Hope you like some of this
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Starry Sounds
GVSB: You Can't Fight What You Can't See
An album that punches big holes in your head. Best excuse I have heard for AmericadEUS: Worse Case Scenario
Like some moderne Virgin Prunes, mad-cap performance arting their way across the stage while creating some boundary-pushing brilliant work.- Chapterhouse: Whirlpool
- Underground Lovers: Ways T'Burn
Strangely alluring and intelligent loopy effort from sometime popsters armoury show: Waiting for the Floods
Much derided Jobson and his supergroup never stood a chance - this great album was followed by two amazing singles but sometimes you're the wrong face in the wrong place.Sparklehorse: Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
Wonderful punk folk from a different USA of dust and dirt. Brilliant use of undreamed-of instruments - scarily frail at times, brutal at others.Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures
Demonstrates better than anything why learning to play your instruments and being a great musician is not necessily 'a good thing'. Every second of this is new, and moving, and frankly brilliant. And comes straight from them, not from a book of chord tabs.The Church: Uninvited, like the clouds
Magnificent- Steve Kilbey: Unearthed
A bit homemade for some tastes, but not mine - Othertime an alltime great Interpol: Turn on the bright lights
More shoe-gazey and slow-burn than AnticsFriends Again: Trapped and Unwrapped
The real sound of summerGillian Welch: Time
Not supposed to like this. But it's brilliance. Radical in a way most musuc isn'tThe Czars: The Ugly People Vs the Beautiful People
Never mind alt country, just altSix by Seven: The Things we Make
Painful(ly good)Deus: The Ideal Crash
Fuckin nutters sounding surprisingly sensibleThe Delgados: The Great Eastern
Surreal listening to a track as brilliant as The Past That Suits You Best then realise that it's about your own school...Orange Juice: The Glasgow School
Genius, at last unleashed on an ungrateful public. Get well soon, Ed.The Ruts: The Crack
Astonishingly urgent, intense music - sadly any white bloke who could get away with singing Jah War that way was never going to last too long- Spain: The Blue Moods of Spain
Chiming out metronomically like Galaxie 500 meets the jazz guy down your local Pizza Express, yet brilliantly straight, simple and moving. Editors: The Back Room
A bit disappointing, something doesn't quite add up despite promising ingredientsThe Associates: The Affectionate Punch
Somewhat in the shadow of their later work when they had a 'sound' - a slightly more mainstream sound (everything is more mainstream than Fourth Drawer Down...) turned kinky by the famous voice and Rankine's intense sounds. Check out the guitar on Paper House, Transport to Central or Logan Time and you can imagine a future indie Associates still doing the rounds of seedy venues. Instead there were lashings of drugs, magic and tragedy. Probably for the best...Psychedlic Furs: Talk Talk Talk
the only time saxophones ever worked. also the only thing when I was a kid that really drew me to London - something about the seediness and underlife of this is somehow intoxicating - while brutally dismantling Southern life brick by brick. Even a song about the weather...Roddy Frame: Surf
...in which he junked the pseudonym and found his mojo...The Church: Starfish
Never allow yourself to be more than 30 seconds away from a bucketful of Starfish. Transmuting from a jangly dreamland to a wilder, more threatening place, a little snapshot of something completely typical yet completely different- St Johnny: Speed is Dreaming
A fabulous record with incredible urgency interspersed with a few rather good moments of slacker gloom. Opener 'A Car or a Boy' is a sizzling mainfesto - The Czars: Sorry that i made you cry
ACHTUNG! Includes Abba cover version. Angel Eyes - go on admit you love it really... Simple Minds: Sons and Fascination
how did it all go so very, very wrong?? I queued outside John Menzies in Motherwell from 5am the day this was released to get the free album Sister Feelings Call. Now you can get it free on the same CD - progress!Jack Frost: Snow Job
the open: silent hours
Bit self-important at times, but great if you're in the moodBloc Party: Silent Alarm
Quite GoodThe Sound: Shock of Daylight
The last great album they produced, in my opinion, short but optimistic. Now firmly in the DNA of Interpol, Killers etc and sure to be the next big old thing once Gang of Four or whoever have been disposed of, but perhaps all too painful after what happened to Adrian Borland [chucked himself under a Wimbledon train couple of years ago, for those not paying attention]constantines: shine a light
Joe Strummer's energy and anger somehow bottled up somewhere in CanadaMagazine: Secondhand Daylight
Menacing and brooding, a monster...In contrast to Unknown Pleasures below, a prime example of why it is 'a good thing' to be good boys and learn to play your instruments properly. But also to be just a bit mental.Stone Roses: Second Coming
Looking back, so much better than given credit forThe Chameleons: Script of the Bridge
Started listening to this after realising who The Killers reminded me of - several great tracks, though some dullards tooThe Skids: Scared to Dance
Pure adrenalin and sounds better every yearSteve Kilbey: Remindlessness
the best album ever. rambling, melodic, philosophical, experimental - heck who needs drugs just listen to this fr gawdz sake things will never be the same again...Simple Minds: Reel to Real
Difficult to imagine, unless you were there at the time, that this was the most avant garde, inspiring band of their era - and this was their manifesto, with a searing, claustrophobic sound.UNKLE: Psyence Fiction
Seems to be universally written off now, but I love the darkness and nervousness of thispsychedelic furs: psychedelic furs
please don't follow amazon's link to this as it's fucked and americanised. blazing genius all over this - from opening India and Sister Europe to the freeform Blacks/Radio- Tricky: Pre-millenium tension
Not only, but largely, for 'Makes me wanna die' - - but the rest is great stuff; stiflingly claustrophobic and smoky compared to Maxinquaye The Cure: Pornography
The high point of a patchy career, sounds like a tiger ripping flesh. Oooohh... I used to work Friday nights and Saturday mornings aged 14/15, and was sustained by this, which I used to sing (silently) to myself. Pre-Walkman. Sorry, does this sound disturbing? 'A Strange Day' and the guitar rif on Hundred Years still among the great moments, and the end of the latter when his head bursts open.............. sorryPlanxty: Planxty
An electrifying blast through the dark netherlands of folk, almost punk in its self-confidence, almost classical in its technical brilliance. Duff Amazon link - get the original debut Planxty- The Refo:mation: Pharmakoi
spaced out and pixelated British Sea Power: Open Season
Second Schmecond Album SyndromeU2: October
A beautiful, melancholy and misty record which could have been paid the price for extremely sentimental religious lyrics, but just about keeps its head above water.- JLK: Nothing More Than Something to Wear
self-contained narratives, like spending a few hours telling stories over a bottle of wine... - Lotion: Nobody's Cool
The Sleepy Jackson: Lovers
You have to own this. It is real genius ... Like everything and nothing...The Cult: Love
As an devotee of the Southern Death Cult I avoided this rockist sell-out for years before buying it in a moment of weakness and has been glued to the Walkman since - another of these junction moments when a band of real intuitive genius is just about to go right off the rails but finds the magic spot at the last possible moment (see also Simple Minds, Psychedelic Furs, Catherine Wheel)Lords of the New Church: Lords of the New Church
Bonkers ranting about the Actor Pope Fraud Conspiracy and similar loony stuff. Some good stuff such as Russian Roulette and Holy War perhaps even enhanced by the full-on mentalism...The Flaming Lips: Late Night Tales
Some keys to lunacies...My Morning Jacket: It Still Moves
I have spent my life detesting Southern rocky bollix. But this does it for me. Have I changed, or has Southern rock bollix?Isidore: Isidore
Late contender for best release of 2004. You will not be surprised to learn the Amazon link is to some blues dude, not Isidore...Twisty backwards loops and mind-expanding words...try karmichit.com...and don't miss the hidden 'no passage'Grant McLennan: In your bright ray
Fabulous slice of Aussie summer cut with something somewhat strongerThe Sound: In The Hothouse
Not a great fan of live albums, but this is great record of a great band at their best, and some tracks (notably Total Recall) far better than the studio versions.Virgin Prunes: If I die, I die...
Written off as art school loonies, really just the late 20th edition of a millenium of Irish folk dreaming and fighting. Sounds like a gimmick, but the rocky 'blue side' and earthy 'brown side' spark each other perfectly. Sadly the curse of the bonus track CD strikes with crap sprinkled randomly over the near perfection of the original. AS the man said; 'Yer mad, yer mad, yer a weirdo...'- Girls against boys: House of girls against boys
Wonderful, wonderful... The Killers: Hot Fuss
Extraordinary Vegas thang...mmm...The Church: Heyday
Jangling from the darkness of Myrrh to the sunshine of Already YesterdayEcho and the Bunnymen: Heaven Up Here
Fab compressed, sparse sound makes this my favourite bunnyRadiohead: Hail to the Thief
the cover looks like a fucked mekkoSimon and Garfunkel: Greatest Hits
Featuring some of the greatest songs ever. On their early albums they look cool, but you wouldn't say that of this one, would you?Arcade Fire: Funeral
Hugely imaginative, if a bit morbid, multi-instrumental collectionPosies: Frosting on the Beater
Some people thought these were grungies, but actually a well-disguised pop band [a good thing, in this case]Frank Black: Frank Black
Downhill from here on Frank's solo run - watch out for more dodgy Amazon behaviour here and get the orange album. Can only assume he saved up these songs as private stuff during 8 years or whatever of Pixying, them blurted out the rest in Teenager of the Year - this is an absolute classic.Associates: Fourth Drawer Down
Should never have been an album, but now that it is, astonishingly mind-expanding. I got my hair cut like his once, but looked like a twat.The Church: Forget Yourself
Was never going to be the whole that AENT was, but remains a great bit of music - Sealine and telepath true Church classics - See Your Lights and Appalacia 'the other ones' best contributions since StarfishProdigy: Fat of the Land
Now you'll laugh at me but...The Cure: Faith
My music teacher at school was pretty fearsome, old-fashioned voice-projectionist who despised girls but was extremely encouraging towards boys. As a kind of teenage version of the 'bring your toys into school last day of term thing' we were allowed to play our favourite records in class - of course she dissed everything as tuneless crap until it was my turn and I played 'All cats are grey' and the title track of this, which made her cry.Soundtrack of our Lives: Extended Revelation
Bonkers/brilliantJim O'Rourke: Eureka
Wonderful music, nauseating picture...engineers: engineers
Would have benefited from sturdier foundations (geddit?)The Church: El Momento Descuidado
Lazy bastards' fourth album of '04, and strangely compelling...pugwash: earworm
xtc died and went to ireland- Irian Jaya: Dogs in the Neon
...must be in the genes, man... Sonic Youth: Dirty
This was their finest hour...David Bowie: Diamond Dogs
A bit peculiar/paradoxical one this as allegedly a kind of futurist concept album, but some of the stuff on it, esp Sweet Thing is Bowie's most human everMercury Rev: Deserter's Songs
After years of hallucinatory fog the Rev came up with this and it sounds like they were born to do it. Lots of funny puns too...British Sea Power: Decline of British Sea Power
Maritime imagery, nostalgia, sprinking of grandiosity and a cosy nationalistic glow don't sound too promising but this works.Steve Kilbey: Dabble
Literally a bit of a studio sesh stroll, but charming, at least to the thoroughly convertedThe Clash: Combat Rock
The truly boundary-pushing Clash album, in my humble etcJoy Division: Closer
whisper, but most of this CD is crap. however, means2anend, 24hours and decades are 3 of the best things mankind has ever achievedCatherine Wheel: Chrome
An undiscovered classic, another band that went on to shitier things, but had a moment of near perfection. Unbelievably piss poor packaging.- John Kilbey: Catching some Z's
Rumoured narcotic effects prove correct, and if you retain consciousness you're likely to be feeling very mellow indeed... Killing Joke: Brighter than a thousand suns
I suppose the maddest and most intelligent people ever to get on my radar, and still banging stuff out. I interviewed them back in 1985 immediately after an exhausting gig and they were utterly charming and controlled and, frankly, intimidating. This album was different from the rest in that it had a certain softness and optimisim, even fondness for life that always seemed to be a bit of an unmentionable in JokeWorld. Then Coleman starts shouting about Crossing the Rubicon and it's all apocalyptic business as usualCampag Velocet: Bon Chic Bon Genre
Roundly laughed at by most, but grand Fursesque geetar and hours of fun trying to fathom what he's on about. Now has large beard, i believe...- The Church: Beside Yourself
Extraordinary effort for a so-called 'outtakes'/b-sides (get it? - haha) with 'nervous breakthrough' a different take on reality (did he really do that?) that is really a bit haunting Sugar: Beaster
ouch! - the dark side of Copper Blue, this was the last bit of vinyl I ever boughtTeenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque
A CD to remind you what being young and stupid was like, though now an old and intelligent CD itselfGrand Mal: Bad Timing
Filthy filthy people who you wouldn't want to live within a mile of. Dismalist phoneys eg Strokes would pay millions of Daddy's dollars to be this fucked-upDeath in Vegas: Back to Mine
Eclectic and yet esoteric- Miss V: Appearing tonight
Interpol: Antics
Despite being very cool, also very good. Not even jail will tug on a heart valve of any sentient being born in the late '60s (ie teenager in the early '80s)Ambulance ltd: Ambulance ltd
Best of '05 so farMercury Rev: All is dream
Indeed a dreamlike follow-up to Deserter's Songs - a wistful, sometime orchestral, sometimes grandiose but more often fragile thing of great beauty. Some of the more delicate, self-critical stuff such as Lincoln's Eyes is fabulous. After decades of mad psychedlic thrashing, all the more remarkable.The Church: After Everything Now This
...after 20 years the Church's most coherent, relaxed, positive work.Black Love : Afghan Whigs
Dulli's unique take on punk/grunge-soul descending, as ever, into gross-out self-loathing...Blue Nile: A Walk Across the Rooftops
Flat timeless echodesert sessions: 9 & 10
Josh Homme + PJ Harvey sounds scary but this is sublime in partssigur ros: ()
Alarmingly beautiful