1001 Albums Update: 622 and Counting

Right, time to finally knock this one out so I can start making some more progress getting through this list.

• Paul Simon - Paul Simon:  More good stuff from Simon, "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard" in particular is irresistible. Plus it's even got a song called "Duncan" on! Can't tell you how thrilled I am to share my name with a song by one of America's greatest songwriters.

• Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz Gilberto: I'm surprisingly finding myself to be pretty blasé about these samba style jazz albums, perhaps they're a bit too laid back for my tastes. I found it hard to pay attention to this album I'm afraid.

• Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty: Here marked the arrival of one of the best voices of the sixties, as the likes of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" and the Burt Bacharach penned "Anyone Who Had A Heart" and "Wishin' And Hopin' " strode the perfect balance between the Motown soul sound and perfect pop.

• Eagles - Eagles: Lots of great West Coast-style rock on offer here, "Take It Easy" and "Witchy Women" helping define the band's sound that would later really take off commercially with Hotel California.

• Tim Buckley - Greetings From LA, Happy Sad: These two albums seemed to showcase a different, brassier aspect of Buckley's voice than Goodbye And Hello. While Happy Sad was very melodic and romantic, I was very surprised to find Greetings From LA to be so full of funk and R&B influence. I never expected Tim had the likes of "Get On Top" in him.

• The Temptations - All Directions, Cloud Nine:  Two all-out classics here, as The Temptations started to experiment beyond the traditional three minute Motown single formula. All Directions in particular is a triumph, and features probably one of the greatest songs ever recorded in "Papa Was A Rolling Stone".

• Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale, Songs In The Key Of Life, Talking Book

Lots of classic stuff from Stevie here. Hands down the best of the lot here is Songs In The Key Of Life, a brilliant double album that's just a joy to listen to with the likes of the big-band jazz of "Sir Duke". Its influence is such that many have liberally lifted and sampled from songs featured here: "I Wish" was butchered into "Wild Wild West" by Will Smith, while the likes of "As" and "Pastime Paradise" were more successfully used by R Kelly and Coolio respectively.

• The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead, Strangeways Here We Come

It's been hard to avoid noticing Morrissey's autobiography came out last week. Personally I think the best thing that's come out of it so far is Peter Serafinowitz singing the opening page to the tune of "William, It Was Really Nothing"

The other thing I found interesting was apparently the part of the book covering the court case where Smiths drummer Mike Joyce (ace name) won a quarter of the group's earnings is about four times as long as the part covering Moz's time actually in The Smiths. If true, that's a real shame - it's as if he's letting the bitterness of the dispute over his work in the band overshadow what he achieved as a part of that band. Between the two of them, The Queen Is Dead (incidentally named the best album of all time by the NME this week) and Strangeways... had songs that would establish Morrissey as one of the best wordsmiths of his time (and anytime). "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and "Girlfriend In A Coma" are all songs that thankfully will outlive any bitterness Moz has in his life.

• Penguin Orchestra Café - Music From The Penguin Orchestra Café: This I more like the kind of instrumental music that can hold my attention, as unique a listen as you'd hope for given a title like that.

• Curtis Mayfield - There's No Place Like America: Similar to Superfly in its bleak subject matter, yet lacking some of that record's polish as Mayfield attempted to avoid the influence of disco music. I much prefer something like What's Going On? personally.

• Fatboy Slim - You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Oh boy does this contain lots of childhood memories - "Right Here, Right Now", "The Rockerfeller Skank", "Gangster Tripping" and the incomparable "Praise You" are all present and correct and all are essential listening.

• Primal Scream - Screamadelica

 Primal Scream have always been a hard group to pin down stylistically. On this, their most celebrated album, they not only ride the "Madchester" wave of the time with the likes of "Higher Than The Sun" but go through psychedelia (appropriately) with "Come Together" and the simply glorious, gospel tinged trippy dream of "Movin' On Up". It's vibrant sleeve is also a great, juvenile icon of the time.

• Mott The Hoople - Mott

One could be harsh and say Mott The Hoople were more famous for who they knew rather than what they did in music - David Bowie famously lent them their biggest hit "All The Young Dudes" (interestingly they could have had "Suffragette City" if they wished). But this album shows they could stand out of the shadow of their famous friends. "All The Way To Memphis" and "Honaloochie Boogie" in particular are great slices of post T Rex rock.

• John Martyn - Solid Air, One World: Listening to Guy Garvey's radio show for several years has helped me appreciate the work of John Martyn a lot more. Right up there with friend & contemporary Nick Drake as one of the standouts of British folk, I love his "after hours" voice.

• Nick Drake - Bryter Layter: Speaking of Drake, here he is with a record that almost matches his excellent Five Leaves Left LP, "Northern Sky" being the standout.

• Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair: Bit overly long for my liking, despite featuring the great "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World".

• The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

This album kicked off a real golden period for the Stones musically. Despite featuring well known classics "Sympathy For The Devil" and "Street Fighting Man", the highlight for me was "No Expectations", featuring some brilliant guitar play from Brian Jones, who would sadly pass away the next year after drowning in his pool a mere month after being let go by the band due to his drug issues.

• Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star: I think Something/Anything raised my expectations of what Rundgren is capable of a bit too much, as I didn't find this album delivered everything it promised.

• Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones: I could do without the call backs to Captain Beefheart, but once again I'm unexpectedly enjoying Waits' work, his voice captivating me much more than I thought it would.

• Santana - Abraxas: Black Magic Woman ooh yeeeah.

• The Jesus And Mary Chain - Psychocandy: Sad to say after Darklands left me pleasantly surprised, Psychocandy was more like what I expected out of a J&MC album. My ears hurt.

Also impressing me this time around were;

• Bert Jansch - Bert Jansch
• Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will The Circle Be Unbroken
• Stephen Stills - Manassas
• Alice Cooper - School's Out
• Traffic - Traffic
• Joni Mitchell - Hejira, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
• Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
• T-Rex - Electric Warrior
• Pixies - Bossanova
• Sonic Youth - Evol, Dirty

While I was slightly disappointed by;

• New York Dolls - New York Dolls
• Air - The Virgin Suicides OST
• Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express

Sexism & Music - Plus 1001 Albums Update: 580 & Counting

Well, it's been a while since I touched this blog. Other things in life took over for a while. Lots has happened since I last posted, and I'm actually well into the 600s with my 1001 albums challenge. I'll update you a bit about that below, and I'll do another proper post about some of the albums I heard over summer I can remember more about.

Before that though, I'd like to touch on a subject I've been contemplating writing about for a good long while: is it just me, or does it feel like misogyny and sexism in music is more rampant than ever?

This topic was brought to my attention once more after reading an excellent article on the Guardian website by Lauren Mayberry, vocalist in Glaswegian synth-poppers Chvrches. In the post, Lauren covers the kind of comments that get directed towards her on social media from "admirers" - from the plain naïve (the person propositioning her for dinner because "I think we'd make superior love together") to the more graphic ("I'd fuck the accent right out of her and she'd love it") and of course our good old friend rape culture ("This isn't rape culture. You'll know rape culture when I'm raping you, bitch"). Mayberry also points out neither of her male bandmates receive this kind of attention.

Granted the objectification of women isn't exactly new, but with the anonymity certain parts of the internet gives us consequently leading to the rise of trolling, some people feel the need now more than ever to share their stone-age opinions of women with the world. I honestly don't know how someone can feel they've found their calling in life informing female music personalities of how they'd "give them one", but it's clear that there are people like this who exist.

What dismays me even more, however, is when music itself actually appears to encourage these attitudes. Yes I am of course referring to THAT song and THAT video that lead to THAT MTV VMA performance: "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke.

I have several reasons for hating said song. Not only did it make Robin Thicke, the older, crapper Justin Timberlake, a thing again and completely rip off Marvin Gaye, but it seemed to go out of its way to become the most sexist piece of media in history. If music were fashion, this song and its video would be one of those horribly inappropriate Topman slogan shirts.

The music video, where all the women are topless while the men involved stay fully clothed because, you know, that's just how the music industry works, is bad enough. But the two big refrains in the chorus are absolutely horrendous. "You're a good girl" - the implication being "you'll do what you're told " (or else). "I know you want it" - exactly what all those #LADS say when the girl BLATANTLY doesn't want it but #LAD is too proud to admit that's the case. Real stoneage stuff.

The success of "Blurred Lines" led to two more incidents that left a sour taste in my mouth. The first was when ACTUAL Justin Timberlake decided to make similar use of gratuitous nudity in his video for "Tunnel Vision", in some sort of nod to how Thicke essentially owes his whole career to ripping off Trousersnake's sound or something. Granted, JT's effort is perhaps trying to be more "James Bond film opening credits" that Thicke's, and at least the women don't actually share a room with Justin & Timberland so they're not crawling all over them and being gawped at like they would have been in Thicke's video.
But it was still a miss-step in my book and made Justin seem behind the curve when in actuality, his music is vastly superior to Thicke's. Alas, the damage was done, and in the UK at least "Tunnel Vision" didn't even scrape the top 40 (a damn shame, it was the best track off his first "20/20 Experience" album) and then when follow up single "Take Back The Night" (which stalled around the 30 mark in the charts) had the misfortune of sharing its name with an anti-rape charity, said anti-rape charity became furious when it turned out the song's lyrics weren't "SEXUAL VIOLENCE IS WRONG" said on repeat.

The second incident, I'm sure I don't have to go into detail. In fact, why don't we let the pictures tell the story for us

What irked me about this performance was how some segments of the media were quick to point out how inappropriate it was for Miley to be doing this to a 36 year old husband and father ("Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!?!") yet completely forgot about the fact that Thicke effectively endorsed this kind of behaviour by making the "Blurred Lines" video.
I just hope that as a consequence of this there aren't women who watch these kinds of things and think "Ah, so barely wearing any clothes isn't enough to get peoples attention anymore - now you have to barely wear any clothes AND flaunt yourself in front of a man!", because that's the way things seem to be going. I mean Lady Gaga basically only wore a pair of scallops all show and nobody gave a fuck!

Sadly this will no doubt encourage the trolls such as those that made Lauren from Chvches the object of their desires, as their tiny Neanderthal minds can't comprehend that not every attractive woman wants to be the Miley Cyrus to your Robin Thicke.

The moral of the story is, next time you see someone talking about women in stoneage language simply quote Taylor here and tell them this:

1001 Albums Challenge Update

So the reason I'm just listing what I heard is partly because it's been too long since I heard all of these and partly because not a lot in this run really stood out - besides Muddy Waters, Outkasts, The Boo Radleys and, despite any preconceived prejudices I had against them, Bjork and Ryan Adams. I promise I'll talk more about the next lot I listened to

• The Louvin Brothers - Tragic Songs Of Life
• Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs
• Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack
• Muddy Waters - Live At Newport 1960, Hard Again
• Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard
• Morrissey - Vauxhall And I, Your Arsenal, Viva Hate!
• Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba
• Scott Walker - Scott 4
• Fairport Convention - Liege And Lief, Unhalfbricking
• Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind
• Paul Simon - Heart And Bones
• Ray Price - Night Life
• Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
• Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
• The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium
• Missy Elliott - Under Construction
• Ms Dynamite - A Little Deeper
• Jurassic 5 - Power In Numbers
• Ryan Adams - Gold
• Soloman Burke - Rock N Soul
• Bjork - Vespertine, Debut
• Lambchop - Nixon
• Outkast - Stankonia
• Ute Lemper - Punishing Kiss
• Sebadoh - Bubble And Scrape
• The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps
• Red Snapper - Our Aim Is To Satisfy
• Erykah Badu - Mama's Gun

On that note, I bid you adieu and will see you all soon.

An Armchair Viewer's Take On Glastonbury 2013

 

So if you didn't realise it was festival season yet, along came Glastonbury, which should have well and truly set your festival season klaxons off. As usual I was nowhere near organised enough to jump through the hoops they make you tackle if you want tickets, and like most people I've been stuck at home making do with the BBC's coverage.

They've put a generous amount of people's sets up on their website and I've been trawling through them all week. I was disappointed to find some bands' performances weren't online (I'd have loved to have seen First Aid Kit, Jagwar Ma, Suuns and Dog Is Dead in particular), but there was still more up than anyone could feasibly watch.

Anyway, here's my two cents on what I had chance to watch:

• So obviously the big headliner everyone was interested in this year was The Rolling Stones, and understandably their showing has divided opinion. Many are like "Dude they're like 70 WTF? They should quit before they pull a hip out!" while others were more "About time they came to Glasto!"
  I personally enjoyed their set (well, what the Stones allowed the Beeb to broadcast). Even though poor Keef looked a bit lost at times to say the least, and Ronnie and Jagger were basically having to carry the band. I appreciated the lack of any guest stars, especially given the standard of some of them on their US tour (Taylor Swift & Katie Perry, seriously?), and the band weren't totally resting on their laurels with "2000 Light Years" sounding great in a rare outing, and the closing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was about as great as the band are ever going to be in their advancing years.

 

• On the other end of the age-scale were The Strypes. With most of their members still in their mid-teens you'd have forgiven them for being intimidated by the thought of playing the John Peel Stage, but they looked right at home and played with the assurance of men twice their age. A cracking bluesy-rock outfit much in the vein of early Stones, I reckon the odds of these guys headlining a future Glastonbury were slashed after this performance.
  
  Also of note on the John Peel Stage were the uncompromising Savages. Known for taking themselves very seriously, they nevertheless delivered, with the terrific riffs of "She Will", "I Am Here" and "Husbands" coming through in spades. Deap Vally were similarly entertaining and certainly a raucous way to begin an early Sunday afternoon. When they avoided some of their more sub-Jack White numbers they delivered some great good old fashioned rock n roll.
  
  In complete contrast to the moody Savages was the positively giddy  Jessie Ware, who's voice was a delight to hear when she could keep herself from the obligatory "HELLO GLASTONBURY! OMG, YOU'RE SO FAR AWAY!". Her onstage chatter stayed just the right side of endearing ("I once saw Florence [Welsh]" climb that [stage scaffolding]. That ain't happening today!") and when she resisted the urge to get gobby mid-song she outshone her band.

• West Holts Stage featured a fair few acts that were sleeper hits in my book. The vibrant Toro Y Moi had a great outing, aided by some colourful background displays and a funky set list full of really danceable numbers. I'll have to check them out again sometime.
  
  Twitter seemed abuzz with praise for Public Enemy but I'm ashamed to say I gave up after half an hour. With Flavor Flav missing, Chuck D was left to practically carry the load himself. While he's an amazing MC, the fact that he only did his parts of their songs meant you got a couple of verses before he started preaching about "Fuck the Government" and stuff. Sorry, but I wanted to hear music not a lecture.
  
  The undisputed King of West Holts though, was Nile Rodgers, whose band Chic put on possibly the set of the festival. Pure non-stop hits - "Good Times", "I'm Coming Out", "Spacer", even Bowie's "Let's Dance" - you'd be startled these all came from the mind of Rodgers if you weren't dancing so much!

• Some acts needed very little time warming up in the ball-pin so to speak to get in their groove. When Phoenix roared out of the blocks with a blinding "Entertainment", then played "Lisztomania" only a few songs later, I was worried they'd run out of steam and familiar songs pretty quickly. However, they clearly knew what they were doing and went on to deliver a thoroughly likable set.
  Vampire Weekend similarly got right to business and delivered big time with their sharpest, most rambunctious songs like "Cousins", "Diana Young" and "A-Punk" all present and perfectly formed. With the songs from their most recent album, Modern Vampires Of The City particularly shining, they're quickly developing into a must-see act.

 

 

 

• Other bands, however, talk a little while to really settle in. Dinosaur Jr. were unlucky to be beset with technical difficulties at the start, with J Macsis' voice almost inaudible. They never seemed to recover, despite whipping out their cracking cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven".
  
  Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds sounded surprisingly shakey at first, but after a remarkable turnaround midway through "Jubliee Street" - where it morphed into a Pogues style ramshackle breakdown - the band seemed to kick it in a higher gear. "From Her To Eternity", "Jack The Ripper" and "Stagger Lee" (where Cave seemed to have hypnotised a young woman in white in the crowd on someone's shoulders) were all staggering (apologies for the pun), while "People Ain't No Good" and "Push The Sky Away" were delightful and poignant.
  
  Unsurprisingly given some of her health issues and past on-stage breakdowns Cat Power didn't appear to start out her set in the best of voice. She covered for herself pretty smartly however, by keeping many of the heavier songs from her recent Sun album prominent in her set so that her voice didn't have to do all the work. This bought her the time she needed to settle in and give a really terrific performance with the likes of "Manhattan", the recently emerged "Bully" and "Nothin' But Time" all sounding gorgeous.

• Honourable mentions must also go out to Portishead for a brilliant set that included a fantastically evil image of David Cameron with frickin' laserbeams coming out of his eyes during the equally unnerving "Machine Gun", Arctic Monkey for somehow making that string arrangement of "Mardy Bum" work, Rodriguez for the best onstage joke...
  
  So Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are at a marriage counsellors office, and the marriage counsellor turns to Mickey and says, "But Mickey, being stupid is not grounds for divorce". And Mickey said "I didn't say she was being stupid, I said she was fucking Goofy"
  
  ...and a dishonourable mention must unfortunately go out to alt-J for their terrible mash up of "Slow" by Kylie Minogue and Dr Dre.

 The thing is though there's still so much more to check out. I've still yet to see Lianne Le Havas, Haim, Smashing Pumpkins, Peace, Daughter and Bobby Womack to name but a few.
It's this kind of range and depth of artists performing that really make Glastonbury the best festival in the world. I'd love to go some day, but for now I'll make do with what the BBC has generously left at my fingertips.

David Bowie Is A Work Of Art

This past weekend I grinned and bared the queasy feeling travelling on the pendilino gives me to venture down to London. I'd been looking forward to this trip for a long while and one of the things I was determined to do there was visit the V&A to attend the "David Bowie Is" exhibition.

Doing so was actually quite an undertaking - online tickets had sold out due to phenomenal demand, with 67,000 tickets sold in advance making it the V&A's biggest box office attraction for advanced booking, and the exhibition has now received over 200,000 visitors.

The only tickets still available were the 450 released daily at the V&A itself. On the Friday of my trip I arrived a little over 20 minutes before the museum opened and this is the queue I was faced with...

David Bowie is making me queue

In addition the ticket desk only had three tills, so I was in this queue for a good 80 minutes before - for the grace of God and the 430 bus to South Kensington I'd caught earlier - I had my ticket! Having booked for as late in the evening as I could, I then commuted to my conference on a cloud of optimism (which in reality was a Picadilly Line service to Green Park) and looked forward to meeting my friend and coming back for the exhibition.

At the start of the exhibition you are given a handheld audio guide, which interacts with the displays. So for instance, if you wandered over to the section on the "Berlin era", you'd hear the audio accompanying a video of an interview Bowie gave at the time about how he was at last enjoying life and how he was expressing himself with his paintings. 

(I loved the Berlin-era, you could really tell David was a lot healthier and his hair was lovely and fair in contrast to the lurid blond dye of the Thin White Duke era.)

This was a nice accompaniment, although quite often the audio would kick in when you were around the corner from the relevant display, so for example you'd wonder why as you headed further into the gallery you could hear snippets of "Boys Keep Swinging" before seeing it was part of an overview of David's androgyny.

Naturally much of the start of the exhibition was devoted to David's upbringing - to my friend's delight he grew up in Bromley, Kent just like her - along with early inspirations such as Elvis Presley and Lonnie Donegan (to paraphrase a quote from Bowie "Elvis made me want to be in music, Lonnie Donegan inspired me into thinking I actually could be a musician") and his first forays into music with The Kon-Rads and Davie Jones And The King Bees (he later changed his stage name to David Bowie to avoid being confused with Davy Jones of The Monkeys)

 Also prominent in welcoming you to the exhibition was this outfit Kansai Yamamoto created for David...

 

Yamamoto-San's work would also be prominent later on, including many outfits inspired by Bowie's love of Kabuki (a form of Japanese theatre) - one in particular left little to the imagination with its short length.

The layout of the 300 plus items on offer followed a roughly chronological order - from breakthrough hit "Space Oddity" to rough notes planning the "Diamond Dogs" tour and storyboards for the "Hunger City" film said album would have inspired, via the Ziggy Stardust era and - one of my favourite items on display - the jumpsuit he wore during his star making performance of "Starman" on Top Of The Pops. 

(Said song is one of my earliest musical memories - I once sang it when my mum took me out in my buggy past what would later be my primary school. My singing drew the attention of my future Headmaster, who according to mum had a look on his that read "Christ what am I in for if he comes here?!")

"I had to phone someone so I picked on you"

While you did sort of move through the passage of time as you progressed through the exhibition, the displays were much more thematic than they were a definitive timeline of David's career. Although said themes did re-occur when he underwent a significant metamorphosis in his career (which happened a lot!). Prominent examples included:

• His interest in performance art, including encounters with Andy Warhol and forays into mime and an interest in clowns that would come to the fore most during Scary Monsters...)

David Bowie is in full motion

• Technology used for his music, such as the synthesisers he used in Berlin and a curious computer programme that took articles from the Internet and cut up words from then in an attempt to find lyrics - like a digital version of how he used to write lyrics, cut them out on pieces of paper and shuffle them around.

• His use of the music video, with costumes, props and storyboards used in "Ashes To Ashes", "Life On Mars" and "Where Are We Now?"

• Use of androgyny to liberate a generation, especially in the Hunky Dory stage of his career and inspiration from Japan and the drag artists of Berlin.

• Fashion (obviously) - the place was littered with his outfits, with many of my favourites being from his "Stage" tour and many of the simple black and white suits from the Thin White Duke era. The further into the exhibition you got the more the focus became his live outfits, accompanied by massive screens showing infamous performances such as the final leg of the "Ziggy Stardust" tour where he broke up the Spiders From Mars on stage (without telling them beforehand!). Another eye-catcher was a ridiculous outfit he wore on SNL to promote the "Stage" tour which made him look like a bottle of maple syrup dressed in a tuxedo.

David Bowie is the height of fashion

• Album artwork, with lots of great images from the shoots for Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, a massive print of the Scary Monsters sleeve and lots of interesting prototypes to The Next Day artwork.

• His film career, with posters and paraphernalia from "The Man Who Fell To Earth", "Labyrinth" and a bizarre film where he was cast as Andy Warhol.

David Bowie is The Man Who Fell To Earth

With so much to look at it was a good job I didn't attend on a day when they only gave out timed tickets, my friend and I spent two hours taking it all in!

I'd be hard pressed to name a favourite item/aspect of the exhibition, but for me seeing a lot of the handwritten stuff was a particular delight. Below are two examples - David's hand-drawn storyboard for the "Ashes To Ashes" video and rough lyrics to "Lady Stardust". Just something about these types of items added a human element to proceedings - Bowie's so often wrapped up in extraordinary characters, make-up, outfits and concepts it can be easy to think of him as being not of this planet. But it was fascinating to see the humble beginnings of some of his most famous work in his scrawled handwriting and sketches.

"David Bowie Is" runs at the V&A until August 11th before being toured 'round the globe starting in Toronto. I thoroughly recommend it for any Bowie obsessive and urge you to try and make it before it closes.

1001 Albums Update: 548 And Counting

So after holding off for so long because of exams 'n' shit (I thought I'd escaped those things ages ago) I've now made another huge chunk of progress in the past fortnight or so. Thanks to the glorious sunsheeeee-iiiiiinah we had the other week this is a little late, but anyway, let's get to it!

• Big Brother & The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills: aka "Janis Joplin sings the hell out of every note like her life depended on it".

• Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got: I'm pretty sure going off the absurd title this was during here "burning pictures of the Pope" phase. With music this mundane no wonder she needed such crazy publicity stunts to get by.

• The Who - Live At Leeds/Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly's/James Brown - Live At The Apollo/Deep Purple - Machine Head, Made In Japan

So a whole crop of great live albums turned up this time around.
Of course the one which gets heralded as the holy grail of all live albums is The Who's Live At Leeds. Quite rightly too, as it does what all great live albums should do and that's showcase an act at their peak and giving you a greater energy than they ever could on a studio record. "Summertime Blues" and "My Generation" were incredible. Maximum R'n'B indeed.

Equally powerful was Jame Brown's Live At The Apollo, which illustrated what a well oiled machine him and his touring band were, blistering through the likes of "I'll Go Crazy" and "Night Train".

Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly's is a great illustration of how the live album could showcase a jazz vocalist, with Vaughan sounding sumptuous on "September In The Rain" and hilariously improvising when forgetting the lyrics to "How High The Moon".

Deep Purple's Made In Japan is also talked about fondly, and was one of those rare live albums that proved to be the breakthrough for the band (that's how good the album was). Although listening to their best studio album Machine Head it's hard to see why people weren't getting it at first, "Highway Star" and "Smoke On The Water" were immense.

• M.I.A. - Kala: 

I love M.I.A. Her albums can be a bit patchy, but Kala in particular has a real potent mix of badassery ("XR2"), charm ("Jimmy") and flat out infectiousness ("Boyz", "Paper Planes") that makes for a great listen.

Also, this reminds me of the time my friend found this picture on Myspace(!) years ago:

As some of you know I'm a massive R.E.M. fan, so this picture put a massive smile on my face. It brought an even bigger one to my face when said friend said "This could so be us in 10 years time". I'd be the one looking like Michael Stipe, obviously, there's no way I'll ever look as good as Maya!

• Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland, Axis:Bold As Love, Are You Experienced?

Oh boy, to say I was looking forward to hearing these would be an understatement. It's hard to think of Hendrix as being on the same planet as most other musicians, he was in a league of his own at playing guitar.


Axis:Bold As Love was perhaps the trippiest of the bunch and perhaps didn't make as strong an impression as the other two, but "Little Wing" and "If 6 Was 9" are undeniably great.
Electric Ladyland is full of the blistering riffs and highlights the incredible command Jimi had of his guitar - "Crosstown Traffic", "All Along The Watchtower" and my all time favourite Hendrix song "Voodoo Child" all stand out as you'd expect.
For me though Are You Experienced? is the best of the lot. Truly one of the great debut albums, tracks like "Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Fire" and "Third Stone From The Sun" illustrate how masterful Jimi could fuse psychedelia and funk in with incredible guitar play.

• Korn - Follow The Leader 

I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to this. I think I'm developing a taste for heavier music. "Freak On A Leash" is fantastic, possibly usurps their appearance in South Park as their biggest triumph. Well, only narrowly.

• Elvis Presley - Elvis Is Back!: You bet your arse he's back! Although in hindsight the tracks I most enjoyed/the more famous tracks ("Are You Lonesome Tonight", "It's Now Or Never") only appeared on the reissue. Ah well.

• Miriam Makeba - Miriam Makeba: This was an unexpected gem. South Afirca's Makeba mixes both America and African style jazz to great effect. Really stands out from what other female singers were doing at the time.

• Michael Jackson - Thriller

Here's Jacko's magnum opus. The title track probably seems a bit campy now, but all the other big hitters - "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", "The Girl Is Mine", "Billy Jean", "P.Y.T." - still sound terrific. There's a reason this sold a gazillion records and it's not just because of how well Jackson's image was marketed (at the time anyway), it's because this is an album full of classics.

• Duran Duran - Rio

It'll probably depend on who you asked but these guys either defined the best or the worst of the 80s. Personally I enjoyed it but couldn't escape the feeling I should feel guilty about it. This also brings back memories of that parody of the title track they did on The Now Show taking the mick out of Rio Ferdinand when he got banned that time. I tried to get it to catch on with my mates but had no luck.

• Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring 

Here's another act Guy Garvey's been trying to convince me are amazing and it's only just sunk in that they really are. This album was much easier to get into than their other stuff I've heard, much less synths and much more real sounding. "Life's What You Make It" in particular is pretty powerful.

• The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out: More like timeless. Often imitated, never bettered, this album is the pinnacle of jazz. "Take Five" and "Unsquare Dance" are now so ubiquitous you can't imagine life without them.

• Ali Farka Toure - Savane, Talking Timbuktu (with Ry Cooder): These albums are the very definition of chill out music. Fantastic guitar play and such a relaxing pace.

• Amy Winehouse - Back To Black

Well I was dreading this. I'm not a big fan of Amy Winehouse to say the least. I absolutely cannot stand the title track to this album. It got overplayed horrendously on radio except with "kept his dick wet" and "you love coke and I love blow" censored which made it sound even more ridiculous. C'mon, either be the retro-heartache chanteuse or be the sleazy classless druggie, don't try and pull both off at the same time.

The only tracks of hers I ever enjoyed were "You Know I'm No Good" and "Love Is A Losing Game" because Winehouse kept those two personalities completely separate. The latter being utterly timeless and proof that her voice was something to behold when clean.
Anyway I'm glad I got that off my chest.

• Morrissey - You Are The Quarry: This is often heralded as a great return to form for Moz, but I really didn't think this was anything special. Nothing lyrically holds a candle to his past work. "First Of The Gang To Die" is great though.

• Ozomatli - Street Signs: Well this one came out of nowhere for me. An absolutely fantastic blend of rock, gypsy, Moroccan and Latino jazz and hip-hop. The diversity alone makes this a complete and utter triumph, but the intensity of the delivery is the icing on the cake.

• Big Star - #1 Record: You need a lot of guts to give your album that title, but boy was this an enjoyable album. Really sweet and harmonic. Top class stuff.

• Kanye West - College Dropout

When I was at school Kanye used to irritate the hell out of me by putting vocal samples in his records and then rapping over them while the samples were still singing. It gave me a headache, especially "Through The Wire". But eventually I got used to it, and even at the time I got really into the likes of "Slow Jamz" (which featured Twista - whatever happened to him? He was one of my favourite MCs growing up) and "Jesus Walks". This and Late Registration will always be my favourite work of Kanye's.

• Missy Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly

I didn't realise Timberland did any vocals whatsoever before he worked with Justin Timberlake. Still as per usual it's his beats that stand out, and Missy is more than capable enough of an MC to make something even greater out of them.

• Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness: I enjoyed this record but not as much as Siamese Dream. There's some of their best work on here like "Tonight, Tonight" and "1979" but the trouble is this is a double album, and at time it really drags in my view.

• The Cardigans - First Band On The Moon: Before crime drama, Scandanavia's top export was good quality pop music, like this gem from The Cardigans. Nina Persson's voice has always been a favourite of mine, and really is delightful on the likes of "Lovefool".

• Pet Shop Boys - Very: I can't hear "Go West" without singing "Oooo-arrrrrrr! It's Ambrosia!"

• Frank Black - Teenager Of The Year: A.K.A Pixies' lead singer Black Francis. Ignore the Operation Yewtree-baiting title and just enjoy the exhilarating guitars at play.

• The Isley Brother - 3+3: Regular readers who aren't bots trying to share malware with me will probably have gathered I love me a bit of disco and soul. So unsurprisingly I adored this record. "Summer Breeze" sounded fantastic in the good weather the other week.

Also impressing me this time around were;

• Joanna Newsom - Ys
• Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
• The Everly Brothers - A Date With The Everly Brothers
• John Prine - John Prine 
• Count Bassie - The Atomic Mr Bassie 
• Jack Elliott - Jack Takes The Floor 
• Ray Charles - The Genius Of Ray Charles
• Air - Moon Safari

While these leaved a little to be desired

• The Icarus Line - Penance Soiree
• Method Man - Tical
• Marylin Manson - Antichrist Superstar
• Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
• Simple Minds - New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84 
• John Lee Hooker - The Healer 
• Leftfield - Leftism
• Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust, Dig Your Own Hole

So, time to get cracking on with the other 452 then. See you round.

1001 Albums Update: HALF WAY THERE! 500 Down, 500 To Go

So I've actually been sitting on this total for a while now (since the end of April) but had to stop because of exams, but now they're over so it's high time I gave you a rundown of what got me to the half way point!

• Tom Waits - Raindogs, Nighthawks At The Diner: Waits' voice is an acquired taste, but Raindogs is probably his most melodic and varied work, "Time" in particular is sublime. Nighthawks At The Diner, meanwhile, is a live album and showcases Waits at the top of his game as a beatnick - very loose and merry listen.

• Kiss - Destroyer: First time listening to a Kiss album, perhaps my expectations were too high. "Detroit Rock City" aside this was disappointing.

• Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

This has been on a Spotify playlist of mine for what feels like forever, and I could never remember if I'd heard it the whole way through before now. There's delightful gems here like "Two Weeks" - I think the album could do with more songs of that ilk, a lot seemed pretty anonymous.

• Portishead - Third: Well this was a mighty disappointment next to Dummy. They made us wait an awful long time for this record too. Shows it doesn't always pay to be perfectionists I guess.

• Radiohead - In Rainbows

I've already mentioned my previous prejudices against Radiohead, and to be honest lots of it stemmed from this record. I couldn't stand their little "pay what you want" download launch for this album, just struck me as a massive publicity stunt and put me off bothering with this from the start.
But now I'm older and slightly less fussy I adore this record. I think it's the best of their career and succeeds much better than OK Computer did in marrying their older rockier work (see "Bodysnatchers") with a more experimental direction ("Weird Fishes") along with moments of starkness ("Videotape") and tenderness (the stand-out track "House Of Cards").
So now I'm the proud owner of two Radiohead albums, something I never thought I'd say at age 17.

• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory/Q-Tip - The Renaissance

The Low End Theory is often heralded as a high point in sophisticated hip-hop, and certainly all the MCs in Tribe have brilliant flow and mesmerising wordplay, but nothing really stuck with me as much as I felt it should.
Tribe's breakout star, Q-Tip, is still pretty awesome though and The Renaissance blew me away. I remember hearing "Gettin' Up" in the days when I still religiously listened to Zane Lowe's show and getting really into it - yet somehow I never tracked this album down until now. Listening to it makes me wish I'd bought it all those years ago. A real high point in modern hip-hop.

• The White Stripes - Elephant: Another band that annoyed the heck out of my when I was younger. Couldn't stand "Seven Nation Army" and something about it still irritates me to this day, sorry. There's flashes of brilliance and flashes of trash here - no better illustrated than the dire "Ball And Biscuit" being followed up by the terrific "The Hardest Button To Button".

• My Bloody Valentine - Loveless: This veered from brilliant to ear-piercingly unbearable a few times too many for my liking. Although this album has basically made shoegaze cool, which I guess I should be thankful for seeing as so many of the artists I like are going down that road.

• Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, Time Out Of Mind

OK, Time Out Of Mind aside (it was very late in his career and his voice was too shot to do what I think he wanted with that album) you've got four of the greatest albums ever here. It's amazing how many artists Dylan's work inspired - I mean listening to these made me think "Why doesn't everyone just give up? There's no way this isn't the pinnacle of songwriting surely?"

Take The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The first three tracks are "Blowin' In The Wind", "Girl From The North Country" and "Masters Of War". Three absolute stone cold classics that would sound relevant and pertinent hundreds of years from now. But does he stop there? Of course not, it's Bob fucking Dylan, he goes and adds "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Corinna, Corinna" to proceedings, just in case there was any doubt who the boss around here.

Bringing It All Back Home sees him start to expand beyond simply him and his guitar with the furious  "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Maggie's Farm", "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".

He doesn't even stop there either - ever the pioneer, Dylan realised a single album couldn't contain the ideas in his head, and hence came Blonde On Blonde, the world's first double LP, with yet more classics like "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", "Visions Of Johanna", "Just Like A Woman" ans "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)".

Then, not content with dominating the 60s, Dylan decides he's got another Magnum Opus in him in the 70s in the form of Blood On The Tracks featuring "Tangled Up In Blue", "Simple Twist Of Fate" and "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go".

THIS is music you have to hear before you die alright!

• PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea: Another artist I'd horribly misjudged in my teens, I thought all Polly's record were chinstroking bullshit, but these two here are both pretty rocking!

• The XX - The XX

I wasn't as head over heels in love with this as everyone said I should be. When they won the Mercury I was a little harsh and joked "Wow, maybe if I mumbled over a base guitar I could win a Mercury too!", but there's a bit more substance here than I found when listening the first time around. Not much though.

• Chic - C'est Chic, Risque

Hey, you know how Daft Punk's new single is so awesome you can't avoid it wherever you go? You know WHY it's awesome? It's because of Nile Rodgers, co-founder of Chic and creator of disco classics. These two album are full of them. Go listen and enjoy!

• Dexy's Midnight Runners - Too Rye Ay, Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

There's more to Dexy's than "Come On Eileen", which features on Too Rye Ay - an album with great strings and horns and other songs like "The Celtic Soul Brothers" that refuse to be ignored. Their debut Searching For The Young Soul Rebels goes from punchy and raging to soulful at the drop of a hat and is pretty darn good too.

• The Coral - The Coral: So breezy, "Dreaming Of You" is one of my favourite songs of last decade. Lots of cool tuneful stuff to go with it here too.

• Tito Puente & His Orchestra - Dance Mania Vol. 1: Is it bad that I still prefer the song he did on The Simpsons to the stuff here?

• Billy Joel - The Stranger: I came into this expecting "Uptown Girl" level cheese, I got classics like "Just The Way You Are" and "She's Always A Woman" instead. Well, that worked out well.

• Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story/ The Faces - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse

Before he released a seemingly endless stream of albums entitled "The Great American Songbook", Rod Stewart put those impressive pipes to use on his breakthrough solo album Every Picture Tells A Story - the title track and "Maggie May" being the real treats. He also did great as frontman of The Faces, with the likes of "Stay With Me" on A Nod... proving very enjoyable.

• Queen Latifah - All Hail The Queen: I had no idea Latifah was such a talented MC, I thought she was just an actress!

• The Fugees - The Score/ Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill: Was a bit disappointed to find so much filler on The Score, but I found Lauryn's solo album much more consistent and enjoyable.

• TLC - Crazy Sexy Cool

TLC were very ahead of their time, I couldn't believe stuff like "Waterfalls" dates all the way back to 1994! They also showed a surprising sense of humour in one of the interludes - a much welcome put down of all of those awkward sex interludes on lots of hip-hop records at the time - where a girl fools a guy into thinking she's having phone sex with him when really she's taking a dump. I know, my sense of humour can be puerile at times!

• Mariah Carey - Butterfly: OK while I'm surprisingly knowledgeable about cheesy 90s & noughties music, I still have my limits. This was it. Go away Mariah.

• Dee-Lite - World Clique: This album is very 90s. Famous as one hit wonders with "Groove Is In The Heart" (which is still irresistible), the rest of the album is very much a relic of its time.

• ZZ Top - Tre Hombres, Eliminator: While Tre Hombres didn't do particularly much for me, Eliminator was an absolute blinder with "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" being standouts.

• The Kinks - Face To Face: How on Earth did I end up disappointed by an album that featured "Sunny Afternoon"?

Other albums which were to my liking were

• Elliot Smith - Figure 8
• Nick Drake - Pink Moon
• Aerosmith - Rocks, Toys In The Attic
• Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca 
• Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine
• Madness - The Rise And Fall
• Haircut 100 - Pelican West
• Kate Bush - The Dreaming
• Little Richard - Here's Little Richard
• The Crickets - The Chirpin' Crickets 
• Orange Juice - Rip It Up (that riff on the title track is just too funky!)

While the following left a fair bit t0 be desired

• 808 State - 90
• Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children (clever title, shame the music didn't live up to it.)
• Nightmares On Wax - Smoker's Delight
• Jungle Brothers - Done By The Forces Of Nature
• Sabu - Palo Congo
• Machito - Kenya
• KLF - The White Room

Right, so only 500 more to go! I can finally get back to finishing this bucket list of bucket list now. Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon. I'm contemplating doing a post about Mad Men next time, especially after this happened






Ta-ra for now.

1001 Albums Update: 443 and counting

So, another fortnight of great progress. There was absolutely tonnes of amazing stuff this time around, I can't remember liking so much of what I heard in one of these updates since I started this challenge.

The albums feature in the book haven't been the only albums I've been enjoying since I last brought you an update.
Thanks to a rather glowing review in The Fly I stumbled across the debut album by California X and found an absolutely brilliant balls out scuzzy rock and roll record. I can't remember the last time an album was really as air-punchingly good on first listen as this was.
I thoroughly recommend you check it out, especially since you can download it from Amazon at an absolute bargain price of £3.49. What are you waiting for? Go get it.

Oh hang on, that's right, wait come back! I've got to let you know about what else I've been listening to first!
So, in no particular order, here's the latest set of albums I can check off my list...

• Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

Cheesy as hell but you've got to love "You Give Love A Bad Name", "Livin' On A Prayer" and "Wanted Dead Or Alive".
Going off on a tangent slightly, we had someone giving a seminar the other day about fluid droplets and he used the term "wettable". Seriously, is that actually a word? It sounds like one of those quasi-words that mathematicians would invent without realising how ridiculous it sounds, like "texify".

• Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Taking The Who's rock-opera concept into overdrive, Bat Out Of Hell gave Meatloaf some of his greatest moments. As a Springsteen fan I was pleasantly surprised to see Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan played on the title track, "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)" and "Paradise By The Dashboard Light".

• Ian Dury - New Boots And Panties!

I bloody love Ian Dury. Ever since I saw him and The Blockheads performing "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" on Top Of The Pops 2 when I was pretty young (like 7 or 8) he really made an impression on me. His lyrics combined with his vocal style made him a truly unique artist - the kind that you'd only find in Britain. "My Old Man" was a particular highlight.

• Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson: I never expected this guy would be the person behind "Without You" ("I caaaan't liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive..."). It was a much livelier affair besides that track though, with lots of perky, quirky pop like "Let The Good Times Roll".

• Derek & The Dominos - Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs: More Clapton-based goodness. As the title suggests though, "Layla" is really the dominant song on this record and leaves the rest of the material here in its wake.

• Sade - Diamond Life: I've been hearing "Smooth Operator" for years without realising that it was Sade's big hit. Can't say much else really stuck with me beyond that revelation.

• Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information: Really enjoyed this, such a smooth record. The title track and "XL-30" (which sounded really familiar) were really great.

• Blur - Parklife, Blur, Modern Life Is Rubbish 

 I'd always seen Blur as more of a singles band, but these three held up really well from start to finish. Blur was a lot more mellow and experimental (though it featured the quickfire "Song 2"), while Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife came at the peak of Britpop and were much jauntier with the likes of "Chemical World", "Advert" and "Girls And Boys".

• Brian Eno - Another Green World: Every Eno album I hear on this list gets progressively better, only to then fizzle out & frustrate me when it should really deliver a knock out blow that sends me head over heels in love. Grrr. 

• Isaac Hayes - Shaft OST: "Hello there, children."

• KD Lang - Ingenue: I literally spent years trying to figure out if KD Lang was a man or a woman. Turns out she's a woman. Pretty good singer too, to say the least.

• Nirvana - In Utero

I know the vast majority of the songs on here from their MTV Unplugged session, so it's slightly odd hearing the likes of "Dumb", "All Apologies" and "Pennyroyal Tea" in these arrangements. Fantastic record though, and the heavier moments like "Serve The Servants" stood out strongly for me too.

• Run DMC - Raising Hell: This was a riot, featuring the likes of "Walk This Way" (the version with Aerosmith) and "It's Tricky", an absolute genius reworking of "My Sharona" by The Knack.

• The Jam - All Mod Cons/Paul Weller - Wild Wood

A couple of delights from the mind of Paul Weller here. I expected  All Mod Cons to have one or two more "hits" (i.e. more of The Jam's most famous tracks) than it had but that didn't stop me enjoying the likes of "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" and a great version of "David Watts" by The Kinks.
Wild Wood is another case where I shouldn't have judged a book by its cover - its title and title track had me expecting a largely acoustic affair. While it was still pretty folky, I enjoyed the richer arrangements on show.

• The Sex Pistols - Nevermind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols

I've mentioned in passing before how I'm not John Lydon's biggest fan, but this record is near as dammit perfect. You can see why this album, in effect, started a revolution.
Lydon's sneering "anti-singing" as Noel Gallagher put it, sounds immense on the likes of "God Save The Queen" and "Anarchy In The UK" ("I-yyyyyyyy am annnnn anti-CHRIST-AH!") while the guitar riffs on "Holiday In The Sun" and "Pretty Vacant" are just to die for. This album isn't just some historical artifact, thsi is the real deal.

• Buzzcocks - Another Music In A Different Kitchen: Anyone who comes up with a title like that automatically wins points from me, but I don't think this quite held up against the other albums from punk's prime I was listening to this time around.

• Wilco - Being There: Much like Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, this was another instant purchase for me upon listening. The likes of "Monday" and "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" were unexpected delights and much heavier tracks than I thought the band were capable of.

• The Undertones - The Undertones: Surprisingly enough this album didn't originally contain "Teenage Kicks", their most famous hit, but boy could it hold up on its own without it with the likes of "Here Comes The Summer" and "Jimmy Jimmy".

• The The - Soul Mining: Only knew them as one of the subjects of a pretty crap Michael McIntyre about the north, but I was left pretty impressed with this album, "This Is The Day" in particular was fantastic.

• Donovan - Sunshine Superman: Turns out the title track's on of those songs I've heard for years (almost certainly on some advert) and not been able to put a name too (I've found lots of these whilst doing this challenge).

• The Mothers Of Invention - We're Only In It For The Money 

Oh Christ, not more Frank Zappa! The frustrating think about this album is that it's quite catchy but it's in fits and starts, so you'd just be getting into one of the tracks when suddenly Zappa comes along with one of his druggie oddball interlude things. So infuriating!

• The Clash - London Calling: An undisputed classic. The title track, "Spanish Bombs", "Lost In The Supermarket" and "Rudie Can't Fail" were all arguable The Clash at their best. The Elvis-referencing sleeve design is iconic too.

• Michael Jackson - Bad

Ch'mon! The production may have dated a little poorly, but Jacko clearly still had a lot left in the tank after Thriller. "Dirty Diana" and "Smooth Criminal" are personal favourites of mine.

• The Zombies - Odessey & Oracle

Another song I can finally put a name to: "Time Of The Season". Great song, the rest of the album is almost just as good - lots of bright jangley guitar pop, a lot more full of life than the band's name suggests.

• Tom Waits - Heartattack And Vine: I wasn't sure this would be my cup of tea since Waits' vocals can be a bit strange, but I really enjoyed this record, "Jersey Girl" and "Mr Siegal" especially were on the money.

• Rufus Wainwright - Want Two: A great illustration of how brilliant Rufus' voice is. "The Art Teacher" is sublime, even if hearing Rufus sing a song from a schoolgirl's perspective is a bit surreal.

Also quenching my thirst for good music were...

• Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
• XTC - Skylarking
• Blondie - Parallel Lines
• The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
• Bob Marley & The Wailers - Catch A Fire, Exodus, Natty Drea
• The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
• King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

While the following left me slightly disappointed:

• Alice In Chains - Dirt
• Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
• Japan - Quiet Life
• The United States Of America - The United States Of America