All The Records I've Ever Owned

  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: 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: 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

  Released: 2007 Label: Parlophone,  Honest Jon's When I bought: 2007 Damon Albarn plus Paul Simonon from The Clash plus Simon Tonge from The Verve plus Tony Allen who helped create the Afrobeat genre. A pretty strong 'supergroup'. I listened to this album perhaps twice when I bought it in 2007 and remember being really bored by it.  Now I'm older, greyer and generally less angry at the world, would a re-listen spark joy? No. Urgh. This album is just so dull. First of all, the mix is terrible. I get that when you have the bass player from The Clash you want to hear him, but the bass just dominates the sound.  As a result, Albarn's vocals are buried for much of the album, and the melodies aren't strong enough to hold the attention. The album is primarily led by piano and acoustic guitar, and Albarn is trying his full 'I'm an authentic geezer' act, but it feels likes no one is really pushing themselves. This album was adored by critics at the time. I d...

  Released: 2001 Label: Parlophone When I bought: 2001 If you needed proof that Radiohead really were ploughing a lonely furrow for alternative music in the early 00s, you only have to look at the singles chart for the week ending June 2 2001. Number 1 that week was 'Do You Really Like It?' by DJ Pied Piper, while number 2 was 'Don't Stop Movin'' by S Club 7. Other acts in the top ten included Dido, Blue, Geri Halliwell, and Nelly ft City Spud. And there at number 5, in what was the band's first single release since 'No Surprises' three years earlier, was 'Pyramid Song' by Radiohead. That must have been a hell of a gear change on the Chart Show that week when they went from the R&B pop sounds of 'No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)' by 3LW (yeah I had no recollection of this group either) to a mournful, suspenseful, on-beat-to-off-beat piano led art-rock tune. Coming a year after 'Kid A', 'Amnesiac' represents the lef...