#1332 The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

This is the sound of my A levels. Or more specifically, this is the sound of me travelling 20 miles by train every day to the nearest FE College, so I could avoid having to go to the same Sixth Form Centre that my father taught at. I actually wrote about this when reviewing The …

#1623 White Lies – To Lose My Life

I don’t know quite how you’d describe this music - goth pop? Post-punk Death Disco? Something like that. Whatever your genre preference, it’s brilliant and I love it. This is their 2009 debut album, and still their best, in my opinion. The LP was a birthday present from my best friend, who knows that an …

#1599 Rick Wakeman – Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

This album is less like putting on a pop record than listening to a Book at Bedtime. Generally a good thing, unless you’re in the mood for dancing. This is English prog rock at its proggiest. A 40-minute orchestral-rock concept album, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall, telling Jules Verne’s classic early Sci-Fi story, …

#772 King Kandy – Acid Beach Party O.S.T

It’s very unlikely that you have this album in your collection or have even heard of it. That’s a shame, because it’s quite quite brilliant. Describing itself as an “Original Notion Picture Soundtrack” this is “garage surfin' psychsploitation” a mix of garage psych, surfing guitar, great effects and snippets of choice quotes from the Acid …

#1253 Shakespears Sister – Hormonally Yours

This album reminds me of my first girlfriend, my first proper relationship in fact. There’s such a warm rush of nostalgia on hearing it, I could be time-travelling back to the early 90s. Ah, that simple time, before public internet, when mobile phones were the size of a three-door hatchback, and when watching Neighbours in …

#1151 Radiohead – Kid A

I remember very clearly the buzz and excitement around this record’s release in 2000. Except I was in Australia at the time and the buzz was somewhat dimmed by me not having a radio or any means of playing CDs. I’ve written about my two-year round the world trip before, and how my partner and …

#1106 Pulp – Hits

Pulp are to British pop (BritPop if you will) what Sheffield is to steel: shiny on the outside but hard as fucking nails on the inside. Sheffield was the place to be in the late 70s/early 80s for innovative electro new wave punk and post-punk pop. Although formed when Cocker and Co were but mere …

#1082 Prince – Planet Earth

This is not one of Prince’s best, but it is one of his ‘not bad for the noughties’ releases. That’s if you can overlook the fact it was distributed free to readers of The Mail on Sunday. At least in the UK. I didn’t get my copy that way, I hasten to add, I got …

#346 Lloyd Cole – Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe

Cole’s second solo album which is similar to the stripped-down, acoustic(ish) vibe of Paul Weller’s far more successful Wild Wood, but released two years earlier. Perhaps because he was a little ahead of his time this album didn’t fare so well and is not that well known. If he brought it out now in an …

#215 David Bowie – Buddha of Suburbia

I vaguely recall watching the Buddha of Suburbia when Hanif Kureishi’s debut novel was turned into a 4-part BBC drama in 1993. The vagueness is not due to its impact (which was considerable) or the mists of time, but the fact that I was in my second year of University, which was spent mainly undertaking …