My desert island iPod 56-60

I’ve only got room for 100 albums on my iPod. This is my ultimate, and very personal, selection…

Fairport Convention: Liege & Lief

Songs that sound they were written in about 1600 but made relevant for the modern era in 1969. One of my very favourite records.

AC/DC: Back in Black

Brian Johnson’s first outing after stepping into Bon Scott’s shoes as AC/DC’s helmsman. And what a triumph!

The Stone Roses: Second Coming

I remember the anticipation we felt at school in Manchester having waiting the five years from the Roses’ debut to their second album. Then I remember not understanding why people were disappointed. If you were a Led Zep fan, and I was and am, you’re gonna love this album.

John Coltrane: A Love Supreme

Coltrane. This just demands to be listened to, preferably sat in my knackered leather armchair with a glass of something in one hand and something to smoke in t’other.

Neil Young: Harvest

This album seems to have always been there – at school, at Uni, ever since. Almost everyone I know has a copy.

My desert island iPod 51-55

I’ve only got room for 100 albums on my iPod. This is my ultimate, and very personal, selection…

Frank Sinatra: Songs for Swingin’ Lovers

I’m playing this constantly at the moment as I drive to and from the train station in Kent. At the end of a hard day at the office, to get in the car and hear Frank and crank the volume up is a joyous, soul-cleansing thing.

Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin I

 

How stunning this must have sounded to the record buying public on its release in 1969. Dazed and Confused still blows me away every time I hear it. You could listen to Bonham’s drums alone and get excited.

The Felice Brothers: The Felice Brothers

Can’t wait to see the Felice boys when they play in London in September. I can’t think of many bands making records like this at the moment.

The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed

 

The Stones at the peak of their powers and with Beggars Banquet and Exile part of the triumvirate of Stone records that you can’t do without.

Marc Cohn: Marc Cohn

I’ve got a soft spot for this Marc Cohn record. He’s known for Walking in Memphis but I love the stories of small-town America and being a sentimental soul I can’t fail to be moved by True Companion, his tale of a life-long love.

My desert island iPod 46-50

I’ve only got room for 100 albums on my iPod. This is my ultimate, and very personal, selection…

Cream: Disraeli Gears

For an album that I don’t massively like, this gets played an awful lot. It’s like a fix though. Sometimes you just need to hear Sunshine of Your Love.

Steely Dan: The Royal Scam

Listening to The Royal Scam brings strange memories of a New Year’s Eve in Somerset. Strange because we had eaten some mind-altering mushrooms after dinner and while leafing through the record collection I had found this funk/rock classic, put on The Fez and danced to it for what seemed like the rest of the night. 

The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet

Beggars Banquet was the first Stones album I discovered as a kid. Soundgarden had covered Stray Cat Blues on the B-side of their single Jesus Christ Pose and my mate Andy suggested I should perhaps listen to the original.  

Arctic Monkeys: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

 

Still sounds so exciting and wasn’t just a flash in the pan. Alex Turner has gone on to do even better things.

Joan Baez: Baez sings Dylan

Take a handful of Bob Dylan’s greatest songs and get his greatest follower – and arguably greatest muse, Visions of Johanna anyone? – and you have a crack combo.

My desert island iPod 41-45

I’ve only got room for 100 albums on my iPod. This is my ultimate, and very personal, selection…

Elton John: Honky Chateau

Elt at his best here. Honky Chateau is great fun, an upbeat record to play in the car or at a party. This is another of those sweetspot records in the Venn Diagram of mine and my wife’s record collections.

Various: California Dreaming

I play this double record constantly. It’s the soundtrack to the alternative life I never led: as a young hippie in circa 1970 California.

Elbow: Leaders of the Free World

The mighty Elbow’s finest hour (so far) in my opinion.

Primal Scream: Screamadelica

This record will always remind me of a day in Sydney, Australia, with friends Andy and Ben, desperately scrabbling round HMV so that we could listen to “Loaded” in the music booth. For some reason the “chick-a-chick-a-chick-chick-chee” in the intro was running through our heads and we had to get our fill.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magic

The “Chilis” were huge when I was at school and “Give It Away” a dance floor staple at the music clubs we would frequent as sixteen-year-olds. Latterly people have realised that John Frusciante is one of the great rock guitarists.

My desert island iPod 36-40

I’ve only got room for 100 albums on my iPod. This is my ultimate, and very personal, selection…

Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin

Led Zep arguably reached perfection on their fourth album. The pre-eminence of Stairway to Heaven almost obscures the brilliance of the other monster rock songs on this record – Black Dog, Rock n’ Roll, When the Levee Breaks – each of which could carry an album on their own.

Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

Let us not forget that back in late 2006 Winehouse released a terrific, timeless record. Also, I like it, my wife likes it, and my mother-in-law likes it. And that doesn’t happen too often. This gets a lot of airtime round our way.

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

Ten years ago I walked into Action Replay records in Bowness-on-Windermere with Mark, on a mission to broaden our musical playground into jazz territory. We took the shop owner’s advice and left with records by Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, and this, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. Good advice.

Love: Forever Changes

Forever Changes was recorded in 1967, in California, at the height of the hippie dream. It’s a dark but beautiful record. I saw Arthur Lee play songs from this album in London a couple of years before he died and it was akin to seeing Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix resurrected on stage.

Laura Marling: Alas I Cannot Swim

A gorgeous album, with waves of melancholy and beautiful melody, almost unbelievably written and recorded by a seventeen-year-old girl. I’m listening to I Speak Because I Can at the moment and cannot wait to see Marling at the Hop Farm festival in July.