My Ten Favourite Albums. Tell Me Yours.

Music has been an integral part of my life. As a young boy I listened to the records that my mum and dad played in our house back in the 1970s - The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, Abba, Barry White, Hot Chocolate, amongst others - and also spent time with my grandad and his collection of Roy Orbison and Ennio Morricone long players.

Looking back, I think it was the move from my small primary school to the local Grammar school at the age of 11 which properly opened my eyes to a much larger world of musical variety. Suddenly, there were hundreds of girls and boys, most of them older than me, wearing pin badges proclaiming their favourite bands, attending school discos in exotic clothing and make up, playing records in the common rooms at lunchtime from artists such as David Bowie, Queen and The Sex Pistols. I suppose my own musical tastes, and favourite bands, must have been subliminally influenced by the friends I made in my own year and by the lads and girls I looked up to in the years above me. It was 1978, and whilst there was still a more than steady diet of safe, non-edgy music filling the charts in the UK, I was drawn to the burgeoning punk scene whilst also having a love of a good power chord and a guitar solo. As I headed into my teens I was able to buy my own records and build a decent collection of LPs and singles. I also became more socially and politically aware, the Rock Against Racism movement of the early 80s influenced me massively, and my taste in bands certainly depended on their politics and social conscience.

Fast forward to the second half of the 1980s. My good mates Simon, Dave, Mark and I all had a car, and we took turns driving all around the north of England most weekends (and occasionally during the week) to watch our favourite bands playing live. I couldn't begin to count how many concerts we saw over about a decade, it must be hundreds, and how many venues we went to. Balaam and the Angel, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonder Stuff, The Icicle Works, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Stiff Little Fingers, Big Country, Simple Minds, Inspiral Carpets, these are just a few of the bands we followed around on tour. The Tivoli in Buckley, The Leadmill in Sheffield, The Town and Country Club in Leeds, The Ritz, The Boardwalk, The Hacienda, The International, the three Academy venues, all of the aforementioned in Manchester, St. George's Hall in Liverpool, the Student Union venues of several northern universities and polytechnics, again just a few of the places we regularly frequented. Just recently my youngest son, currently at university in Nottingham, asked me if I'd ever heard of Rock City, which has become his regular Wednesday night haunt - he was no doubt alarmed to learn I'd watched at least a dozen bands there over the years, and probably not paid more than a fiver for any of them!

From the mid 90s onwards marriage, children, and the responsibilities of paying a mortgage and bills certainly meant that I saw fewer live bands, but my love of music, especially new music, remained as strong. I was very lucky to spend time in the United States and in Europe in the early 2000s touring with a friend of mine who became a pretty big thing - Damon Gough, also known as Badly Drawn Boy. Since then bands like Cherry Ghost, Doves, I Am Kloot, Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon and The Strokes have elbowed their way onto my turntable, (now obsolete) iPod and Spotify playlists.

Most people will feel that certain songs or albums have formed part of the soundtrack of their lives. I'm no different. I guess that this list gives away my age, the ten albums I've set down below mean something quite special to me - they might take me back to a specific time in my life, or remind me of a certain person or event. They weren't all number one smash hits, you may not have even heard of some of them, but that's fine. I love them. I could probably list another ten quite easily as well.

I've avoided 'Best Of' albums, and I've restricted myself to one album per band. Please have a read, and I would be absolutely over the moon if you'd get in touch and tell me what I've missed off.

London Calling - The Clash (1979)

This was the first album I bought with my own money. I'd saved up bits of pocket money for weeks, and once I had enough I sauntered into the little record store that was next to Woolworth's in my local town and purchased the double album that changed my life.

It is a smorgasbord of musical styles - punk, reggae, ska, rhythm and blues, to name but a few. The title track is one of the best known songs of that era, and the four band members were impossibly cool. The album explores topics such as social discontent, racism, drugs, anti establishment feeling and police brutality. Playing the album in its entirety recently, it still sounds fresh and relevant. Spanish Bombs, Clampdown and Train In Vain are standouts for me, but truthfully I wouldn't skip a single track.

Unknown to me at the time, the version I purchased was one of the very original batch released by the record company and is very collectable. The final track of side 4, Train In Vain, was added at the last moment, and on the record it did not appear on the track listing on the album cover nor on the inside lyrics sleeve of this first batch of records released. I'm told that my version is worth a fair bit of money now, not that it's for sale.

Rumours - Fleetwood Mac (1977)

Hardly an under the radar pick, I grant you. It's one of the biggest selling albums of all time, chocked full of brilliant songs featuring fantastic musicianship and beautiful, often anguished vocals. The band members have all had their fair share of issues over the years, there have been entire books written on the shenanigans around the making of this album, but no-one could deny that the finished product is anything but breathtaking. The lyrics often refer to relationships and break ups between band members, the songs straddle the whole emotional spectrum from undying love to turmoil.

This was the album that those cool kids from a couple of years above me at school used to play at parties. Most people know the big hits from the album - Dreams, Go Your Own Way, Don't Stop - but songs like Gold Dust Woman and Songbird are every bit as memorable. These are the tunes that come to my mind when I think back to my school days.

Every straight lad I knew back in the 80s was in love with Stevie Nicks. I definitely was.

Both of my boys became aware of Fleetwood Mac thanks to hearing me play The Chain whilst taking them to some sporting event or other in the car.

"Hey, isn't that the Formula 1 music Dad?"

New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) - Simple Minds (1982)

I could have chosen any one of four or five Simple Minds albums to go on this list, and any of them would have deserved to be there. I've plumped for the one that I think contains their most beautiful, orchestral, understated work. New Gold Dream straddles their earlier post-punk releases and their later stadium rock albums, combining the very best of both of those with the synth-pop sound that was around at that time.

For me, this album had the best Simple Minds line up. It features Michael MacNeil on keyboards, Derek Forbes on bass and Mel Gaynor taking over half way through recording on drums, all adding to Charlie Burchill's superb guitar playing and Jim Kerr's often cryptic lyrics. The singles Promised You A Miracle and Glittering Prize are perhaps the best remembered tracks from the album, but I would urge anyone to head to YouTube and listen to Hunter and the Hunted, Someone Somewhere in Summertime or the title track New Gold Dream. Here are a group of lads in their early 20s from Glasgow making music from the gods.

I first bought the album on a cassette tape, which my car stereo decided to chew up after a couple of years. I replaced it with a CD, one of the first I ever bought.

I drove a group of us to Milton Keynes in June 1986 to watch Simple Minds headline an outdoor festival including The Cult, The Bangles, The Waterboys and In Tua Nua. I wore a pair of slip-on shoes with tassels on the front (don't judge me, I was going through a Jim Kerr phase, I also wore a baggy satin shirt) which, on reflection, wasn't the cleverest idea, they were more slip-off than slip-on. From memory, the crowd was around 40,000, everyone was cheek to jowl, and by the end of the day I'd lost both shoes and my toes were like something out of a cartoon. Once the show was over a security chap pointed me in the direction of the lost property area. Well, it was a pile of shoes, jackets, jumpers, glasses etc that was the size of a small house. I tried several random pieces of footwear on until I managed to find two (non-matching) that I could get on my feet. I drove us roughly 200 miles home in them, including a stop at some motorway services, and dumped them in the bin before going in the house.

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (1989)

I count myself very lucky to have grown up in and around Manchester in the 1980s. Bands like New Order and The Smiths were flying the flag around the world for the city in the mid 80s, and the Hacienda was one of the most famous nightclubs in the world. But that was just the start. Over the next few years the music scene in Manchester exploded. For every band that made it in the way that James or Happy Mondays did there were 50 bands that played gigs around the north west of England but didn't quite crack the big time. We watched bands such as Paris Angels, Intastella and Northside at small venues in Manchester regularly, but for whatever reason they never quite took off.

One band though were destined for fame, or perhaps it was infamy, long before they became known to the general public. By the time The Stone Roses released their eponymously titled album in 1989 they had been around in various guises for almost a decade. Some of the tracks that ended up on the album had been written several years earlier, they had also released a couple of singles (I bought the 12" versions of both Sally Cinnamon and Elephant Stone, they're up in the loft) and played gigs in Manchester to a growing fan base.

People who followed music around Manchester sensed they could be huge, I remember talking with friends about them, eagerly awaiting the album release.

When it came, The Stone Roses blew me away. It was a mix of jangly guitar pop and indie rock, full of great tunes and attitude. Even the cover artwork was phenomenal - a Jackson Pollock-esque work by guitarist John Squire referencing the student riots in Paris in 1968. It seemed that not everyone agreed with me though. The album limped into the UK charts. It took the release of She Bangs The Drums as a single, a couple of controversial media appearances and some high profile gigs to bring the band to the attention of the whole of the UK, and beyond.

I love this album. There is something about Reni's drums and Mani's bass that drive the tracks along. John Squire is a fantastic guitarist. He still is today, have a listen to the album he released with Liam Gallagher in 2024. This was the height of Madchester, it was a great time to be watching bands in and around Manchester. We all desperately wanted a follow up as soon as possible. As it was, it took five years. Second Coming had some good tracks, I still listen to it, but things had moved on. Madchester had been usurped by Britpop, Oasis were the new Stone Roses.

For a couple of years, The Stone Roses were the best band on the planet. And they were made in Manchester.

Thirst For Romance - Cherry Ghost (2007)

Cherry Ghost was the alter-ego of a guy who lived local to me, Simon Aldred. We'd seen him and his band play locally, and he had the backing of some other Manchester based musicians, notably Jimi Goodwin of Doves.

Cherry Ghost released Thirst For Romance in July 2007. A couple of the tracks had been released as singles beforehand - Mathematics and People Help The People (more famously covered by someone called Birdy) - they both reached the lower end of the UK charts, whilst the album went straight into the top ten. We saw them play live a few times around Manchester - one gig at The Deaf Institute stands out as a brilliant night.

Aldred, with his distinctive vocal style, hides some melancholic lyrics behind very strong tunes. Ben Parsons adds fabulous string arrangements to several of the tracks. Highlights for me are the title track, an old man's request to be remembered as the younger, stronger version of himself, and Dead Man's Suit, about heartbreak and loss.

Cherry Ghost released two more studio albums before Simon Aldred stepped away from the day to day excesses of being a pop star. He still writes and produces for other artists, notably Liam Gallagher, Sam Smith and Rag'n'Bone Man.

Thirst For Romance is a great album. Both my lads have Cherry Ghost songs lurking on their playlists somewhere, so my endless playing of the album whilst they were young must have had some effect.

The Small Price of a Bicycle - The Icicle Works (1985)

The Icicle Works are probably my favourite band of all time. Their songs have seen me through all the trials and tribulations that life can bring. They were one of the very first bands I saw play live, and I would hazard a guess that I've seen them (or their frontman Ian McNabb as a solo artist) somewhere around a hundred times by now.

It's a close call, but Small Price just makes it as my favourite Icicles album. It wasn't their most successful LP, to be honest none of them were hugely successful, but it's the one that I revisit more than the others. Hollow Horse, Seven Horses and All the Daughters are all stonking tracks, whilst Conscience of Kings, Rapids and Assumed Sundown show a more nuanced side to McNabb's songwriting. There isn't a filler track on the album.

I grew a (very patchy) beard and wore a bootlace tie with an eagle clasp in order to look more McNabb-ish around the time of this album. My admiration knew no bounds.

In 2014, at the age of 47, I escorted my sister-in-law Katherine to a Peter Gabriel gig in Liverpool. Whilst there, I spotted Mr McNabb in the VIP seating area. I hurdled a security barrier, jumped six feet down into the VIP seats, outran two security guards and secured a selfie with Ian and his bass player best mate Roy Corkhill. I managed to hide in a group of people before clambering back up into the cheap seats whilst being pursued by more security. Happy days..

Untitled (Led Zeppelin IV) - Led Zeppelin (1971)

I wouldn't ever claim to be a huge hard rock or heavy metal afficionado, although I have lots of friends who are. I was probably just too young to be aware of some of the seminal heavy bands when they were in their prime. Punk rock and new wave were the genres of music I was first exposed to as a youngster. That said, I certainly appreciate great guitar playing, and bands like Rainbow, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were on my radar thanks to the older kids I knew at school.

Led Zeppelin were an astounding group of musicians. Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Jimmy Page - each one of them a master of their chosen field. Their fourth album saw them combine folk, blues and hard rock themes into one awesome tune after another. I have friends who know more than me that might prefer other Led Zeppelin albums, and that's fine. I think Led Zep IV is as close to a perfect rock album as there is.

I still play tracks from the album regularly, they are great songs to crank up on a motorway journey. I would wait for the breathtaking Jimmy Page guitar section about five minutes into Stairway to Heaven, announce to anyone in the car, "Here comes the greatest two minutes in rock n roll history.." and then whack the volume up to ear-splitting levels.

I've possibly given myself and my two boys tinnitus, but it's been worth it.

Waiting for the Floods - The Armoury Show (1985)

Almost certainly the best album you've never heard of.

Bringing together musicians from punk and new wave bands like Skids, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Slik, The Armoury Show were an underappreciated supergroup of the mid 80s. Waiting for the Floods was the band's first and only release with the line up of Richard Jobson, John McGeoch, Russell Webb and John Doyle - they created an anthemic and powerful album, with songs that can make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Jobson's lyrics have always been poetic, McGeoch (who sadly died in his 40s) was one of the best guitarists of his generation, and Webb and Doyle provide a compulsive, driving backbeat to every track. Castles in Spain, We Can Be Brave Again, The Glory of Love, Sleep City Sleep and Kyrie are all as good as anything that was written and recorded in the mid 1980s.

These guys could have been huge. Richard Jobson had other irons in the fire, modelling and poetry amongst them, and the remaining band members drifted into other projects after a small tour to promote the album. By the time Jobson was ready to recommit he needed to bring in different musicians and the magic was lost.

One Plus One Is One - Badly Drawn Boy (2004)

I could have chosen more or less any BDB album here. His debut, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, won the Mercury Music Prize in 2000, and his most recent album, Banana Skin Shoes, is absolutely outstanding. I've chosen One Plus One for reasons I'll detail below.

For full disclosure, I was a good friend of Damon's (BDB is the stage name of Damon Gough) older brother Simon, from our teenage years playing football together right through to many, often music-related, adventures around the world in adulthood. It's so sad that Simon is no longer with us, I think of him lots of times as I'm listening to music or watching left-footed footballers struggle to be anywhere near as good as he was. His funeral was one of the most moving events I've ever been to.

Through Simon, we got to know Damon as he began his journey in music. We saw him play in tiny venues (a room over a pub, amongst others), we bought his early EPs. He played almost all the instruments on his debut album himself, he also helped produce the record. As I said earlier, it won the Mercury Music Prize when it was released and brought him national attention.

One Plus One Is One was his third album, released in 2004. To accompany the release he was booked on a tour of the United States. The reason I've chosen this album for my list is that a group of us took time off work and tagged along for the north east portion of that tour. We saw him play in Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston and New York. We travelled with the band and crew, we spent the days with them setting up for the gigs, eating and drinking with them. We were Access All Areas for the gigs in the evenings. Damon's mum, dad and sisters (who we knew well anyway) flew in for the New York concert. We had THE best time.

I've seen Damon play in countless venues in the UK over the years, and travelled to Europe to see him as well. I have no hesitation in saying he's a musical genius. He can play just about any instrument, and he's a superb lyricist. He's written soundtracks for films - the Hugh Grant film About A Boy from the early 2000s features Damon's music almost exclusively.

He's another artist that both my lads heard so much of growing up, and they both have a BDB track or two on their playlists.

Nobody's Heroes - Stiff Little Fingers (1980)

SLF released their debut album, Inflammable Material, in 1979. Within a year they put out their sophomore effort, Nobody's Heroes. Both LPs are crammed with high octane punk tunes, dripping with anti establishment rhetoric and social commentary. They were a bunch of lads growing up in Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles in the 1970s. They saw soldiers on their streets, there were bombings and shootings close to where they lived at regular intervals. It's not surprising their music was coloured with hatred and mistrust.

Whilst Inflammable Material is a brilliant album, I opted for Nobody's Heroes to go on this list. There are some brutally strong tracks on the LP, notably Gotta Gettaway, Nobody's Hero and Tin Soldiers. There is the relatively radio friendly At The Edge, which made the UK singles chart top 20. The band also do a great cover of a ska song by The Specials - Doesn't Make It All Right. My favourite track, though, is Fly The Flag - a sarcastic rant at the greed, racism and selfishness of Britain in 1980. "I'm all right, Union Jack."

Everything about the band appealed to me. They were a big part of the Rock Against Racism movement, they were banned from Top Of The Pops for not taking the miming seriously enough, and they seemed to detest the inequality that was spreading through society.

SLF are still touring today, with frontman Jake Burns an ever present at the helm. I've seen them many times, they always put on a great show, and Fly The Flag is just as relevant now as it was over 40 years ago.

What Have I Missed?

So there you have it. Ten of my favourite albums, spanning most of my lifetime. I wish I had room to squeeze in albums from The Jam, Doves, Inspiral Carpets, Arctic Monkeys, Rainbow, Big Country, The Verve, New Order, Del Amitri, Teenage Fan Club and REM, but they all narrowly missed the cut.

The late 70s and 1980s seemed to spawn so many bands that featured young lads and girls (teenagers, or early 20s) writing and singing songs about the state of the country - The Jam, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers and more. Does that still happen? Are kids at 16,18 years old driven to write music about Brexit, the UK or US government of the day, Ukraine, the Middle East? Let me know, I'd love to listen to them.

I'd really like to hear from you. What would your top ten be? I'd expect huge differences between generations, but perhaps some albums are timeless? For those of you that have vastly different musical tastes to mine, what album would you suggest I listen to?

Thank you for reading this far!