Welcome to Readers Recommend/Song Bar:
The Complete Index. 

Update: At the end of 2015 the Guardian announced it was discontinuing RR after a successful ten year run. The blog had undergone many changes over the years - new gurus, a switch from a newspaper column to an online feature, and finally, two years ago, a switch to the readers rotating as gurus with Peter Kimpton stickhandling the logistics and introducing the topics.

The RR community was quick to react and protest the closure of a beloved venue. A letter writing campaign to various management staff at the Guardian led to a decision to continue RR but without Peter as our host. Peter decided to go his own way and set up his own blog, the Song Bar. Here is a calendar of scheduled gurus for Song Bar.

The Guardian resurrection of RR also had a few issues but rookie host Matthew Holmes has been responsive to the community and the bugs were fixed.

Although it is a bit more work, I am following both blogs and compiling their results here. I am not indicating which topic is from which blog except in the A-Z by Song page and the topic pages themselves. 

This site is dedicated to indexing and cataloguing the Readers Recommend column and blog from The Guardian newspaper in the UK for easy reference. Beginning in January 2014, the column changed to being authored by Peter Kimpton rotating with guest gurus from the ranks of the RR community. As of Aug. 23, 2012, the column was an online feature written by Peter Kimpton and Marta Bausells on alternate weeks with occasional fill-ins by members of the RR community. Community members wrote the columns exclusively from Aug. 30, 2012 until Oct. 31, 2013. Adam Boult oversaw the project. Before that, (from January 6, 2011 to Aug. 16, 2012) Readers Recommend was an online feature of the Guardian website hosted by Jon Dennis. Prior to that, Readers Recommend was a Friday feature in the Guardian from 2005 to the end of 2010. Founded by Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey, the blog and column was taken over by The Guardian's Maddy Costa on April 18, 2008. Rob Fitzpatrick took up the reins from February 13 to May 22, 2009 while Maddy was on maternity leave and Paul MacInnes was at the helm from May 29, 2009. Paul took a new position in November 2010 and Rob Fitzpatrick took up the reins once more on Nov. 26, 2010 until the column was discontinued a few weeks later.

Here is an article by Richard Clayton (DarceysDad) looking back at five years of RR and looking forward to the future online version. Here is a statistical look at the first five years of RR (compiled by myself).

For a quick guide to how the Readers Recommend blog works, check out the Guardian's FAQ page or our New to RR page.

This index is divided into several parts. The first is the A-Z index by topic. The second is the A-Z index by artist. This is the same index that The Guardian posts on its website as the A-Z of all songs ever listed but refined and with topics added. The third is the A-Z index by song which is divided into two parts. The first page accessed lists all the songs recommended in the current year. This page also has a link to a page listing all the songs from previous years (a rather large page) The final part of this website is the Topics By Date index. This lists all Readers Recommend columns by date. The main page lists the current year and has links to the other years.

But there's more. Some of the indexes link to pages for each topic. These Topic Pages include links to the blog and column for that topic as well as listing the ten selections made for the column. The writers often include a B List of songs in the blog that did not make it. In more recent cases these B Lists are also included.

With this index you can now go back and read the columns and blogs you missed that may interest you. Enjoy!

A short note on naming conventions: If you are trying to find an artist alphabetically, here is how I have organized them.

• Solo Singers: alphabetically by last name
• Duets: e.g. Al Bowlly & Anona Winn - listed under each singer individually by last name. The song title will include (with name of other artist) in front of the song title.
• Groups with a front man: e.g. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - listed under the last name of the singer
• Groups named after one of the members: e.g. Spencer Davis Group or Dave Clark Five - listed alphabetically by the first name of the person

Acknowledgements: Thanks to fourfoot who did most of the leg work on compiling the data up to August 2008 in a marvellous spreadsheet. Thanks to DarceysDad and goneforeign for sending me the spreadsheet. Thanks to GarethI, ejaydee and Toffeeboy for support of this project. Thanks to Maddy for her enthusiastic support and encouragement and sending along useful info and answering the odd question. Thanks to the RR regulars who always make reading the blog entertaining.

Contact: Please email me with any corrections or additions.