Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker (Bloodshot Records/Cooking Vinyl) Released:2000 It begins with an argument. An ominous start for a solo career wrought with drugs, alcohol and a broken wrist. In the aftermath of his band Whiskeytown imploding, and the break up from music-industry publicist girlfriend Amy Lombardi, Ryan Adams left an apartment on avenue A and [...]

Pink Floyd – Animals (Harvest, reissued by EMI) Released: 1977 In the mid 1970s, the career of one of the bands at the head of the progressive rock genre took a turn that would propel them from a typically directionless bunch of experimenters to the biggest band in the world. A release that contained a [...]

The Who – Who’s Next (Polydor/Track) Released: 1971 Thought we’d go a bit retro with my choice, and I’ve picked an album that has affected me since I was a kid. From the opening strains of Baba O’Riley through to Won’t Get Fooled Again, this is truly a classic album. The original was released in [...]

The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows (Warner Music/Record Collection) Released: 2004 Having already decided that our next Classic Album was going to be Asleep In The Back, an album of which I most likely have far too many words (albeit all positive), I felt it only fair to perform a swift about-turn over the weekend [...]

Belle and Sebastian – Tigermilk (Electric Honey) Released: 1996 (re-released by Jeepster, 1999) Probably the greatest pop band recording in the world today and almost definitely the greatest to come out of Scotland, Belle and Sebastian continue to pump out album after album of truly inspired genius. And it all started with this sought-after gem. [...]

Muse – Showbiz (Mushroom) Released: 1999 It is 1999. I am 14 years old, ignorantly gorging on the ubiquitously remaining sounds served up by Messrs Gallagher and Albarn, whilst entertaining myself with a piece of dreaded Maths homework. Imagine my surprise when out of my wireless extrudes the never-before-heard wail of Mr. Matthew Bellamy, fronting [...]

Eels – Daisies of the Galaxy (Dreamworks) Released: 2000 When music becomes a passion, it’s easy to find yourself inundated with albums that could all be considered for the honour of a “classic album”. The only way it seemed fair to decide which one to choose was to think back to when I first started [...]

Doves – Lost Souls (Heavenly Records) Released: 2000 Shot through with a pervasive sense of melancholy, the Mercury-nominated debut from the artists formerly known as Sub Sub couldn’t be further from their earlier incarnation. Paving the way for albums such as Asleep In The Back by their contemporaries Elbow (quite possibly one of the most [...]

Daniel Johnston – Fun (Atlantic Records) Released: 1994 By the time Daniel Johnston released Fun – his first studio album – in 1994, he was an established underground hero on the Texas music scene thanks to a series of basement recordings through the 1980s. Suffering from bipolar disorder, he fitted the ‘tortured genius’ role to [...]

Vex Red – Start With A Strong and Persistent Desire (Sony) Released: 2001 In true Stone Roses style, this Aldershot-based five piece caused quite a stir in 2001, only to disappear off the face of the earth a year or so later. We were left, however, with a masterpiece that was as groundbreaking as it [...]