My all-time favourite Now Hear This tracks are:

Josh Rouse - My Love Has Gone
Sun Kil Moon - Moorestown

Both led to subsequent purchases and a long-held love for two artists I'd never previously heard of. Cheers Word.

Boring/The Pierces

One by Woodpigeon and one about a long weekend begins with longing or something like that.

And one called Box Up All The Butterflies, but I can't remember who it's by.

Its from a few years back. But funnily enough I was playing it again just before you posted. Beautiful track. And in a puff they were gone!

This was a short movie they made and it finishes off with Passive Agressive. Iceland looks nice.

"Does He Love You?"

Amazing song. Was discussing it with Joe R the another night, and he said - perfectly - that there's more story in that one song than in most albums.

It's A Big Country - Davitt Siggerson
Bole To Harlem - Bole To Harlem
Digging The Fault Line - Brent Cash
Ski Jumper - Hafdis Huld
Killing Him - Amy Lavere
Long Time Coming - Delays

Brent Cash is probably my favourite artist whom I've discovered purely through a Word CD. His album How Will I Know I'm Awake is much listened to round my way; and I was happy to see David Hepworth's review of his new one in the recent issue.

by Peter Bruntnell. Just a lovely, atmospheric song.

by The Music Lovers I think? Or Repeat To Fade by The Shortwave Set.

By Hayes Carll . Still makes me chuckle every time I hear it and bought all his albums on the back of this track.

discovered a method of listening that worked for me. Basically I put it in my CD player without looking at the sleeve so I have no preconception about who I'm listening to. Then, only after I've heard the whole thing do I check out who's performing the tracks I like. Since I started doing that I've fell in love with plenty of tracks. Maybe it's something to do with avoiding preconceptions/hype/pr or maybe it says more about me I dunno...
Anyways, I absolutely adore that Keren Ann track from the last issue. The next four tracks are decent too, especially Ms Krauss (recognised her voice straight away mind).

John Smith - Winter
Laura Veirs - Secret Someones
The Broken Family Band - For Milton Mapes
Josh Ritter - Girl In The War
The Real Tuesday Weld - The Day Before You Came
Slow Club - Because We're Dead
Little Jackie - 28 Butts
The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun
Empire Of The Sun - Half Mast
Yeasayer - Ambling Alp
Clare & The Reasons - That's All
Jukebox The Ghost - Hold It In

What Rosbif said above, spooky, except Brent Cash. I shall seek him out. I'll add ' A lady of a certain age' by The Divine Comedy.

was one that immediately sprung to mind, but then I had to go and have a flip through my old Word/NHT CDs and came up with the following:

Goldheart Assembly - King of Rome
Cornershop - The Roll-off Characteristics....
The Triffids - Bury Me Deep In Love
The Concretes - Can't Hurry Love
The Fountains of Wayne - Hackensack
The Czars - Paint the Moon
Nick Lowe - I Paid Her To Love Me
Midlake - Head Home

I also agree with Josh Ritter - Girl In The War; Davitt Siggerson- It's A Big Country and The Delays - Long Time Coming.

David Axelrod - Song Of Innocence. November 2005.
Heard of him, never knowingly heard him. Hooked ever since.

Boo Hewerdine - Patience Of Angels. February 2006.
The definitive version, though I already loved (and still do) Eddie Reader's version.

Warren Zevon - Keep Me In Your Heart. May 2006.
Best goodbye song ever?

Townes Van Zandt - Waitin' 'Round To Die. July 2006.
Same story as David Axelrod, above.

Mary Gauthier - I Drink. October 2006.
A fantastic song. This is probably my No.1 Word CD track so far.

Richard Thompson - Dad's Gonna Kill Me. June 2007.
I'm a long-time Tommo fan. This renewed my faith after a few disappointing albums.

Mavis Staples - Down In Mississippi. July 2007.
Powerful!

The Real Tuesday Weld - The Day Before You Came. August 2007.
As good as Blancmange's version. Both better than Abba's original.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights. November 2007.
Proper soul music, at last.

Mary Coughlan - The House Of Ill Repute. March 2009.
Louche!

The Decemberists - The Rake's Song. April 2009.
Startlingly original. Instantly curious to hear more.

Buddy & Julie Miller - Gasoline & Matches. April 2009.
Good ol' dirty Rock 'n' Roll.

Ron Sexsmith - Get In Line. March 2011.
Well-written and delivered with style & panache.

1. Stephen Emmer - Passengers - 48 times
2. Sylvie Lewis - By Heart - 46 times (and an unending crush)
3. The Slow Club - Because We're Dead - 35 times

As mentioned above, The Pierces "Boring" weighs in at number 6 with a respectable 29 plays.

It's frankly astonishing how many acts I now treasure as a result of the CDs and editorial in this magazine.

Long live Word...

as i've removed the tracks from my "now hear this" albums when i've bought the albums (so i don't have duplicate tracks)
but..

On the Radio- Regina Spektor

Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning- Clap your hands say yeah

I Am The White-Mantled King- Cats on Fire

To Build a Home- The Cinematic Orchestra

Milk Bottle Symphony- Saint Etienne

are a few that spring to mind!

The Ride

Goccia by Cristina Dona feat. Robert Wyatt

Came with Word 21 so it must be 6 and a half years old. Sung in Italian, and I've no idea what it's about. It's abolutely lovely though

The same Word CD had "With Arms Outstretched" by Rilo Kiley on it, which means it was one of the better ones

My second choice is an an odd piece of electric piano / treated vocal driven chill-out ambience from Word 42 by Pretz called Goodbye Ferrers. Did anyone else connect with this?

via the Word CDs. Here are some of my favourite favourite favourites:

My Morning Jacket - Gideon
Arcade Fire - The Crown Of Love
The National - Fake Empire
Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy Jr
Decemberists - Yankee Bayonet
New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours
The Aliens - Only Waiting
Half Man Half Biscuit - For What Is Chatteris
Yeasayer - Ambling Alp
Manu Chao - Rainin' In Paradize
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Over And Over Again
Broken Social Scene 7/4 (Shoreline)

That's in addition to great songs by great bands I already knew about.

Smokey Taboo by Cocorosie.
One of my favourite pieces of music that year ( "song" really wouldn't do it justice... )

Probably my favourite song ever these days. I owned Galore for years and liked it but assumed that she was very much 'a Best Of is sufficient' type artist and never investigated further. Realisation that a song as good as Soho Square hadn't even made the Best Of showed me the error of my ways. She's actually as good as it gets. For that, and many more, thanks The Word.

mine has to be Ghosts by Siobhan Donaghy. As I've said elsewhere about other songs, it's not exactly the tune, it's the 'sound' of it. I love it. I utterly utterly love it.

Great track, lead me to directly buying Funplex - their best album since the debut.

Also loved the Manu Chao and Calexico tracks. Interesting characters that warranted further investigation.

Now one of my favourite artists due to Opus 20 being on a free word cd.

Not the only artist who I have got into from these monthly treats. Also;

Kate Rusby
Half Man Half Biscuit
Sigur Ros
Roddy Woomble
The Music Lovers
Shortwave Set
Chad Valley
Ladytron
Scott Matthews
The Unthanks
Blonde Redhead

also 'Fool That I am' by Kula Shaker was a great find!

Keep it up :)

So Here It Is http://open.spotify.com/user/marbles22/playlist/17shuEsdtLe1lkcsTRYYe7

of good suggestions above.

Mine: "See My Love" by Headless Heroes. Jaw-droppingly beautiful vocal by Alela Diane(? I think)

Another vote for Rilo Kiley - both the songs mentioned above are great, but "Does..." is astounding! Fantastic vocal (again) by Jenny Lewis.

...That's How I Got To Memphis by Mount Analog with Karl Blau. Never managed to find out which album it came from but enjoyed it a lot.

for a couple of years and now I will. Most of the contenders have been mentioned already (and what a lot there are - I think it will be 2 cds). Another I'd mention is Nachi Oshiras by Oshiras which is a good 'un to get you moving on a slow morning...

Is all about him trying to straighten himself out and making all sorts of promises for when he gets home from his roaming. Then as you would guess by the end of the song the promises have been unfulfilled and he is off roaming again.

It came on my Ipod a few weeks ago and was the first time I had heard it. I was walking home from the pub after a few beers and the lyrics fit perfectly. For one split second I contemplated carrying on walking into a world of debauchery and murder ballads. I didn't of course! A nice warm bed with my wife was more appealing!

on Word CDs that I've liked (I can't think of a CD where I haven't liked at least one) I went to look for the ones I have turned into actual purchases:

Sylvie Lewis - Old Queens, Monet and Me
Audra Mae - The Happiest Lamb
Hrair - Step Forward
Ian McNabb - Great Things*
Mary Coughlan - The House of Ill Repute
Mavis feat Kurt Wagner - Gangs of Rome*
The Watson Twins - Harpeth River
Ali Farka Toure - Sabu Yerkoy
Carlene Carter - Stronger
Claire and The Reasons - That's All
The Dragons - Food For My Soul
Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
Henry Priestman - Don't You Love Me No More
Little Jackie - 28 Butts
Joe Jackson - there was a track off his "Rain" album I seem to remember, but can't recall which.

*Album turned out not to be as good as the featured track

There are probably a lot more but I'm supposed to be working. Anyway, next time we have the debate about whether the cover CD is worth it, the answer is clearly this thread

...on a Playlist. So, according to iTunes, my Top 10 Most Played are:

1. Say It To Me Now - Christina Kukulundis
2. Down South - Tom Petty
3. Be Gentle With Me - The Boy Least Likely To
4. Little Red Rooster - The Malchicks
5. Early Morning Rain - Paul Weller
6. Who Killed Big Bird - Barry Adamson
7. Oklahoma Stomp - Spade Cooley
8. No Regrets - Tom Rush
9. The Age of Revolution - The Duckworth Lewis Method
10= Tall Cotton - Eric Bibb
10= High Shelf Booze - Ellen Jewell

Some old, some new and some reworking - marvellous stuff! I have bought three albums on the back of Word CD tracks and would credit it with reinvigorating my interest in music when I thought it had got firmly stuck in the '60s.

Thanks chaps, for me it is a big part of what makes The Word my favourite magazine/website/music shop/source of wit and wisdom/home of like minded people.

Frankies Gun - The Felice Brothers was a stand out track.

Forgot all about that one.

Midlake - Head Home

Secret Someones - which introduced me to the fabulous Laura Veirs

Can't Cry Hard Enough - Judy Collins, beautiful though heartbreaking

And lastly a special mention to the insanely catchy Icelandic volcano song Eyjafjallajokull by Eliza Newman. Even though she sings the name all the way through I still can't pronounce it. Don't think anyone is going to write a song about Grimsvotn.

pearlfishers
sufjan stevens
josh rouse

Here in OZ I would never have heard any of these artists without the Word CD.. Makes me wonder about the periodic calls for its retirement

Would be the African track that goes 'way oh - way oh' in the chorus. Always brought the house down when put on in the car. Can't for the live of me remember the title.

Bhutan Philharmonic - Snakecharmer
Does anybody know if the album this was from ever got released in any form.I never managed to find it legally or otherwise.