Ash were one of the Britpop band I heard bits of and quite liked, so picked up the CD when I saw it cheap. For some reason I've barely...

Country rock / Americana music is not my thing. No sir, not at all. Yet something appealed on hearing Chris Isaak's 1990s hit (for some...

Carter USM were a band who seemed to appear from nowhere in the early 1990s, and return there just as quickly. This, their no 1 album...

My first exposure to James was the Sit Down single, which I always associate with it blaring out late at night from a college summer...

A charity CD compilation of songs for children by established artists, which I'd like to say I bought to help Save The Children, but I...

Still looking through the CD drawers of the 'disappeared', I stumble upon Grant Lee Buffalo. I'm guessing a quid in a charity shop as a...

A bit of a break from the chronological march through the years, to look at some of the CDs moved to the upstairs drawers when the...

There was a thriving music scene in Liverpool in the late 1970s based around Eric's Club, a scene I wasn't really aware of and if I had...

So much has been written about Joy Division and Ian Curtis, that I'm not sure I can add anything. I never saw them play, but heard this...

I have no anecdote about first hearing Magazine or this album. It just seems to have always been there, perhaps an influence of...

It had to be this album for 1977, didn't it? A quid in a charity shop, it had to be done. The first time I heard the Sex Pistols was...

I bought this on vinyl at the time. I was already an avid listener to Gong, but I'm not sure I'd made the connection with how much...

I knew nothing of Patti Smith until Because The Night and I saw her at Reading Festival in 1978. I remember feeling disappointed at the high poetry:music ratio, but in my defence, I was young and foolish. While I subsequently warmed to Patti Smith, and understood where she was coming from, I certainly wasn't ready for her debut, Horses in 1975. It opens with Gloria (" Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" - contender for the finest opening line of an album), a glo

By the mid 1980s, I'd rediscovered Robert Wyatt, through his beautiful Shipbuilding single, his song Born Again Cretin on NME's C81...

We're at the 100th album already, and Hawkwind's live epic takes this proud slot. I first heard Hawkwind when Silver Machine hit the...

Another musician that I've respected and admired over the years, rather than loved, has been David Bowie. I've spoken before of how the...

If I have a musical favourite genre, it's the so-called "Canterbury Sound", and Gong, Soft Machine and Robert Wyatt have already...

The Who have always been there. I've always respected them, without loving them. I've probably preferred Pete Townshend's solo work to...

1969 was a busy year for Fairport. They released three albums, arguably their finest three, all excellent, in 1969, this being the first...

I grew up blissfully unaware of the Doors. Vague references to Jim’s mysterious death in the music press, and they seemed to be more of a thing by the late 1970s, as bands started to cite them as influences. And what I’d heard (the hits) I generally liked, which explains why I’ve got a few CDs. The art of randomness throws this one up, but I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to it. And, of course, this is part of the exercise - to make sure that they all get a listen. We start wi