I was late discovering Waits. A friend had lent me Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones , but they hadn’t really made an impression and it...

My first exposure to the Thompsons was via a John Peel show devoted to the Fairport family and associated artists, and I listened to...

In the late 1980s CDs were expensive and it was a commercial proposition for video rental shops (remember them, kids?) to also rent out...

I quite liked Japan without going overboard on them, and really rated Sylvian’s collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto on Forbidden Colours,...

Didn’t we all do it? Listen to Radio Luxembourg in bed when we should have been sleeping? So there are some songs which didn’t make it...

With a couple of interruptions I’m trying to go through the earliest album of artists I’ve enjoyed enough to buy multiple albums, and...

Burt Bacharach died today. He’s a man whose work I’ve respected and admired, rather than loved. So many of his compositions are old...

Bought for a quid in a charity shop in Norwich, as a nostalgia trip for an LP I owned in my proggiest teenage phase - an LP purchase I...

I heard an Arto Lindsay song on Radio 3's Late Junction about 20 years ago, and kept my eyes open for his work. Finding this in a charity...

I’ve no recollection where I bought this, a 2CD compilation of the Modern Lovers, but can’t imagine how anyone could see this and leave...

Throughout the 1970s, Dark Side Of The Moon was the standard all other prog albums were judged by, but I don’t really recall listening to...

I knew little about the Waterboys other than the hit single The Whole Of The Moon, which always seemed to be playing during a...

I was lent this album by a friend in the mid 1990s, I’d never heard of Bob Mould, and was only vaguely aware of Husker Du. The album’s...

Kraftwerk, the wilderness years. They’d had the surprise hit with Autobahn in 1974, and it wouldn’t be until 1981 that the rest of the...

It’s 1978, and loud guitars thrashing out simplistic beats with angry lyrics are all the rage. So what does Brian Eno, erstwhile...

After a brief hiatus, HMHB reformed to make this, their third album, with title (and cover photo) taken fro Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarn,...

First year of university, and this was one of those records we sat round and actually listened to. And this geeky looking bloke on the...

Julian Cope’s second post Teardrops album, with its cover featuring the artist naked beneath a large turtle shell, might be thought to...

I was introduced to Jacques Brel by Scott Walker (not personally), and was aware that Rod McKuen, American (I thought he was Canadian...

Tom Verlaine died yesterday. Marquee Moon is one of those albums that’s been with me for over forty years, and been revisited frequently in that time, so this is a sad listen. See No Evil is a reasonable song, but it’s not until Venus that the power of Television’s debut kicks in, with Verlaine’s trademark guitar sound powering through his angst ridden vocals. And that combination of sneering (dare I say, punk?) vocals with dexterous guitar work that enhances without ever