart.
The Chemical Brothers
'Star Guitar' is The Chemical Brothers' slowly blooming 2002 single, built on four bars of acoustic guitar sampled from David Bowie's 'Starman', and the song behind Michel Gondry's famous one-shot train-window video.
Jorge Ben Jor
Jorge Ben's 'Take It Easy My Brother Charles' is a two-and-a-half-minute samba-soul classic from his 1969 album: a swinging guitar, Trio Mocotó's percussion and a warm word of caution to a 'brother of color', half in Portuguese, half in English.
