Sunday Music Show | All stories

The hit comedy Samotáři (The Loners) was a generational film exploring the lives of aimless young people a decade after the fall of communism. The year 2000 movie’s clubby soundtrack today feels like something of a time capsule, with names like the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, Ohm Square and Here highly evocative of the Prague of that era.

Planets, the sun and outer space are the focus of this week’s Sunday Music.

Lots of Czech musicians of the younger generation have recently turned their attention to children.

This week’s Sunday Music show is devoted to the king of Czech country music Michal Tučný who recorded over two dozen albums and packed concert halls around the country. Although Tučný died twenty years ago he is a legend on the Czech country and folk scene and his hits remain popular to this day.

With spring just around the corner, this edition of Sunday Music features songs about love and sex. And rabbits. You’ll hear music from Lucie Bílá, Michal Hrůza, the great Marie Rottrová, Václav Neckář and others.

Over the last nearly five decades, Ivan Mládek and his Banjo Band has been amusing fans with his original music style, combining elements of Dixieland and country with humour and comedy. Perhaps the best-known of his tunes, Jožin z Bažin, has earned him cult following in the Czech Republic and, more recently, Poland and other countries.

DVA, comprising Bára Kratochvílová and Jan Kratochvíl, have been on the go since the mid-2000s, creating a highly distinctive brand of quirky folk-pop sung in their own made-up language. The pair have regularly toured abroad, building an impressive profile in the US and around Europe. Their pair’s latest release is 2014’s Nipomo, which recently picked up the Vinyl LP of the year prize.

Today’s Sunday Music Show is dedicated to the very first and undoubtedly the most popular Czech musical Starci na chmelu or The Hop Pickers. The film, also known in English as The Hop Side Story, was directed by Ladislav Rychman in 1964 and has become something of a cult classic. The songs, composed by Vlastimil Hála, Jiří Malásek and Jiří Bažant, remain popular to this day.

Today’s Sunday Music Show looks at Wabi Daněk, the legendary Czech folk and country singer, who has teamed up with a group of young musicians in a project called Ďáblovo stádo or The Devil’s Flock. To this day, they have released two albums of the best known folk and country songs, giving them a fresh, contemporary twist.

This week Radio Prague’ s Sunday Music Show is devoted to the Czech singer and song writer, poet and translator Jiří Dědeček. His songs about love, death and the world around him reflect his innermost feelings, but they always come with a surprising twist.