All The Records I've Ever Owned

Year Released: 2008 Label: B-Unique Year Bought: 2010 Kaiser Chiefs were one of those 00s bands that threatened to be around forever but faded away. The first album was great, the second album had some great songs on it, but by the third album... it felt like the music world had moved on. There seemed to be a few bands that happened to – Athlete, Maximo Park, Bloc Party, Razorlight all spring to mind as having a good couple of albums but then just stopped being relevant.  'Off With Their Heads' was trailed by the single 'Never Miss A Beat', which has some suitably Kaiser Chief-lines about eating crisps for your dinner and bunking off school, and it's probably the best song on the album. Opening track 'Spanish Metal' sounds a bit space rock and you prepare yourself for a record that will take some interesting turns but it never really manages it.  Kaiser Chiefs are essentially a party band, and much of the record leans into their fusion of Blur, Madness and X...

  Year Released: 2007 Label: Parlophone Year Bought: 2007 By 2007, did anyone really care about Pete Doherty anymore?  I'm not trying to be out of order, but he seemed to go from being tabloid fodder pretty much every day from about 2004 onwards, and then, bang, he was gone. The Libertines were long dead, Arctic Monkeys were the new indie darlings, and Doherty's relationship with Kate Moss had come to an end as apparently she didn't want to go to crack dens. A new young-musician-with-drug-problem story was filling the void, although, alas, poor old Amy Winehouse didn't make it out of it alive. So it goes. Anyway, somewhere along the way Doherty got himself together enough to release a second Babyshambles album, 'Shotter's Nation.' Trailed by the top 10 hit 'Delivery', the album got good press at the time, with the Guardian giving it the full five-star treatment. Listening all these years on, and it's a pretty tight record with some interesting bi...

  Year Released: 1975 Label: RCA Year Bought: 2002 Sometimes I don't think its appreciated just how prolific David Bowie was in the '70s. 'Young Americans', released in 1975, was his seventh studio album of the decade, and came just three years after 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'.  Apart from 'Pin-Ups', it was all fantastic. I can only think of the Beatles as a comparison for quantity and quality. 'Young Americans' is the album that showed Ziggy truly was dead. Previous album 'Diamond Dogs' still had one foot in the glam camp, but this record is so far from that genre it sounds like it's been made by a completely different musician. Dubbed "plastic soul" by Bowie himself, 'Young Americans' was recorded as he was pushing on with his red peppers, milk and cocaine diet. The Thin White Duke persona would be crystallised on the next album, 'Station to Station', but the transition ...

Year Released: 1997 Label: A&M Year Bought: 1999 When I was a wee lad of 14 and starting to learn guitar, I loved the Police. Their tunes were a mixture of sparseness and virtuoso, and you could spend hours picking apart what Andy Summers was doing - or not doing - on the guitar. Same with Stuart Copeland's drumming. And Sting was involved as well. This collection was a regular fixture on my CD walkman - and then MiniDisc player - when I would walk to and from school, but I've not listened to it in many, many years. The first four tracks – 'Message In A Bottle', 'Can't Stand Losing You', 'Englishman in New York', and 'Every Breath You Take' – are all brilliant. Yes, even 'Englishman in New York'.  The next song, 'Seven Days', I was obsessed with when I was younger as it's in 5/4 time - which is the same time signature as the original Mission Impossible theme. Ah I am loving listening to this again. The drums are so goo...

Year Released: 2015 Label: Damaged Goods Records / Greyday Records Year Bought: 2024 Piney Gir is an American singer/songwriter who has lived in London for many a year. She's been in the backing bands of Noel Gallagher and Gaz Coombes, and over the years has produced one hell of a back catalogue. 'mR. hYDE'S wILD rIDE' is her sixth album, and fully embraces Piney's chameleonic tendencies. A student of 60s beat pop, the influence of the Beatles is writ large over the album. Opener 'Gold Rules' has a great chorus melody, and the sense of joy embodied in the song runs through much of the record. The second half of the album has some more experimentation with instruments and production, meaning you never really know what's coming. 'Mouse of a Ghost' has Graham Coxon level of guitar buzzing going on, while 'Yai Yai' starts off subdued before building into a real garage-indie stomper. I know Piney a little bit so can't really give an impart...

Year Released: 2008 Label: Wichita Year Bought: 2008 Bloc Party's first two albums were absolute mainstays of my uni years, but their third, 2008's 'Intimacy', didn't touch the sides. All I remember of this album is that they were trying to be nu-rave and the beginning bit of 'Mercury'.  Listening to this album for the first time in 16 years, I can see why I didn't get on with it at the time. It's a dense, loud album, with hardly any room in the songs for air. The drums  – and drum machines – are all very in-your-face so it is a struggle to really sit and actually listen to.  The use of electronic drums is one of the main departures from Bloc Party's previous efforts, which for me is a real shame. One of the strengths of the group was that Matt Tong was a one-man drum machine, and using actual drum machines just feels like a step backwards. Opening song 'Ares' kicks things off with a searing guitar and huge drums that sound like something...

  Year Released: 1969 Label: Columbia Year Bought: 2007 On the cover of 'Nashville Skyline' a smiling Bob Dylan stares out at you, with his hand on his way to doff his hat. He seems happy, friendly, inviting. These are all themes that flow through the record itself, but there is one additional vibe: forgettable. I'm a huge fan of Dylan. He's made some of my favourite albums, but I just can't get on with this one.  He goes folk-country on this record, but aside from 'Lay Lady Lay' it all sounds pretty generic with not very memorable lyrics.  The album opens with a re-recording of an earlier Dylan tune - 'Girl From The North Country' - but this time with Johnny Cash on co-vocals. I've never really got on with this tune, and this strikes me as something that was better in theory than in practice. Apparently this album was notable at the time for Dylan switching his singing style from nasal to crooner, and that does make everything a bit softer, but ...

Year Released: 1997 Label: Reprise Year Bought: 1999 It is a truth universally acknowledged that being a 14-year-old isn't easy. I decided to make it more difficult for myself by not only being one of only three kids in school to learn the trumpet, but by shunning most musical touchstones of the time in favour of older music. And it doesn't get more of a throwback than Sinatra. This was 1999, so before Robbie Williams made his 'Swing When Your Winning' album and TV talent shows were stacked with kids doing Dean Martin impressions. I felt like an outlier. Indeed, I remember borrowing the money from a friend I was with in town the day I got this record, and when I gave her the money back she muttered to herself "I can't believe I lent someone money to buy a Frank Sinatra album." Anyway, I loved this CD. Well, the first CD of the set. The first disc is just stacked with classics. It kicks off with funeral favourite 'My Way', then goes on to 'Stran...

Year Released: 1995 Label: Parlophone Year Bought: 2000 Some records I'm going back to for the first time in a while. Others, like 'The Bends', are still in my regular rotation. What to say about this album? The crashing piano chords of opening track 'Planet Telex' give an immediate indication that this is not the same band that made 'Pablo Honey'. The album is a quantum leap from that record, which – while it has its fans, including me – is by-and-large the sound of just another guitar band. 'The Bends' is different. From the slowing-down-time intro of the title track, to the how-high-can-you-go guitars on 'Just', the album constantly delights. 'Fake Plastic Trees' is a magisterial effort, while 'Black Star' contains one of the great opening lines:  "I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown, well, what am I to do?" The recording process for this record was inspired by seeing Jeff Buck...

Year Released: 2009 Label: Sandbag Records Year Bought: 2024 Another record picked up during my trip to Toronto in the summer. This was flagged up in the local artists section of a record shop so I took a punt. Never heard of the band before but it seems like they're originally from Vancouver and relocated to Toronto. There's something exciting about putting the vinyl down on a record when you have no idea what it's going to sound like. Everything is so accessible and instant these days (hardly new thoughts here, I know), but yeah, getting a bit of mystery in life is no bad thing. Anyway, the record comes straight in with vocals and it's clear this is going to be a rock record, but as album opener 'Good Luck Club' progresses there's also hints of power pop. 'Turpentine' starts off with a classic rock and roll riff but quickly bounces into a Foo Fighters-style tune with a pounding snare driving it all along. The more I listen to this record, the more ...