Playlist - Stephen Emmer's "pop crooners"

With his new album Untouchable – a tribute to Billy Mackenzie of The Associates – sung by Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory, pop crooners have clearly been on the mind of composer Stephen Emmer a lot recently. “Once upon a time there existed a breed of singers who were kind of the human equivalent of AutoTune: they could bent, shape and twist their voices anyway they wanted to,” he muses. “They usually sang big songs with lots of drama and backed by extremely lush orchestration and ingenious arrangements, yet with subdued grooves that later would be sampled by early hiphop crate-diggers. Not to be confused with jazz-crooning, it usually has more of an edge, probably one of the more adventurous moments in experimental pop productions in the studio, it was pre Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds. Over time it got lost and went off the pop radar but now, in a time of tv song contests, the judges themselves like Harry Connick Jr and Dave Grohl are saying: enough is enough. Listen to that stuff first; the lost art of pop crooning.” With that in mind he’s made Q this Playlist featuring some of the most luscious voices out there.

“Credit where its due, maestro Scott mixing an existential popballad with avantgarde orchestration, five stars really.”

“Having been rejected by Sinatra, this became the My Way of crooner pop with that voice.”

“Jarvis at his symphonic Barry-esque, darkest best.”

“Full blown and authentic son of the genre, much missed and under-recognised.”

‘Silver-tongued rendition of one of the really great american pop-songbook songs.”

NB We Have All The Time In The World is currently not available via the playlist

“The Igster is the popcrooners world’s most hidden gem and David Arnold agrees.”

“Noel Coward nostalgia with modern popsensibility.”

“Title says it all, way before symphony with same name.”

“Authentic macho men in love despair backed by Phil’s Wall Of Sound.”

“Even the original melancholic baritone has his longings.”

For more head to Stephenemmer.com.