All The Records I've Ever Owned

                                                                                     Year Released: 1972 Label: RCA Year Bought: 2005 (although listened to mum's vinyl a lot before this) I got into Bowie when I was in my mid-teens, loving Hunky Dory in particular.  I remember being reluctant to listen to Ziggy Stardust in case it wasn't as good. Of course I was wrong. It's probably better. From the opening drums of Five Years to the closing cacophony of Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, Bowie takes us on a journey through his fantastical imagination, smeared with glitter and garish eyeshadow. Mick Ronson is an absolute starman on this album. That solo at the end of Moonage Daydream is one for the ages. There's not a bad song on it. There's no...

Year Released: 2004 Label: Domino Year Bought: 2004 January 2004. I'd just quit uni. Was back at the family home in Bishop's Stortford. The place I'd been so desperate to get away from, and I was back and already bored.  And then things got a bit less boring. I remember this so clearly. I was having a shower and the radio was on, and on came 'Take Me Out'. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. At first I thought it must be an old tune that had passed me by, but no, it was announced as a new song by a band called Franz Ferdinand. It sounded glorious. It sounded interesting. After the staleness of the post-Britpop years, and beigeness of Coldplay, Travis et al, there was actually a British band doing something interesting. I loved it, and when the album came out the next month, I gobbled it up with glee. Listening back now, and I still love it. The hushed opening of 'Jacqueline', the sleaze of 'The Dark of the Matinee', the homoeroticism of 'M...

Year Released: 1997 Label: EMI Year Bought: 1999 My love of Bowie started as a wind up. There was a rumour round our school that one of the French teachers used to go out with Bowie, so as part of my ambition to be a cocky little shit I decided to try to sneak some Bowie song titles into our lessons. "I don't understand how this verb ch-ch-ch-changes, Miss" – that sort of thing. It turned out that not only had she dated him, she was still friends with him, and even had side-of-the-stage tickets when he played Glastonbury in 2000. She might still be the coolest person I've ever known. In my bid to learn some more Bowie tunes I dug out my mum's old vinyls and fell in love with 'Hunky Dory'. For Christmas 1999, my mum got me 2 CDs, this one, which covers 1969/74, and the next one which goes up to 1979.  That Christmas, I had them both on repeat as I played FIFA 2000 on the PC (which had a picture of pre-Judas Sol Campbell on the cover). This compilation reall...

Year Released: 2000 Label: Apple. EMI, Parlophone Year Bought: 2000 What is there to say about this? It's the Beatles. It's their songs that hit number 1 either here or the US. This compilation has sold over 30 million copies. It doesn't have any songs from Sgt. Pepper on it. It's the greatest run of singles of all time. It's a shame that 'The Long and Winding Road' ends this CD. Like everyone else I got it for Christmas. You could pull together another 27 songs from the Beatles over the same period and it would be just as brilliant. 10/10

Year Released: 1997 Label: Polydor Year Bought: 1999 Kicking off with 'In The City' – which still sounds just as urgent as it did in 1977 – this collection brings together all of the The Jam's A-sides before Paul Weller broke up the band in 1982. I remember buying this CD in 1999 with money I had earned from my paper round, and I played it constantly. I knew every lyric, every bass fill from Bruce Foxton, every machine gun snare roll from Rick Buckler.  I was pretty into 70s punk as a teenager, but The Jam appealed more than most as they seemed to look beyond the nihilism.  "What's the point in saying destroy,  I want a new life for everywhere," sings Weller on 'All Around The World'. The Jam's early singles are pretty good, but all feel a bit derivative of 'In The City'. I t's not until you get to 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight' that you realise this is a band – and a songwriter – that can deliver something truly special...

Year Released: 1966 Label: Columbia Year Bought: 2001 "You don't have it? That is perverse! Don't tell anybody you don't own fucking "Blonde on Blonde". It's gonna be okay." - Barry, High Fidelity And so, thanks to High Fidelity, I went to HMV on Oxford Street one afternoon in the summer of 2001 and bought Blonde on Blonde. I already had an early greatest hits collection that spanned Bob Dylan's output up until 1967, but this was my first album by the great man. Many consider Blonde on Blonde to be the first album - the first time an artist had thought about the coherence of a record as a singular art form, instead of a collection of songs. It is also thought to be the first double album - although the CD version that I have erases that presentation.  Recorded in Nashville by someone who was more at home in New York, Blonde is Blonde is seen as the final record in Dylan's folk rock trilogy - after Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revi...

Year Released: 1977 Label: Cleveland International, Epic Year Bought: 2024 I DON'T CARE. I know it's not cool or credible, but I DON'T CARE.  I LOVE THIS ALBUM. It's camp, ridiculous, over-the-top, pretentious – all the things I love. Rescued from the embers of a musical about Peter Pan (although this album was later turned into a musical), Jim Steinman wrote the songs, while Meat Loaf delivered the vocals. Numerous labels turned the album down - with many believing it only worked as a performance piece, with the heavy-set presence of Meat Loaf a captivating spectacle. Eventually released by Cleveland International - a subsidiary of Epic - Bat Out Of Hell found popularity in the UK and Australia before the US, but now it's one of the best-selling albums of all time. A mix of rock songs and ballads, much of the record is like a campier version of a Bruce Springsteen album – just listen to that saxophone on 'All Revved Up With No Place To Go'. This album is fu...