All The Records I've Ever Owned

Year Released: 2003 Label: ISO, Columbia   Year Bought: 2003 The 1990s was a strange time for David Bowie. Venerated by Britpop greats such as Brett Anderson and Noel Gallagher, and honoured by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana's Unplugged set, it could have been a decade of him carrying out endless nostalgia tours and cashing in on his place as the Grand Dame of alternative music on both sides of the Atlantic. The trouble was, Bowie had done the whole be-your-own-tribute-act schtick in the late 80s with the Glass Spider tour - a period so unfulfilling it led him to forming Tin Machine. And no one needed that to happen again. So Bowie spent the 90s doing pretty much the opposite of what people wanted him to do, and refused to bring back Ziggy or the Thin White Duke, instead focusing on experimental music (which is actually a very Bowie thing to do). As the century ticked over, Bowie started making albums that were a bit more radio friendly, and after a well-received Glastonbury set a...

Year Released: 2003 Label: V2, XL, Third Man Year Bought: 2003 April 2003. The month I turned 18. I had a car, enough money for petrol, and was heading to the end of my time in sixth form. Driving round Bishop's Stortford with a couple of mates, doing not much, there were a handful of CDs in the glovebox - with the player plugged in of course via one of those cassette adaptors.  Elephant by The White Stripes was without doubt the most played. I'd seen them at Reading Festival the year before in a late afternoon slot sandwiched between The Dandy Warhols and Weezer, and it was probably the greatest set I have ever seen to this day. More on that when we get to White Blood Cells, but that gig made me fall in love with this duo - who seemed to come from another time, another world. The early 00s was the beginning of the hyper-processed. auto-tuned, sterile music that dominates the chart now, and to hear a band that were so analogue was, ironically, a breath of fresh air. Anyway, the...

  Released: 2003 Label: Arista When I bought: 2003 See, I *told* you this would be every record I own picked at random by my daughter. Otherwise, in the name of credibility, I might have conveniently forgotten to include this record.  Look, I've always been a pop music fan. I grew up with three sisters, and a father who thinks Pete Waterman is a musical genius. Pure pop was always part of my musical palette. So yes, there are pop albums in my collection. It's easy to forget just how huge Dido was. Around 2003/2004 she was, for a time, the biggest pop singer in the UK. Her debut album was the second biggest selling record of the 2000s, and follow-up 'Life For Rent', is seventh on that list. I bought this album in 2003. I have strong memories of listening to it when I was briefly at University of Glamorgan studying English. I dropped out after a few months, partly because I was going a bit mad, and partly because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but being i...