GUIDED BY VOICES - "Bee Thousand" (1994)
I first heard about Guided by Voices in 1996 from a feature in 'Q' magazine. I instinctively knew that this was going to be something special just from the bands' photo, and when I finally bought a copy of this album a few years later, I was not disappointed. It confirmed for me that there were still undiscovered gems out there waiting to be unearthed. "Bee Thousand" contains a glorious collage of 20 lo-fi pop/rock nuggets many of which contain hooks and melodies so unbelievably good that that they all sound vaguely familiar - a kind of compressed highlights of the last 30 years of rock adorned with surreal and often bizarre lyrics that paint pictures with words without necessarilly meaning anything.
WIRE - "154" (1979)
I first encountered Wire in 1984, finding their second album 'Chairs Missing' in a library in Manchester. I thought they were a punk band, and was at first disappointed, but then it suddenly all made sense and helped me to break out of the '3-chord thrash' idea of punk and realise that the movement was actually about self-expression and pushing the boundaries of accepted musical norms. This was exactly what Wire did on their third album '154'. Mysterious walls of sound, eerie synths augmenting fat guitars, and odd intriguing lyrics all added to the 'otherness' of the album. Even better, when Wire throw in the occasional gorgeous pop gem, they instinctively deny themselves commercial acclaim by coupling it with the most unpromising of titles - hence the single 'Map Ref.41° N 93° W'.
HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT - "Back in the DHSS" (1985)
The first CD I ever purchased. I got this in WOM in Munich in 1988, and I didn't even possess a CD player - that's how impressed I was with the wry humour of Birkenhead's finest. The album sounds like it was recorded in someone's shed (and probably was), but no amount of tape hiss can detract from Nigel Blackwell's astonishing world play rooted in non-sequitursand obscure references to anything from British children's TV programmes to Eastern European football teams. And the melodies aren't bad, either. Wiity, sarcastic, studenty, but somehow an appropriate soundtrack to 1980's Britain.
MINUTEMEN - "Double Nickels on the Dime" (1984)
I'd been delving into the outpourings of California's SST Records (home of classic US punk bands Black Flag and Hüsker Dü for some time when I discovered the Minutemen. This album is the peak of their acheivement and encapsulates their ethic and essence in the 43 songs crammed onto this disc. Impressive in its lack of genre (is it punk, free-form jazz, or what?) and its stimulating left-wing diatribes and arty poetic abstractions, each paired-down track says what it has to say in around a minute, a lesson in minimalism that I would love to emulate but which is actually rather difficult to produce.
ROBYN HITCHCOCK - "I Often Dream of Trains" (1984)
In Robyn Hitchcock I discovered another vein of hitherto unknown gold, and this particular recording captures its qualities admirably. Hitchcock is one of those great songwriters who can combine achingly beautiful melody with witty, amusing or downright bizarre lyrics. Only Hitchcock could come up with an acapella 4-part harmony about the dangers of overindulging children, a moody ballad commemorating the ghosts of London's tram system, or an electric homage to the train spotter, all of which appear on this particular album.
FRANK ZAPPA - "Joe's Garage" (1979)
I first discovered the world of Mr. Zappa in the mid-1990's when Ryko Disc made the unusual move of simultaneously re-releasing his entire 60-album oeuvre. Some of his work is deliberately difficult, dated, or just plain not funny, but the rock opera 'Joe's Garage' catches him at his peak. The story, spread over a triple album, concerns a future society in which music is made illegal, and follows the trangsgressions and subsequent apprehension of the hero. Along the way we are treated to a range of musical pop/rock pieces that are beautifully produced and recorded and which never fail to raise a smile owing to their absurd comical content. One nice touch is Zappa's leaving in the mistakes, the best example being when he himself as narrator can't contain his laughter at the ridiculousness of what he is saying.
KILLING JOKE - "Killing Joke" (1980)
A friend of mine lent me this album and the first hearing (on headphones) proved dramatic - the force of the music was such that I fell out of the chair! Until this moment I'd subsisted on a diet of first-wave punk, so the slow, industrial abrasion of this recording was something of a revelation. From here onwards I was able to better appreciate the more experimental side of the musical revolution.
APHEX TWIN - "Selceted Ambient Works" (1992)
The electronic music boom of the 90's had largely passed me by, although I was of course familiar with those founding fathers of the genre Kraftwerk. An aquaintance who was far hipper than I handed me the CD and asked me to copy it to cassette. I did so not expecting to like what I heard, but I found myself transfixed by the insistent metronomic rhythms and warm echo-laden spaces that oozed from these tracks - a far cry from the cold antiseptic blips I had associated with the style.
JOY DIVISION - "Unknown Pleasures" (1979)
I was aware of who Joy Divison were, as any avid listener to John Peel's Radio One show in the late 70's would be, but I had steered clear simply because I could not understand it, and that deep voice of Ian Curtis sounded so disembodied that I was afraid. It wasn't until 1985, when I walked the same Manchester streets which had spawned this music, that I first listened to this album. What made it special was its depth and sincerity and the cathartic effect it had on me. Drenched in reverb, abstract and intriguing, dark and mysterious soundscapes helped me to express feelings I could not ennunciate by myself.
THE SMITHS - "The World Won't Listen" (1986)
When The Smiths first appeared on the scene in 1984 I shunned this effete jangling sound in favour of more easily digestible punk. Only later did I realise what Morrissey was all about - it was a manifestation of the same Mancunian vein of sadness mined by Joy Division, but expressed with humour rather than lofty abstractions. The Smiths made you feel that you were not alone being a bungling shy loser and made you laugh at the absurdness of your preoccupations in a way that nobody had ever done before.
THE STRANGLERS - "Black and White" (1978)
Intense and menacing, this recording showed that the power of punk did not have to be based on old Glam Rock chord progressions. The dead-pan vocal delivery, gut-wrenching bass lines and swirling keyboards made the early Stranglers noticably different from their contemporaries, as did the unsettling and malevolent lyrics behind these brooding pieces. The first album I ever bought!
AMON TOBIN - "Bricollage" (1997)
My second awakening in the realm of electronica. After Aphex Twin, nothing else seemed to satisfy until a chance listening to this album in Tower Records, Osaka in 1997. Here was someone who could sample and programme drums so that they sounded warm, natural and exciting, and not in the least machine-like. Add to that jazz and Latin stylings, and the outcome is organic techno.
KRAFTWERK - "Computer World" (1981)
My first copy of this was a bootleg tape bought in the main square in Warsaw in 1989. A year earlier, a room-mate in the Sheraton Hotel workers' dormitory in Munich had played this album incessantly, and being in my Smiths phase, I reacted with irritation. But slowly it crept under my skin until I could no longer deny that this album was superb. Starkly minimalistic, but melodic nonetheless, the attraction lies in the robotic delivery especially evident in the German-language version of this album. Cold and melodic, as opposed to Aphex Twin's warm and melodic, but just as enticing.
THE MONOCHROME SET - "Eligible Bachelors" (1982)
Yet another punk anomaly, the intriguingly-named 'Monochrome Set' had already been registered in my brain by 1978 when I heard their enigmatic track 'Alphaville' played by John Peel. Astonishingly, it wasn't until I was living in Japan in the mid 1990's that I finally got round to buying one of their CDs. The Set combine suave and disdaining vocal deliveries with intelligent lyrics amid a mixture of spaghetti-Western guitars and Latin rhythms - there's really nothing quite like it. This particular album contains songs about the painter Goya, an exorcism sung in an unidentifiable language, and a tale of card-sharps at the casinos of 19th century Europe. Enough said.
SEBADOH - "The Freed Weed" (1990)
My first experience in the world of lo-fi, this record was introduced to me in Berlin around 1990. What struck me immediately was the purity of these tiny fragmentary compositions recorded in someone's bedroom - no matter how high the level of tape hiss or the primitiveness of the instrumentation, the intimate directness of Lou Barlow's thoughts was moving and yet extremely funny at the same time.
ENNIO MORRICONE - "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1967)
Morricone's main themes to Leone's classic trilogy of spaghetti westerns are well known, but a close inspection of the complete soundtracks is extremely rewarding. Twangy guitars give way to atmospheric ambience and mournful ballads, but the high point of this album (and indeed the film) is the track 'The Ecstasy of Gold', a stunning and moving piece that never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. Possibly my favourite song of all time.
CARCASS - "Symphonies of Sickness" (1989)
Never a fan of heavy metal, it was to my amazement that I found myself attracted to the sheer power and intensity of the early 90's phenomena known as 'Grindcore', a brand of very heavy, very extreme music coupled with a punk consciousness. Carcass were the pick of the bunch, combining complex slabs of riffs played at ever changing tempos with stomach-churning lyrics lifted directly from the pages of medical textbooks. The first time I heard this album I was unable to identify one song from another and could not remember a single melody from the whole sludge-like cacophany, but gradually I realised what a masterpiece it undoubtedly is. The classic album to put on to get unwanted guests out of your house!
TUBEWAY ARMY - "Tubeway Army" (1978)
Gary Numan shot to fame in the late 70's with synthesisors, and later became something of a joke in the eyes of the media. This, his first album, nevertheless had a profound effect on me. Here the guitar rather than the keyboard predominates, and Numan's nasal whine paints a mysterious picture of a derelict future in which isolation and lack of identity are the key elements. And he turns out to be a great guitarist, too, pumping out churning riff after riff. These songs are for me perfect examples of what I call 'off-punk', branching out and exploring new musical and lyrical territory once the doors had been broken down by the likes of the Sex Pistols.