It's a new year, and you know what that means: new music! Ok, so Kate Bush, Diana Ross and Paul Simon don't technically count as 'new' anymore, although the term is somewhat relative (they're a lot newer than Mozart, say), but we hope that at least some of the tracks we've served up below are new to you, our dear reader.
In fact, 2026 might be a new year, but this month's edition of Now Playing clearly has us feeling nostalgic as we hurtle back through the decades to find golden oldies from the '70s, '80s and '90s.
Cloudbusting by Kate Bush
When an artist has as much talent as Kate Bush, it’s difficult to refrain from playing their records, either at home or in our testing rooms. Such has been the case for me with the Bexleyheath-born artist’s 1985 hit Cloudbusting.
It’s always interesting when artists successfully use melancholic elements to create a song that is ultimately uplifting, almost as if they are trying to create the feeling that something is bittersweet, and that’s exactly what Bush has done here.
The song begins with the combination of beautiful strings and Bush’s ethereal vocals. Any hi-fi system that relays plenty of detail will allow you to appreciate the incredible depth of both aspects.
Cloudbusting is definitely more focused around the mid to high frequencies, but it has some fantastic rhythmic elements, too. What’s especially notable is the interaction between the strings and drums once the latter hits for the first chorus to inject a bit more bounce.
Words by James Cook
Upside Down by Diana Ross
While the rest of us have been looking forward to 2026, you may have been surprised to see the UK charts looking back 40-odd years to the heyday of the 1980s. The phenomenon can, of course, be explained by the pop culture domination of Netflix’s Stranger Things, the final season of which has sent Prince, Tiffany and, of course, Kate Bush back into the charts, despite the tracks comfortably settling into middle age.
While I’m also partial to the Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s Kids theme from the soundtrack, it’s the aptly-named Upside Down by ‘80s icon Diana Ross that left an impression on me this time. A reported favourite of our very own King Charles, the breezy song zips along effortlessly thanks to a propulsive bassline and Ross’s confident, charismatic vocals.
It’s a stark contrast to the lyrics, which are a surprisingly layered look at being head over heels for someone despite infidelity. Nevertheless, the dancefloor staple is great for testing thanks to its range of frequencies and Ross’s impeccable timing. The anthem revived Ross’s career – perhaps it could help reverse the fortunes of a struggling audio company, too?
Words by Daniel Furn
I Hate Hate by Razzy Bailey
Have we ever needed this tune more than we do right now? If Razzy thought that in 1974 there was “so much hate going on today / on the right and on the left,” Lord only knows what he would make of the current political climate (he died in 2021, so sadly we’ll never know).
But whatever your politics, or your take on the song’s message, you can’t deny the quality of the musicianship (or the excellence of the name Razzy).
With its sweeping organ intro, breakbeat drums, spoken introduction and the sweet, sweet vocal, it really sits at the intersection of northern soul, funk, country and blues. On first listen, you might miss the finer details like the violin in the first verse and children’s voices that join in the chorus, but they’re there, and they all add to the track’s power.
The message that love conquers all might seem hopelessly naïve, but we can dream, right? And have a bloody good dance while we do so. It’s what Razzy would have wanted.
Words by Joe Svetlik
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon
Sometimes the Spotify algorithm manages to pull an absolute blinder. As I was listening to a relaxing mix curated to my tastes, Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover caught me by surprise and had me tapping my toes from the first beat.
From there, it quickly became a go-to in the test room to challenge all sorts of AV kit. Featuring soft '70s folk and taking inspiration from afro-pop, it’s a track that manages to put multiple aspects of a system’s audio to the test.
During the introduction, Simon's drummer employs just a bass and snare drum which asks for a huge amount of subtlety and nuance from your system, as the stick bounces off the drum with the delicacy of a dragonfly’s wing fluttering.
This is partly interrupted by Simon’s clear vocals as he mulls over the best ways to leave his partner, but a good sound system will still keep the drum beat in check with the necessary softness. As backing vocals kick the track into a more upbeat tone, the addition of backing vocals and an energetic drum beat creates an absolute hip-swayer that is hard to resist.
Words by Robyn Quick
Down On The Upside by Soundgarden
I love Soundgarden. No, I mean it, I really love Soundgarden. I love them as much as I love the cold side of the pillow, Christmas dinner or meeting a friendly dog. Prod me with a sharp stick and I’d tell you that they’re in my top two favourite bands of all time.
Back to the point. If you’re only casually acquainted with Seattle’s number one export (yes, I love Alice in Chains as well), it’ll probably be via their airwave-hogging anthem Black Hole Sun.
A worthy reason to have gained lasting fame, and few will encourage you to seek out 1994’s peerless Superunknown opus more than I, but it’s the oft-overlooked follow-up Down On The Upside that I regularly dust off for regular testing duties. Yes, it's a whole album, but there's nothing wrong with bending the rules once in a while.
Down On The Upside is a weird one, mainly because I don’t really deploy it to pick out any specific, tangible element for testing. Instead, it’s an album that just has a feeling, an ambience, a colour even; a sort of mournful malaise that puts me in mind of rust and decay, of big old empty rooms and American deserts at night, of an indefinable sadness that creeps into your veins and can’t be shifted.
Not particularly helpful from an outsider’s perspective, but useful on my end.
Just listen to it for yourself, will you?
Words by Harry McKerrell
Lost by The Church
Streaming often gets a lot of FLAC (badum tss) from vinyl snobs, but over my Christmas break, I was reminded of one of its best features: discovery.
Let me paint the scene.
Sitting at the umpteenth pre-Christmas house party, we’d hit that special, special time of night. The one that happens after we’ve all stuffed our faces with enough cheese and wine to make gout a genuine risk, and managed to put the kids to bed.
All eager to prove age hasn’t dulled our ability to party, we sit comatose, trying to find the will to finish our latest “last” mug of mulled wine, too groggy to converse properly but unwilling to be the first to call it a night. In this sad portrait of middle age, the hi-fi box blasts out tunes from a mysterious song radio mix on Tidal that no one remembers putting on.
In the haze, a track starts playing from a band I loved as a teenager, but had long forgotten, shakes me back to life: The Church’s Lost.
Utterly appropriate to the mood, with a transcendental, ethereal style that feels like what would happen if Pink Floyd and The Cure had a baby, I’ve since been hooked on the track and revisiting the band’s work in general.
Trust me, if you’re a fan of new wave, psychedelia or just fancy a solid, introspective band to enjoy during the year’s darker months, you won’t regret doing the same.
Words by Alastair Stevenson
POSTERITY by Ludwig Goransson
I have no idea what Tenet is about. That position likely wouldn’t change were I actually to watch what has become the misunderstood outlier of Christopher Nolan’s outstanding canon, as I’m yet to meet anyone who can tell me in less than five paragraphs what it’s about.
I do know, however, that the music is superb. Ludwig Goransson is fast becoming a sort of Hans Zimmer 2.0 (that’s very much a compliment), with Nolan recruiting his services once again for his 2024 masterpiece Oppenheimer. We all know how well that turned out. "Can you hear the music, Robert?”
POSTERITY is the track you want to go with, although you’ll need quite a bit of time to set aside. At nearly 13 minutes of enthralling build-up crammed with conventional instrumentation alongside some rather distinctively odd sonic quirks (is that a zither being whacked with a bit of old drainpipe?), it’s a treat if you want to see how your system conveys both small scale and big-picture dynamics.
Words by Harry McKerrell
As a collective, our review team listens to a lot of music. Sometimes we rely on old favourites with which we're familiar, but we are always discovering new tracks – be they fresh releases or just songs we haven't encountered before – that give us key insights into new products we are trying out.
We also know that plenty of our readers are on the lookout for new tunes, either to assess the capabilities of a new system or simply to show off the full talents of their established hi-fi set-up. That's why we have come up with our monthly 'Now Playing' playlist, a rundown of everything we've been listening to and loving recently, whether at home with a set of headphones or at work in our fabulous test rooms.
Each instalment will bring you a handful of tracks chosen by our reviews team, detailing why we love them and what they bring out of certain products. So even if you're not looking for new tunes to play on your system, we hope you find something you'll love no matter how you choose to listen to it.
We're always on the lookout for new music, so drop a comment below to share what you have been listening to!
MORE:
Read last month's edition: Goodbye, 2025! Check out 7 of our favourite test tracks of the year
8 of the best Bruce Springsteen tracks to test your hi-fi system
Check out our ultimate test tracks collection
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