'Buddha Of Suburbia' by David Bowie

After the release of 'Black Tie White Noise', his first album of the 90s, Bowie was offered the chance to write incidental music for the TV adaptation of the novel 'Buddha of Suburbia'. As well as doing so, he took elements from these compositions and reworked them to create the album of the same name. It wasn't released as a soundtrack, but it was promoted as one, and released at virtually the same time as his singles collection, and as a result, it failed to reach the charts, and was quickly deleted. A long overdue reissue appeared a few years ago, again with little fanfare, so Buddha remains almost certainly the least-heard album of Bowie's career, which is a shame, because it's really good.

'Black Tie White Noise' was a good album, but it revisiting his 'Let's Dance' stylings, it was a safe one. 'Buddha of Suburbia' displays a more interesting approach to Bowie's personal history, revisiting styles from 'Hunky Dory' right through to 'Low'. It's all understated, and a lot of it is instrumental, but there's more creativity in it than Bowie had shown for a long time.

The title track is a rather lovely acoustic ballad that could have come from 1972. It even uses the typical split octave vocals that 'Hunky Dory' featured so often. You'd be forgiven for assuming that the title track would set the tone for the whole album, but it doesn't. 'Sex And The Church', the second track, is a jittering six and a half minutes of processed vocals, minimal synths and clattering percussion. 'South Horizon' is a rambling piece of piano jazz shot through with trumpets - like the previous album, but without the structure. 'The Mysteries' is the longest track on the album, and as an oriental-inspired drifting soundscape, it could have come from 'Heroes'. 'Bleed Like Craze, Dad' is utterly different again - the sort of murky dance that 'Outside' would later consist of. 'Strangers When We Meet' sits in the middle of the album, and is the records strongest single track. It would go on to be re-recorded in a similar but tightened-up style for his next album, which is good, as it deserved to be heard by a wider audience. The rest of the album continues to wander from style to style until the end. 'Ian Fish, UK Heir' is the last new track on the album - so minimal, it's almost not there at all. It would have made a great, and brave album closer, but it's followed by a repeat of the title track with a pointless overdubbed guitar part from Lenny Kravitz.

All in all, it's an impressive piece of work, particularly given the context of its recording, and the fact that Bowie made it with only one real collaborator in only a couple of weeks. As well as being successful in its own right, it also paved the way for the next step in Bowie's creative rebirth. Well worth seeking out.

‘Brushfire Fairytales’ by Jack Johnson

‘Brushfire Fairytales’ was the first full length album by Jack Johnson. It was a modest success on its release, but like most people, I only heard it years later following the release of ‘In Between Dreams’ four years later. It’s an album free of shocks. Johnson is a good singer and songwriter, but he’s not an artist with an enormous amount of progression in his career. ‘Brushfire Fairytales’, therefore, is very similar to ‘In Between Dreams’, but that’s not a bad thing in and of itself.

In fact, there is some progression. This album, while being a fine debut, isn’t as good as later albums would become, simply because Johnson would improve as a songwriter. When this album hits its peaks, it’s excellent. ‘Middleman’, ‘Mudwater’ and the fantastic ‘Flake’ are all songs that bear repeated listening. Generally, it’s when Johnson’s band come into play that the songs come to life. There’s little complexity in his rhythm sections, but bass and drums give his songs a real boost. It’s the tracks he does alone with his guitar that drag a little. On later albums, these tracks would be delicate and charming – here, they’re just a bit bland.

Still, Johnson himself seems quite content for people to use his music as a background accompaniment to life, and this album is certainly good enough for that.

‘Brink’ by Eden Burning

After a number of years slogging across the country playing small gigs and releasing well received but low selling albums, ‘Brink’ was Eden Burning’s last throw of the dice. I wasn’t following them at the time, and there’s very little stuff online to fill in the gaps, but it’s hard not to listen to it and see it as one final attempt to crack a mainstream market. ‘Brink’ is less of an acoustic-folk album than their previous albums, and has more of an indie-rock sound instead. Electric guitar features more heavily, mandolins less so.

That said, there’s enough of the band’s style running through it for it to not feel like an anomaly. ‘Deep Blue Sea’ opens the album in a squall of harmonica and vocal harmony. It may be a relatively simple track, musically and lyrically, but it’s a punchy and catchy start. Through ‘Movers and Shakers’, ‘Stories’ and ‘Almost Spent’, the band revert slightly to type – more delicate, acoustic songs, though this is no bad thing. Paul Northup is, as ever, a fine singer, and a superb lyricist. Throughout this album, as with other Eden Burning albums, he weaves his faith deftly through his lyrics without sounding preachy or obvious.

There are some weaker moments later on. ‘Another Country’, ‘With A Kiss’ and ‘Western Eyes’ are all stabs at a rock sound that never quite convinces. The final track, however, is a glorious way to finish a recording career. ‘Let Me Lose’ is simply structured, but beautifully recorded and performed – a true song of worship which could be enjoyed by more or less anyone.

'Bring It On' by Gomez

In 1998, the era of Britpop was coming to a close. Bands that had achieved the most success in the couple of years previously were either evolving into new directions or stagnating into a long slow death. Gomez, who released 'Bring It On' during this year, were something different.

That's not to say they were something new. On the whole, 'Bring It On' felt (and still feels) like a relic from another age when blues was still a genre of music that people cared about. Gomez looked like the bunch of scruffy students that they were, but their vocalist Ben Ottewell sounded like he'd spent decades gargling gravel in the deep south. Actually, Gomez were never quite that simple, as their lead vocals were split three ways - Ottewell's voice was wheeled out like a secret weapon for some tracks, and some parts of tracks. Sadly, though this made Gomez seem exciting at the time of their debut, the novelty wore off after a couple of albums, though the band are still plugging away to people who still care. There are still some out there.

'Bring It On' still sounds pretty good. 'Get Miles' is a bold opener, building slowly but steadily over its five minute duration. It's good, but there's better stuff to come. 'Whippin' Piccadilly', 'Get Myself Arrested' and '78 Stone Shuffle' are all great singles, but they're easily matched by 'Here Comes The Breeze' and 'Love Is Better Than A Warm Trombone' which both sit squarely in the middle of the album. It does tail off a bit at the end - 'Bubble Gum Years' is pretty forgettable, and 'Rie's Wagon' could have been comfortably edited down from its nine minutes to about three without losing anything important. Still, these are forgiveable indulgences on a debut which were dealt with, to a large degree, on album number two. Eventually, I'll reach the letter L...

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon and Garfunkel

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ was Simon and Garfunkel’s swansong, the final studio album of their time as a duo, and generally regarded as their crowning achievement. This is a pretty reasonable thing to think – there is some truly wonderful stuff on this album - the uptempo brass-assisted ‘Keep The Customer Satisfied’, the rich narrative of ‘The Boxer’ and the gently glorious ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’. What lets the album down, I’ve always thought, is its structure.

The album kicks off with the title track. In a sense, it’s a logic choice – it certainly sets the tone. The trouble is, its so big, and climactic, and brilliant, that it’s very hard to follow. ‘El Condor Pasa’ certainly doesn’t cut it, and ‘Cecila’, the albums third track, doesn’t manage it either, despite all its qualities. If the title track had been the final song on the album, I can’t help feeling it would have worked a lot better (although ‘Song For The Asking’ could have still been a good final ending).

None-the-less, these quibbles aside, the overall quality of the record is in no doubt. The filler on this record would be standout tracks on lesser albums, and 30 years on, it’s still a benchmark of its type.

‘Brand New Day’ by Beehive

‘Brand New Day’ is one of the albums in my collection that came slightly out of nowhere. I saw Beehive live at Spring Harvest many years back, but I’m sure I had this album before that. I’ve no idea why – I may have seen them at Soul Survivor beforehand.

At the time, I remember thinking Beehive were one of those Christian bands that had real potential for crossing into the mainstream. Jamiroquai and The Brand New Heavies were both having success with a similar sound, and I saw no reason why Beehive couldn’t compete. Others must have thought so too – turns out they won a Mobo award for ‘Brand New Day’. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. There was no follow-up album, though I’ve no idea why this was.

Twelve years on, the album stands up pretty well. It’s slightly dated, very much a product of its time, but a lot of the tracks still sound pretty strong. Opener, ‘Fool’s Wisdom’, ‘No-One Knows’ and ‘Hype’ still sound appropriately funky. Sadly, all three of these tracks are at the beginning of the album, which skews the record somewhat. There’s god stuff later – ‘Presence of Your Love’ is a nice tune, and ‘Turn It Around’ is a gem which has stood the test of time nicely, but there’s some filler there as well. ‘Get Busy’ sounds a bit forced, and ‘Answer To Your Prayer’, while an admirable attempt to finish on a different note, just doesn’t match up to the rest of the album.

Still, it remains a promising debut, and I’m sure they’d have gone on to make a good second album if they’d stuck with it. A shame we’ll never know.

‘Bowie At The Beeb’ by David Bowie

Thirty-seven tracks of Bowie goodness, taken from Bowie’s session recordings between 1968 and 1972. Between these years, Bowie underwent an number of musical transformations, and this collection charts this journey brilliantly. The first section of the first disc contains songs from the outskirts of his back catalogue, the pre-‘Space Oddity’ days. Though generally neglected, these are great tracks, or at least great versions – light hearted, but well constructed, arranged and performed. The next set, the ‘Space Oddity’ era stuff is slightly earnest singer-songwriter stuff, but again, done well. The second half of the first disc is ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ era recordings, and they drag a little, truth be told. They’re fine, but they tend to go on for longer than they need to.

The second disc is the more instantly recognisable, consisting almost exclusively of tracks from ‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘Ziggy Stardust’. In a sense, that makes it the more interesting of the discs, as these are the songs that first defined the artist. At the same time, these songs are so familiar to anyone interested enough to listen to this correction, that they capture the attention less than disc one. Either way, there are some great performances of some fantastic songs here, whether they’re well known or not.

Altogether, they make for an extremely good collection of recordings. Happily, the compilers have also elected to keep some of the surrounding chat from the radio broadcasts. This is very much of its time, but it’s great to hear, even if John Peel sounds like he’s fighting off some kind of sleeping tablet overdose. Bowie himself comes across as chatty and witty, though slightly nervous. The only real regret you have listening to this, is that Bowie didn’t return to the BBC that much through the rest of the decade – some sessions from the late 70s would have been a joy to hear, but in reality, his next BBC sessions were with Tin Machine, and it’s unlikely that anyone would really want them released now.

‘Bookends’ by Simon & Garfunkel

By the time ‘Bookends’ was released, Simon and Garfunkel were well established and successful. Presumably, this success is what led them to experiment with their formula a little more than they had previously done. Some of ‘Bookends’ follows the classic Simon and Garfunkel formula, other parts are more surprising.

‘America’, ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ and ‘Mrs Robinson’ are traditional stuff – largely acoustic, sung in gorgeous harmony, and immediately catchy. Alongside these tracks, however, you get ‘Voices of Old People’, which is what the title suggests, ‘Old Friends’, which is sung over a simple swooping line of strings, and the remarkable ‘Save The Life Of My Child’ which is strangely a discordant track full of synthesizer, as though Simon and Garfunkel are deliberately subverting the very things that make them appealing.

Ultimately, it has to be said, the more experimental tracks aren’t as successful as the usual stuff – a shame, because it’s always interesting to hear musicians try new things. Having said that, it’s all pretty good, and the best tracks are very god indeed. It would be overshadowed by their next, and last album, but it’s well worth a listen.

‘Bodysong’ by Jonny Greenwood

Pity the collector. To most people, the news that Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist for Radiohead, had recorded the soundtrack to an obscure documentary film would register no interest whatsoever. To a certain type of person, however, the very existence of this record was reason enough to own it. It’s not even as if I didn’t know what to expect – I knew it would sound like this, and I was proved right.

Even by the standards of what Radiohead were releasing at the time, this is a difficult album to listen to. Creative, yes, fascinating, yes, but not especially enjoyable. That said, it’s to Greenwood’s credit that he is able to keep things interesting. There is a good bit of variety on this album, from piano led tracks to violin, to brass, to percussion. Sadly, each track sounds like a group of musicians warming up for a proper song. I’m sure it was constructed very carefully, but if you were to play it backwards by mistake, I’m not sure you’d notice the difference.

‘Blur’ by Blur

Following the release, and lukewarm critical reception of ‘The Great Escape’, Blur went to great efforts to evolve, releasing this album in 1997. Listening to the album as a whole, it’s an obvious new direction for the band, but it would be a mistake to say they’d neglected their pop roots. ‘Beetlebum’ and ‘Song 2’ may have a slightly rougher arrangement than previous albums, but given a polish, they’d have both sat comfortably on earlier albums. Only with ‘Country Sad Ballad Man’ is there a real indication that Blur were entering new territory. It’s a down beat arrangement of a track, layered in slide guitar, and featuring a vocal performance from Damon Albarn that jumps through octaves like hoops. It sounds unlike anything Blur had done up to that point. The album continues in a similar vein – ‘You’re So Great’ is rougher than any tracks that had come before it, though lovely never-the-less, ‘On Your Own’ is the most awkward sounding track they’d ever released as a single, ‘Theme From Retro’ dispenses with words altogether, and pretty much loses its tune along the way, ‘Chinese Bombs’ is abrasively loud and short, and ‘Essex Dogs’ is more of a rambling stream of consciousness than a song.

Mixed into all this, however, are some great pop moments. ‘M.O.R.’ may have been derivative enough to require a writing credit for Bowie and Eno, but it’s still a great track, ‘I’m Just A Killer For Your Love’ and ‘Strange News From Another Star’ are both great, and ‘Look Inside America’, though weary, is suitably anthemic.

All in all, ‘Blur’ is a fantastic album, and testament to the fact that the band made all the right decisions before making it. It also cements their reputation for being great musicians – it’s more evidence in particular that Coxon is one of the greatest guitarists of his generation. Twelve years on, this album sounds as good as it ever did.

‘Blue Lines’ by Massive Attack

Like lots of people, I like to think that my music collection is pretty eclectic. Like most people who think this, it’s not really. There’s a reasonable variety, which is more-or-less inevitable when you acquire music in large amounts, but the vast majority of it is made by white men with guitars, and there’s no real getting around that fact. Nestled somewhere in the middle of the shelves is my selection of Massive Attack albums, a token gesture towards the world of rap. It’s an easy way in, of course – trip-hop, the genre pretty much defined by Massive Attack, is music for people who are hip-hop-phobic. There are still real instruments being played, there are still melodies mixed in along the rapping, and some of the songs can even be hummed afterwards.

‘Blue Lines’ was the first Massive Attack album, and it remains, in many ways, their best. The essence of the album is captured perfectly by ‘Safe From Harm’, the opening track – a slow drum beat, a driving bassline, an atmospheric vocal melody, with some brooding rap parts underneath. It skirts along the edge of menacing to just the right degree, as does much of what follows.

My favourite moment of the album is the point at which ‘Blue Lines’ runs into ‘Be Thankful For What You’ve Got’ – the first is a rather dense and heavy part of the album, the second is one of the most upbeat and positive parts, and the move from one into the other is timed perfectly. Soon after, of course, comes ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, the track that will always be identified, more than any other, with the band, despite being fairly a-typical of their work. It’s topped all sorts of critical lists since its release, and rightly so – it still comes across as perfectly formed, even now, the centrepiece of a wonderful album.

‘Blood’ by Franz Ferdinand

When Franz Ferdinand released their third album, ‘Tonight’, at the beginning of the year, the special edition had an additional eight tracks on the end. These tracks were remixes of album tracks that carried the collective title ‘Blood’. Later in the year, ‘Blood’ was released on its own with an additional ninth track. My version is the first, and it was an accidental purchase in many ways. I bought ‘Tonight’ from ebay from an incredibly small sum, and happily, the special edition is what arrived through the post. To be honest, I’d paid it little attention before now. I was pretty disappointed in ‘Tonight’, so the idea of spending time with a collection of dub versions was relatively unappealing.

Happily, listening properly to this while coming to work on a cold dark morning was a more interesting experience than I thought it would be. It’s a bit samey, as you might expect, but there are some interesting production flourishes, and a good set of basslines. I doubt it would stand up to excessive repeated listening, but as the right kind of background music, it serves its purpose well.

‘Black Tie White Noise’ by David Bowie

Bowie’s first album of the 90s, and his first solo release since Tin Machine, was unavailable for a long time, finally getting a reissue a few years ago. At the time, it had mixed fortunes. It reached number one, but fell of the radar pretty fast. It was received pretty well by those who heard it, and it deserved to be. For the first time in almost a decade, this is an album that shows Bowie both making an effort, and finding that this effort is paying off. It’s not one of his best, but it lays a firm foundation for his nineties renaissance, and it’s a fine album in its own right.

The album is book-ended by ‘The Wedding’, and ‘The Wedding Song’ – Bowie’s recent marriage runs through this album explicitly, as well as presumably giving him the self-assurance to produce something decent again. ‘You’ve Been Around’ is the first real track of the album. It sounds like it could have been a Tin Machine track, but it sounds vastly better than it would have done if this had been so.

The singles from the album all show Bowie returning to where he left off with ‘Let’s Dance’, or even ‘Young Americans’. ‘Jump They Say’ is particularly good, ‘Miracle Goodnight’ is less so. The title track is a brave attempt to deal with issues of race. The fact that it isn’t horrendously embarrassing a decade and a half later is a sign of success in itself. The rest of the album continues the slightly dancey production techniques and instrumentation, and it does so to good effect. ‘I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday’ is a little overwrought, but the rest of the record is certainly good enough to compensate for this.

‘Beyond The Neighbourhood’ by Athlete

Athlete’s third album, released in 2007, is a curious affair. When Athlete first album was released, it was a quirky indie type record, whereas their second album ironed out all these quirks, aiming for a more conventional Coldplay-esque sound. ‘Beyond The Neighbourhood’ fall somewhere between these two positions.

It starts with a fairly low key instrumental warm-up which segues into ‘Hurricane’, the lead single. As you’d expect from a first single, it’s a reasonably upbeat anthemic number, and certainly one of the stronger tracks from the album. The next couple of tracks continue in a reasonably similar vein, livened up by some great drumming. In the middle of the album comes ‘The Outsiders’, the core of the record. Again, it’s a fairly unassuming track, but nicely produced, with some good harmonies.

The trouble with this album, is that second half doesn’t really offer anything new. The first six tracks make a good lesson, the next five are all fine as they are, but there’s nothing that really stands out. As such, the album drifts to a vaguely unsatisfying end, which is shame after its promising beginning.

‘Bertolt Brecht’s Baal’ by David Bowie

As Bowie journeyed through the 80s, releasing albums that were getting increasingly rubbish, he also undertook a variety of side projects that were, on the whole, far more interesting than his proper work. It was also the period in which he stretched his wings as an actor, with mixed success. One of the roles he played during this period was the part of Baal in a TV adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play. As part of this, he recorded five songs for the soundtrack which were released as an EP at the time, and re-released a couple of years ago as a download.

Bowie’s voice lends itself well to ‘Baal’s Hymn’, the track which outlines his character’s journey. The middle three songs – ‘Remembering Marie A’, ‘Ballad of the Adventurers’ and ‘The Drowned Girl’ are all suitably atmospheric. ‘The Dirty Song’, which closes the album, is short, throwaway, and slightly unpleasant, but it’s all in character, so it’s hard to criticise.

At five tracks long, and none of them written by him, it could never be more than an interesting curio in his career, but judged on those terms, the EP is fairly successful.

'Beautiful News' by Matt Redman

'Beautiful News' is the 8th album by Matt Redman, coming an incredible 13 years after his debut. A lot had changed in this time. Redman had moved on from Soul Survivor, the festival that was for many years his natural home, and surrendered his status as the UKs great young worship songwriter to Tim Hughes. By the time of 'Beautiful News', he was more like a Kendrick to his generation, and I imagine he'll remain so - always there, continuously producing new stuff, but never quite having the impact he once did.

I'm not sure where we got this from. I think it was a present bought for Tessa, and I vaguely remember having trouble getting it to play on my mp3 player properly. By the time I'd got the problem resolved, the moment had passed, so I listened today with a fresh perspective.

As an album, 'Beautiful News' is mature, well produced, and never less than decent. That said, there's little on it get excited about. It falls into the all-too-unsatisfying category of overt-worship albums full of songs that wouldn't really work congregationally. As a result, it's hard to know what to do with it. Only 'You Never Let Go' stands out as a song that would work in churches, though personal experience tells me it's a struggle to actually sing - too high in the chorus, and too low in the voice if you transpose it.

So, all-in-all, it's pretty good, but I can't see myself listening to it again in a hurry.

'Beautiful Freak' by Eels

In my head, the Eels career trajectory went from mainstream indie band to deliberate industry outsider. My memories of 'Beautiful Freak' were of a good, but relatively straightforward commerical success. Commercial success it was, of course - it went top 5, and spawned two top 10 singles - it even won a brit award. All of these would be unthinkable achievements from an Eels album now.

What's interesting listening back to the album now is how Eels-like it is. It may have achieved mainstream success, but it's a pretty uncompromising album both lyrically and musically. Mark Everett writes lyrics as miserable as anyone else in music, and this album has as many examples as any other album, particularly during 'Mental' and 'Your Lucky Day In Hell'. The music, whilst more electric-guitar-heavy than many of his other records, is still littered with glockenspiel, top-end piano and synth pads.

'Beautiful Freak' isn't an album to listen to if you need cheering up, but it's a great record. What it lacks in experimentation, it makes up for in focus, and general quality. It'll never be remembered as the quintessential Eels album - that would surely be 'Daisies of the Galaxy' of 'Blinking Lights' - but it's very, very good.

'BBC Radio Theatre, June 2000' by David Bowie

Back around the turn of the milennium, Bowie underwent something of a revival. 'Hours' was released to positive reviews, and he headlined Glastonbury, and as a result, the cash-ins began. The best of these was a double disc set of BBC sessions from the early seventies, and tucked away as a bonus disc came this, a recording from a tiny gig at the BBC Radio Theatre. It's never been released on its own, so it's currently unavaliable, which is a real shame, as it's excellent.

In keeping with his 'singer-songwriter' persona of the time, there's nothing flash about this - just Bowie, his band, and fifteen songs from his past and present. The band is excellent, a mix of old hands (Mike Garson and Earl Slick, who both played with Bowie in the 70s), 90s stalwarts (Sterling Campbell and Gail Anne Dorsey who'd been knocking around since 'Outside' and a sprinkling of fresh blood. Between them, they faithfully recreate songs from as far back as 'The Man Who Sold The World', right through to 'Survive' and 'Seven'. They gel together fantastically - the piano and guitar both get to shine without over-dominating the other.

The great strength of the album is its variety. Bowie doesn't depend on the big hits here - well known stuff like 'Ashes To Ashes' and 'Lets Down' sit comfortably along lesser known tracks like 'This Is Not America' and 'Cracked Actor', and even the less loved nineties era is well represented, which shows admirable pride in his most recent work. The only real criticism is the exclusion of the half-dozen other tracks performed at the same gig.

‘Bambu’ by Dennis Wilson

‘Bambu’ isn’t a real album. Before the death of Dennis Wilson, he was working on a follow up to his only real album, ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’. Last year, when this album was re-released, it came with a second disc containing the tracks that had been recorded as part of this process. As such, it’s not really fair to think of it as an album in its own right. But I’ll do it anyway.

For a solo album from the drummer of a band long past their best, ‘Bambu’ isn’t a bad listen. It’s a mix of rockier tracks and slower, quieter tracks. The latter are generally the best bits – Wilson sings with a fragile voice, but a very evocative one when the material suits it. The rockier tracks aren’t bad – they’re often enlivened by some excellent use of a horn section and other accompaniments, but they’re let down by their lyrics which are only really traditional rock ‘n’ roll clichés – attractive girls at parties are good, being a rock star is fun, and so forth. ‘School Girl’ is particularly cringe-worthy, being horribly inappropriate for a man in his mid-thirties, especially given Wilson’s somewhat tangled web of personal relationships to that point.

So it’s an interesting listen, and it probably would have made a good album had it been tightened up, trimmed down and generally finished. Certainly for a bonus disc of material on another record, it holds its own pretty well.

‘Automatic For The People’ by R.E.M.

Released in 1992, ‘Automatic For The People’ was R.E.M.’s eighth studio album, and a continuation of the predominantly acoustic style of ‘Out of Time’. As such, it’s a gentle album of well constructed songs with only a few up-tempo tracks to vary the mood.

‘Drive’ starts the album off in subdued form, based around a repeating pattern of acoustic guitar over which the track swells and fades throughout. Repeating patterns are something of a trademark of this album - ‘Try Not To Breathe’ and ‘Nightswimming’ being other prime examples. The first half of the album is dominated by the singles ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’, both instantly recognisable, but both very different. ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight’ has a melody that meanders from chorus to chorus via any means necessary, and a set of lyrics that are virtually indecipherable, and obtuse even by Michael Stipe’s standards. ‘Everybody Hurts’, on the other hand, is a beacon of clarity – a simple but beautiful backing track with an instantly accessible set of words. It’s a song that’s been dulled by familiarity over time, but it deserves to be listened to properly, as it’s lovely.

The second half of the album is more of the same, but this is no bad thing. ‘Monty Got A Raw Deal’ and ‘Man On The Moon’ are the rockier tracks on the album, though this is a relative state, ‘Nightswimming’ is a wonderful example of how to construct a great song out of very few components, and ‘Find The River’ allows the album to drift to a close.

‘Automatic For The People’ is generally regarded as the archetype R.E.M. album, and it’s hard to argue with this view. There are other great albums in their back catalogue, but this is pretty special.

'Audio Lessonover' by Delirious?

This is a tricky one. From 'Cutting Edge' onwards, I was a big Delirious fan, but this was the last album of theirs I ever bought. Not a good sign. Actually, it was very interesting listening back to this - it's not as bad as I remembered it being, but it has some pretty major flaws.

Up until this album, Delirious had been on an interesting journey. Every album had seen them edge slightly closer to the mainstream until their album 'Glo', the one before this, which was a firm step back towards their worship roots. It's almost as though they thought they needed to balance this out, as 'Audio Lessonover' is as mainstream friendly as they ever went.

For the first time, the album contained songs that were not explicitly Christian in their outlook. Some people found this difficult to take, though I don't think it bothered me at the time. I've never quite understood the view that Christians should only write 'Christian music'. Having said that, it does give the album a slightly muddled outlook, especially because a lot of the songs use language that sounds quasi-worshippy - lots of references to 'all you need is love', and 'your love' and 'angels' - it's as though they didn't quite have the courage of their convictions. It's therefore hard to see who they're trying to appeal to, and how. Even the album title is confused - much was made of it being an ironic anagram of 'Radio One Love Us', but even if that's true, it doesn't mean a lot.

The main problem with this album, however, is musical. In fairness, this is quite a brave album - there are lots of musical ideas and production tricks that the band hadn't tried before. Some of them work, lots of them come close to working, and some of them just don't. 'Waiting For The Summer' and 'Take Me Away' are both decent enough slabs of pop, then 'Love Is The Compass' comes really close to being the best yet before its clunker of a middle eight lets it down. 'Angel In Disguise' is good, but 'Rollercoaster' doesn't really work, despite its modular approach to construction - the bits just don't really fit together. 'Bicycle Gasoline' has a nice tune, but it doesn't seem to mean anything, 'A Little Love' and 'Heaven' are fine, but nothing that hasn't been done before, and better. 'Angel' is a mawkish mess of nothingness. 'Stealing Time' is good - the best example of finishing with a big brooding track since 'Obsession'. But it doesn't add up to enough good bits.

The band, I believer, returned to form after this, though I didn't follow them particularly. The trouble is, they went back to being a successful worship band, and it seemed to regressive to me, however well it was done. It's a shame the world didn't give them a bit more of a chance to work these ideas through - maybe a real follow up to 'Audio Lessonover' would have been great? Sadly, the album just sticks out as a missed opportunity.

'At War With The Mystics' by The Flaming Lips

This is an album I had as a Christmas present a couple of years back. It was given to me along with their previous album, both of which I'd asked for, but it was this one that stuck. The Flaming Lips are a somewhat experimental band, and this album shows them at their most conventional. That said, all things are relative.

It's album you can more or less pass judgement on immediately. The first track, 'The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song' is a catchy, slightly riotous and vaguely unhinged song. You can love it, or you can hate it, but I don't think there's a lot of space between those two positions. If you don't enjoy it, there's little point in continuing - all the adjectives I've just used pretty much apply to the album as a whole. Even when the tempo drops, as it frequently does, there's still a lot going on.

If I had to guess, I'd say big Flaming Lips fans would be a bit sniffy about this record - they'd probably judge it to be too commercial, and too far from the band's anarchic spirit. Well, it isn't - it's the sound of The Flaming Lips learning to produce something with some focus, and as a result, it's great.

'Asleep In The Back' by Elbow

Glory. It took until last year's 'The Seldom Seen Kid' for Elbow to finally get a bit of public recognition. 'Asleep In The Back' was released seven years earlier than this, and frankly, it should have given them the respect they have now. The band had already existed, in some form, for 11 years before the release of their debut album, and they'd already been forced to scrap one record due to label negotiations. As a result of this, 'Asleep In The Back' is incredibly well constructed.

'Any Day Now' starts the album on a dark and claustrophobic note, but it's a perfect introduction to the album, and the band. It shows all the instrumental ingredients that Elbow love to use, and it showcases Guy Harvey's extraordinary voice - the man can sing melancholy like no-one else. Even more upbeat numbers like 'Red', the second track, sound wounded, but in the most beautiful way. Other highlights to the album include the dense and heavy 'Coming Second', the contrasting airy and dreamlike 'Scattered Black And Whites', and the sublime 'Newborn'. Only Elbow would aim for chart success with the line 'I'll be the corpse in your bathtub'. Amazingly, it failed to chart. Newborn starts gently, but ends in a squalling storm of prog-rock. It's worth every second of its seven and a half minutes. Only 'Don't Mix Your Drinks' and 'Presuming Ed' are less convincing, and the styles used in both tracks would be improved upon in subsequent albums. My copy of the album is missing the title track - the 'Asleep In The Back' single was added to later pressings. It's a shame, as it's also a lovely track.

There must be plenty of people out there who have bought an Elbow album in the last couple of years but who don't own this. They should do. I can't recommend it enough.

'Arcade Fire EP' by Arcade Fire

Released in 2003, then again in 2005 to follow the first proper album, this 7 track EP was the first release from Arcade Fire. You wouldn't expect a massive amount from it - recorded in a barn before the band had a record deal, it sounds a bit rough and ready, but it shows many of the hallmarks of Arcade Fire which they would go on to develop more fully. The instrumentation and the vocal signatures are all in place, and only the slightly ropey production lets it down. It's most notable for an early version of 'No Cars Go' which would later feature on Neon Bible in an almost identical form, which rather implies the band were happy with this record as it was - and fair enough, really. It's unlikely that many people would choose to listen to it instead of 'Funeral' which followed it, but it's a pretty good curio.

'Any Minute Now' by Soulwax

'Any Minute Now' was Soulwax's second UK release, and I'm fairly certain I bought it on its release. I'm also fairly certain I bought at least one other album at the same time, and then didn't really bother to listen to 'Any Minute Now' more than a couple of times before consigning it to the 'disappointing' category.

Before releasing this, Soulwax had a pecualiar dual identity -mild mannered indie band by day (the most successful indie band in Belgium, perhaps - what an honour), respected DJ artists by night. This album seems very much like an attempt to bring together these two areas of work. Whether it succeeds or not is debateable. It could be said that the album attempts to straddle the line between indie and dance without fitting comfortably into either camp. In some ways, that's perhaps a good thing - one in the eye for pigeon-holing. On the other hand, it obviously didn't convince me at the time, or I'd have remembered some of it. Honestly, I couldn't have hummed a single tune from it before listening this time round.

That said, I've been listening to it on repeat for four days, and I'd still be hard pressed to do so. The first half a dozen tracks are all cut from a similar template - loud, partly programmed drums, distorted guitar, heavily processed bass and vocals - it all adds up to quite an assault on the senses. I imagine if you played them in a club, they'd sound great. An empty classroom at 7:30 in the morning doesn't have quite the same effect. When 'A Ballad To Forget' (track seven) provides a gentle piano-based ballad, it's a blessed relief, frankly. It stays quiet for 'Accidents and Compliments', then plows into 'NY Excuse'. This is the most dance-based track on the album, but also one of the most effective, which adds weight to the idea that maybe the band should have made up their mind about what they were trying to achieve. Then the album plays out to a close in much the same way it opened.

This isn't an album I could love. Never-the-less, I've been interested enough to spend four days listening to it again and again, and actually, it's growing on me. I don't think I could describe it as successful, but it's a bold attempt to try something new as a band, and it has its moments.

'The Velvet Underground And Nico' by The Velvet Underground and Nico

The first album on this list to be dramatically out of sequence. This is incorrectly filed on my mp3 player as 'Andy Warhol', so it appears under A instead of V. Still, I've listened to it, aNnd here it is.

I bought this a few years back, incredibly cheap in an HMV sale. Not because I knew I wanted it, or I'd heard it before, simply because I knew that the Velvet Underground had been a big influence, directly or indirectly, on lots of bands I did like. It was an album I felt I should have.

Since then, it's languished on the shelf, pretty much unlistened to. Listening to it now reminds me why. Bits of it have a certain rough charm - 'Sunday Morning' sounds like a primitive Mercury Rev, 'Femme Fatale' works well as a sort of Bacharach-pastiche, and 'All Tomorrow's Parties' has a certain hypnotic quality. Sadly, too much of the album fails to match this, inhabiting the spectrum somewhere between 'hard work' and 'unlistenable'. Many of those artists that owe a debt of gratitude to the Velvet Underground have taken the ideas on display here and improved on them massively. For that, we can all be thankful

'Amnesiac' by Radiohead

Finally, some Radiohead. And while 'Amnesiac' might not come top of my list of Radiohead albums to listen to, it's still nice to come across it. I remember being very excited about the release of 'Amnesiac', having waited so long for 'Kid A', the previous album, and in fairness, when it was released, I loved it. It was only later that it fell from favour a little, and I hadn't listened to it as a whole album for quite some time.

Devoid of its context, it holds its own pretty well. In fact, it has some real strengths. Almost every track, in its own right, is a good one. As with all Radiohead's work at that time (and now, really), it ranges from the accessible to the downright hard work, but there are things to enjoy across the spectrum. The most accessible points to this album are, I guess, the singles: 'Knives Out', and 'Pyramid Song' (the Top Of The Pops performace of which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on television). The most difficult track is 'Pul/Pull Revolving Doors' which consists of a programmed drumbeat, a melody-free and heavily treated vocal line, and the occasional piano burble. It's more of an experiment than a song, but it's very atmospheric.

In between, there are all sorts of interesting moments. 'You And Whose Army?' is a highlight for me. It's the fourth track of the album, but the first one to really show off Yorke's voice, and it's a textbook example of how to start a song with nothing, and finish at a crescendo. 'Life In A Glasshouse', the final track, featuring Humphrey Littleton and friends on brass is also magnificent.

Despite all this, the album doesn't hang together in the way 'Kid A' does, and it does feel slightly like a rounded up collection of left-over tracks, somehow adding up to less than the sum of its parts. If it had been released before 'Kid A', it would probably now be viewed as a landmark record, but it's destined to sit always in the shadows, and it doesn't really deserve to.

'Amelie' (soundtrack) by Yann Tiersen

Yann Tiersen first came to my attention at the time of The Divine Comedy's greatest hits collection. A couple of bonus tracks at the time came from his collaborative radio session with Neil Hannon, and they were lovely, but nothing to get specifically excited about. A few years later, they collaborated again on a track called 'Les Jours Tristes', which would end up on Tiersen's 'L'Absente' album, and as a Divine Comedy b-side. Tiersen is big in France, but in the UK, that naturally means nothing.

Anyhow, the reason 'Les Jours Tristes' was important, was that it was also to be featured in the film 'Amelie', a film already gaining a bit of word-of-mouth appreciation at the time. I remember seeing an advert for the film, hearing the music, and being hooked. Since then, the film and the soundtrack have been completely entwined in my mind - I can't imagine one without the other.

The music on this album is quintessentially French, or at least I assume it is. To be honest, I'm no expert. Tiersen uses accordian, harpsichord, piano, tuned percussion and mandolin to great effect, backed with strings most of the time. It fits the mood of the film perfectly, and is a joy to listen to in its own right. Tiersen achieves this despite mining his own back catalogue for contributions to the record - it sounds remarkably like a complete piece of work, with this in mind. Even the two tracks which appear to stand out - 'Guilty', an English language song from the 30s, and 'Si tu n'étais pas là', a French tack from the same era - complement the slightly old-fashioned but homely feel of the record beautifully.

Because the vast majority of my music collection is from this country, or America, the work of Yann Tiersen is like a brief glimpse into what might be glibly referred to as world music. It always makes me feel mildly guilty that my knowledge of other types of music is so limited. Maybe one day I'll investigate further down one of these routes, but for now, this is a record to keep coming back to.

'Amazed' by Brown Bear Music

The first real mystery in this listening experience. I can't remember buying this, or where it came from. I don't know anything about the band, or the context the album was released in. The internet is not helping me here, suggesting it made little impact at the time. As a result of this, I listened to this with no pre-conceptions. I vaguely remembered the chorus of the title track, but that was it.

It's also the first worship album I've come across. They're always hard to be objective about, and difficult to appraise fairly. This album, though, is pretty good.

Musically, it is, at its core, a reasonably straight-forward indie-rock affair, but it's very well produced, with all sorts of loops and samples that enhance the songs without overpowering them. Lyrically, it's... fine. Not amazing, but solid enough. The trouble is, it's very obviouly worship music, but it's not especially congregational, putting the album solidly into a musical niche that always struggles to work. It's a shame - on this evidence, Brown Bear Music should have been able to carve out an identity as a slighlty more subtle Delirious - but it was always going to be the case. I'd listen again, though.

'All Summer Long' by The Beach Boys

‘All Summer Long’ was album number six from the Beach Boys, but to be honest, this was still the period at which they weren’t really making albums – just sticking some singles on a piece of 12” vinyl, then filling in the gaps with whatever they could find. You can’t blame them – this was the second album they’d done within the year, it was recorded in just six weeks.

You can hear the effects though. ‘I Get Around’ and ‘All Summer Long’ are both magnificent. The latter, in particular, shows how good Wilson’s grasp of harmony was even then – try humming the melody line on it’s own, and you realise there’s nothing much there – add the accompaniment, and it’s wonderful. Sadly, these two tracks are the beginning of the record, and nothing else comes close.

It’s not all dreadful. ‘Wendy’, and ‘Girls On The Beach’ are both good to hear, and even songs like ‘Drive-In’ have a certain rough charm. ‘Our Favourite Recording Sessions’ is the very definition of pointlessness. It’s regrettable, to say the least, that the album is structured as it is – on repeat listens, there’s really not much point in listening beyond the first two songs. Happily, better stuff was to come.

'All Is Dream' by Mercury Rev

‘All Is Dream’ was my first Mercury Rev album. I’d first become aware of the band with the release of their previous album, but their appeal hadn’t really clicked. A few years on, when ‘The Dark Is Rising’ was getting airplay, I became intrigued enough to buy it’s parent album, and it’s been something a background favourite ever since.

‘The Dark Is Rising’ is the first track on the album, and it’s essentially the album in miniature. Sweeping strings, piano chords, and a falsetto voice that really only a mother could love. Jonathan Donahue, the band’s vocalist has one of those voices destined for cult appeal. It’s not bad, exactly, but it certainly isn’t to everyone’s taste. You need to like your singers with a bit of individuality.

The falsetto is very evident in the first few tracks, coming to the fore in both ‘Chains’ and ‘Lincoln’s Eyes’. The latter of these two tracks is perhaps the defining moment of the album, in that you could very easily hate it. If you enjoy ‘Lincoln’s Eyes’, you’ll like the rest of the album – simple. ‘Nite and Fog’, which follows it, is a perhaps necessary concession to writing a normal song – it even has a chorus. It also sounds effortlessly constructed – as if the band have thrown it into the record just to prove that they can.

The rest of the album is a fascinating, and at times, bewildering collection of soundscapes. ‘Tides Of The Moon’ drifts in and out like an excerpt from a song that never ends. ‘A Drop In Time’ sounds like a lullaby from a world of magic, ‘Spiders And Flies’ is a sad piano ballad about, apparently, flies and spiders, and ‘Hercules’ is a textbook example of how to build a song from nothing into a towering column of noise.

‘All Is Dream’ is not a conventional indie record. It’s aptly titled, and it genuinely feels like it occupies some strange position somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. It is, however, not quite like any other record, and that’s reason enough to listen to it.

'Aladdin Sane' by David Bowie

This is a great record. Often seen as a poor relation to 'Ziggy Stardust', I prefer this for all sorts of reasons. It may have been recorded in a rush during what must have seemed an endless tour, but Bowie is on such a roll here, that everything more or less comes out golden.

Stylistically, it's more muscular than it's predecessor. Not only had Bowie's performance skills continued to improve, but the support from his band is noticeably stronger. Mick Ronson, Bowie's guitarist and right-hand-man at the time earns his reputation as a great guitarist, but the real revelation is Mike Garson, Bowie's touring keyboard player, joining him on record for the first time. His contributions - sometimes bafflingly avant-garde, such as in the title track, and sometimes beautifully delicate, such as in 'Lady Grinning Soul' are utterly wonderful.

The two singles from this album are both brilliant. 'Drive In Saturday', often overlooked, is a perfectly created pop song. It's a measure of Bowie's confidence at the time that he was willing to give the song away to Mott the Hoople who happily turned it down. 'The Jean Genie', on the other hand, sounds like it was thrown together in a five minute window, but is no less fantastic for it. Other highlights include the powerful opener 'Watch That Man', the somewhat deranged 'Time', and a re-recorded version of 'The Prettiest Star' - formerly a fairly weak single, dramatically improved here.

The only weak spots are 'Panic In Detroit' which bumbles along pointlessly for its duration, and 'Let's Spend The Night Together' - a Rolling Stones cover that isn't bad, but goes to illustrate how far ahead of his contemporaries Bowie was operating. It's a shame he didn't drop it to give 'John, I'm Only Dancing' a well deserved good home.

'Aggressive Sunbathing' by Fat and Frantic

Wowsers. Here's a blast from the past, and no mistake. When I was about 11 years old, Fat and Frantic were the coolest band ever. Chances are, you won't have heard of them, but they were a Christian band who made various failed attempts to become mainstream. They were much beloved by members of church youth groups who were all a bit older than I was, and they broke up slightly before I would have had the chance to discover them for myself. Their music was, for many years, deleted, but can now be found on itunes for those who wish to go looking. My copy of this reached my mp3 player via a mini-disc copy of a tape cassette.

'Aggressive Sunbathing' was their second album, from the era when Fat and Frantic were a four piece. Recorded on what I can assume was a minimal budget, it sticks to a pretty simple arrangement of acoustic guitar, bass guitar, washboard and trumpet. Occasionally, a guest violinist makes an appearance - I can't work out at this point whether the violin is slightly out of tune, or whether that tape cassette was a little stretched when the digital copy was made. Either reason could be true, I suspect. Lead vocals alternate between three singers, all of whom sound slightly self-concious as they sing. Later live recordings would sound far more relaxed, and would also benefit from more vocal harmonies - I imagine overdubs were probably a luxury that 'Aggressive Sunbathing' couldn't afford. In fairness, despite the constraints, the arrangements are tighter than I remembered them being - I guess they made the most of what they had

Fat and Frantic always worked a balance between silly songs, sensible songs that sounded a bit silly, and heartfelt songs about their faith, or worldly issues. This tended to give their albums a slightly schizophrenic sense, and 'Aggressive Sunbathing' probably suffers from this more than any of their other albums. 'Freedom' and 'Uganda's Children' are wonderful songs, but their impact is lessoned slightly by their proximity to 'Uncle David' and 'Born To Be A Brownie'. 'Take Me Home' and 'Proud' are more successful in marrying the two sides of the band, though the latter's references to South Africa and El Salvador date the album as a whole pretty badly. 'Snog A Toff' and 'Dictator' show a keen eye for satire that works well.

To be frank, it would be easy to listen to this album 22 years past it's release and rip it to shreds - it has flaws and limitations a-plenty. But despite all of them, you can't help but enjoy listening to it, as it's still fun. You do wonder how much better it would have been had some money been spent on it, but perhaps that would have destroyed it's charm. We'll never know.

'Accelerate' by REM

REM have always been one of those bands that I've liked without ever being passionate about. Over the years, I've slowly accumalated a pretty decent number of albums, and I've liked most of them to varying degrees, without ever really being blown away by one.

This is there most recent, and I think it's one Tessa had a present. To be honest, my interest in the band had waned since the release of 'Reveal', which had been pretty disappointing. All the signs seemed to indicate that their glory days were long passed, and they were destined to drift into obscurity and irrelevance.

Perhaps they are, but if this is to be their fate, then 'Accelerate' will be, at least, a final burst of excellence. Perhaps aware that they were running out a chances, REM seriously raised their game with this record. Gone were the ambling acoustic fumblings of recent years, replaced with short sharp bursts of energy and tune. Few of the songs last much longer than 3 minutes - the whole album lasts for little more than half an hour, but it has real impact from the beginning.

It's not an album with particular stand-out tracks, but this works to its advantage - everything is good, and nothing pales in comparison to anything else. Only the final track, 'I'm Gonna DJ' is sub-standard - it's not terrible, but it's not as good as what comes before it. It doesn't matter - the album as a whole is more than good enough to make up for it.

Time will tell whether further REM albums will match this, or whether this will be a final gasp. Either way, it's something to be proud of.

'Absent Friends' by The Divine Comedy

‘Absent Friends’ was released during what must have been an unsettling time for Neil Hannon. Regeneration, the album for new label EMI, had sold an unspectacular number of copies, and he’d recently said goodbye to his entire band, some of whom had been around for a number of years. Little wonder, then, that ‘Absent Friends’ is a slightly melancholic album. Even upbeat songs, like the title track have something of a sting in the tale – “happy days, we thought that they would never end – but they always end.”

Because Hannon writes in character so often, it’s difficult to make assumptions, but there are plenty of clues throughout the album that Hannon is writing more personally on this record. ‘Absent Friends’ is surely a nod to the band members he’d recently lost, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that ‘Sticks And Stones’ may be a comment on the fan reception of the previous album. ‘Leaving Today’ speaks for itself, as does ‘Charmed Life’. It’s unusual to see so much of Hannon himself in his work.

Musically, ‘Absent Friends’ gave Hannon the chance to spread his wings a little after the musical restrictions of ‘Regeneration’. The title track, and opener, revels in its orchestrations, as do the two songs that follow. ‘Sticks And Stones’ has a fantastic accordion line courtesy of Yann Tiersen, though the chorus lets it down a little. ‘Leaving Today’ and ‘Our Mutual Friend’ are as sumptuous as anything in his career. There are only a few simpler moments – ‘Come Home Billy Bird’ is a relatively straightforward indie-ish track, and ‘My Imaginary Friend’ is the most stripped back – and also the most light hearted.

As an album, it has real strengths, and however much I loved ‘Regeneration’, it was good to hear Hannon returning to form when it was released. However, it does lack the humour common in most of his other albums – understandable under the circumstances, but a shame never-the-less. As a result of this, ‘Absent Friends’ feels a little less than the sum of its parts, but as its parts are so good, it gets away with it.

'About A Boy' (soundtrack) by Badly Drawn Boy

When it was first announced that Badly Drawn Boy would be providing the soundtrack to 'About A Boy' it raised a lot of eyebrows. Critics found it inexplicable that a critically adored Mercury-Music-Prize-Winning maverick artist would want to ally himself to a major motion picture based on a Nick Hornby novel and starring Hugh Grant.

Well, they are all wrong. 'About A Boy' may only have been Badly Drawn Boy's second album, but it's his best. Written for a purpose, this album is more focused and less flabby than the albums released either side of this one. It has some fantastic singles - one very conventional, but great ('Something To Talk About'), and one slighlty more unusual, but still great ('Silent Sigh'). Most of the rest of the album is still song based - this isn't a collection of soundtrack friendly instrumental segments. 'A Peak You Reach' and 'Above You, Below Me' would have sounded perfectly at home on other albums, or even on their own, and tracks like 'File Me Away' and 'A Minor Incident', whilst quieter, are still good songs in their own right. The instrumental bits that are sprinkled through the album make musical references to the songs they are surrounded by, and help the album hang together extremely well. If only he'd kept it up!

'Abbey Road' by The Beatles

This is the most recently purchased album to be listened to so far. I was surprisingly late in coming to The Beatles - they were never really listened to at home when I was young, so I came to them the other traditional way, working backwards from later bands I came to love. I bought a couple of albums, but even my non-discerning ears could tell they were due for a remaster and a reissue, so I held off from buying more. I bought this last month when the reissues finally happened.

The last Beatles album, 'Abbey Road' is rarely less than fascinating. It shows them at their most creative, and their most uninspired, at their best, and at their not-so-best. It starts well. 'Come Together' is slick, tight and impressive. It's very Lennon, but it also demonstrates how well he and McCartney complemented each other, even at this late hate-filled stage - try imagining it without the bass part. It would be nothing. The comes 'Something'. It's a cliche to call it Harrison's best work, but it's a hard point to argue.

Much scorn has been poured on 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. All of it is deserved. You can overlook the sub-music-hall backing track if you put it down it ironic kitsch, but even then, you can't shake the fact that McCartney had already done this, better, with 'When I'm 64'. The lyrics, though - what was he thinking. If the rest of the band had seen any future to the band, maybe they'd have tried harder to block this. It's a shame they didn't. 'Oh Darling' is better, though it's incredibly hard to take seriously. It starts normally enough, but McCartney's howling voice is pure pastiche by then end. 'Octopus' Garden', by comparison, sounds perfectly reasonable. In fact, for what it is, 'Octopus' Garden' is a great little song - catchy, fun, well put together. It's infinitely better than Ringo's 'Don't Pass Me By', his previous writing contribution to the Beatles catalogue. In fact, it could be argued that it's better than 'Yellow Submarine', his most famous vocal moment - but since it vaguely shares the same subject matter, it'll be destined to forever remain its poor cousin.

Side 1 (and it's still easy to think of them as 'sides') finishes with 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)'. Stitched together from two different fragments, this is Lennon's turn to be excessive. It's really dull. Seriously - I'm sure lots of people would claim it to be a trail-blazing exercise in prog rock, but it's far too short on ideas to sustain its 7 and a half minutes. A couple of minutes of the faintly jazzy section, and a couple of minutes of dense noisy section would have made this an interesting diversion.

Side 2 begins with 'Here Comes The Sun'. Harrison may not have the largest writing contribution to this album, but he is most consistent - another hit. 'Because' is a lovely blend of harmonis, though it lacks for an ending. The rest of the side is a big medley of songs, which illustrates both strength (look what we can do) and weakness (we've run out of songs that are good enough to be done on their own). It's shot through with great moments: the transitions in 'You Never Give Me Your Money', the harmonies in verse 2 of 'Mean Mr Mustard', and the chorus of 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' to name but three. Any lesser bits are hidden by the format (which may well have been the idea). The end is wonderful. 'Golden Slumbers' is almost as over the top as 'Oh Darling' was on side 1, but the band are on a roll by now, so you don't care, and when the trumpets play the 'You Never Give Me Your Money' reprise, it makes you want to stand up and applause. The choral vocals of 'Carry That Weight' are both triumphant and desperately poigniant, and 'The End' is a fitting climax to the medley, the album, and the career as a band.

'Her Majesty' is the very definition of pointlessness. Bolting it onto the end of the medley damages the flow of the album just like this paragraph damages the flow of my review. Sometimes, things that are dropped from a tracklist should just stay dropped.

‘Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline’ by Gomez

Their third album in three years, ‘Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline’ isn’t really an album. It’s a round up of b-sides and alternate versions of singles with a couple of new tracks thrown in. As a result, it’s predictably patchy.

Of the new songs (and I can’t be sure I’m right about this, but I think I am), ‘Bring Your Loving Back Here’ would have comfortably made a single, ‘Buena Vista’ sounds lovely, but unfocused, ‘Wharf Me’ and ‘High On Liquid Skin’ are nice enough, but forgettable, and the delightfully titled ‘Shitbag’ and ‘Shitbag 9’ are as worthwhile as they sound.

As for the rest, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. Nothing dreadful, but most of the songs that began lives as b-sides did so because they deserved to be b-sides. ‘Flavours’ and ‘Rosemary’ are the exception, as both are strong enough to stand by themselves – the first, a gentle acoustic track, the latter, a brooding monster. Of the alternative versions, ’78 Stone Shuffle’ is a lot of fun – clearly the sound of a band having a good time. ‘We Haven’t Turned Around (X-Ray Mix)’ is a brave attempt to strip back a more sumptuous track to its bones. It’s interesting, but not great. The album finishes with the band’s version of the Beatles track ‘Getting Better’. It’s played fairly straight, adding only some slide acoustic guitar and an extended outro, and altering the backing vocal arrangements. It’s a good cover, and a strong ending, but it’s not their song when all’s said and done.

It’s fine – I’ve enjoyed listening to it, but by it’s nature, it was never going to be great. It does, however, make a good ending to chapter one of the Gomez story. And that’s a bit of a shame, as chapter two wasn’t as good.

'A Weekend In The City' by Bloc Party

Second album by Bloc Party, and almost the most recent release listened to so far. Like their first album, this is essentially a slightly awkward sounding mix of spiky guitars, fast drums, and studio effects, though the studio effects are up a little on this one, and the lyrics are a little angrier and more angsty.

'Song For Clay' starts quietly with keyboard chords and falsetto vocals before launching into a relentless drum beat and a selection of layered guitars and angry vocal harmonies. 'Hunting For Witches' starts with a fantastic sound collage of voices before turning into an angry sounding rant about alienation and racial exlusion. It's fast, crunchy, and generally brilliant. 'Waiting For The 7:18' pretends to be quiet and gentle at the beginning, but guess what - it soon becomes loud, and fast, and a bit angr... I may have said this already.

And so it goes on. Only 'On', 'Kreuzberg' and the closer 'SRXT' lower the tempo, and even then, only just, and they're still pretty intense. 'I Still Remember' is the only song on the album that isn't hard work. But despite all this, 'A Weekend In The City' is still a really good album. Demanding, even exhausting, but worth the effort, and I'm sure that's how it was meant to be. I reaching out from standard guitar-band-land and embracing more experimental sounds, they created something very successful.

‘A Short Album About Love’ by The Divine Comedy

Here’s an album I’ve not properly listened to for a long time. It’s only half an album, really, recorded with a budget-busting orchestra between Casanova and Fin de Siecle, so if I’ve wanted to listen to a Divine Comedy album throughout the years, this has tended to be very low down the list. That said, Divine Comedy fandom often rates this as a career high for Hannon, so it’s worthy of re-appraisal.

It starts magnificently, no question. ‘In Pursuit Of Happiness’ starts small but becomes huge as the Brunei Ensemble pour layer after layer of orchestration over what’s actually a pretty simple tune. Every time a new set of instruments plays, Hannon’s voice swells in grandeur and volume before eventually, the whole song crashes back down to a guitar-only ending. This leads into the far more conventional ‘Everybody Knows’, the albums only single. It’s a nice enough track, but it doesn’t make full use of the orchestration available. ‘Someone’ and ‘If…’ follow. They’re the dense core of the album, full of strings and horns, but a little lacking in joy. I know a lot of people rate ‘If…’ as their favourite Divine Comedy song, but I’ve personally never really taken to it. ‘If I Were You (I’d Be Through With Me)’ has a lighter touch which serves it well. ‘Timewatch’ is essentially a bigger replica of the version released on ‘Liberation’. The key has changed, it’s slowed down slightly, and the sting section is larger, but there are no radical differences. ‘I’m All You Need’ closes the album with the most upbeat track since the first two. It’s actually very simple in terms of structure and lyrics, but it’s soul-lifting stuff, especially the instrumental section. The part where the horns join the strings is one of the great moments in the Divine Comedy back catalogue.

It’s tempting to wonder what would have happened if a full album had been done like this. I imagine it could have filled out nicely, diluting the sombre air which the middle of the album has. The b-sides that were released alongside this album would indicate so – we’ll come to those another time. That said, it could have collapsed under its own weight. Certainly the next album, ‘Fin de Siecle’ threatened to do both of these things at the same time. This still isn’t my favourite Divine Comedy record by a long shot, but it’s worth listening to, and it has some great moments, and you can’t say that about every album.

‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ by Coldplay

Coldplay’s first album, ‘Parachutes’, was a big success. Lots of people bought it, and lots of people loved it, but there were some who didn’t. A number of critics dismissed the album, and the band as a whole as being a bit wet – too timid to achieve anything of note. ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ seems tailor made to dispel that argument.

The first two tracks make a very strong opening. ‘Politik’ is loud, and more importantly, big. It has no particularly memorable tune, but it certainly creates an impression (and sets a bit of a template for ‘Square One’ on the next album). ‘In My Place’, the first single, is custom built for stadium sing-alongs, and while it may not be especially deep or meaningful, it soars regardless. In just two tracks, Coldplay demonstrate a new found sense of scale.

‘God Put A Smile Upon Your Face’ ups the tempo and throws in some spiky guitar work. ‘The Scientist’ is a slower track which would have sounded at home on ‘Parachutes’, but which would have been a stand-out on it. ‘Clocks’ is like a distillation of everything Coldplay so far. Both these tracks indicate the increased importance of Chris Martin’s piano to the band, something which would continue to develop over this album, and subsequent ones.

‘Daylight’, again, points forward with piano and guitar parts that swoop around each other creating a dense mix of sound that would characterise following albums. ‘Green Eyes’ provides a welcome contrast as a more straightforward acoustic strum-along. ‘Warning Sign’ is glorious, and the best showcase for Martin’s voice so far. ‘Whisper’ is the loudest and densest track on the album, but probably the least essential all in all.

The album ends as well as it opens. The title track is a brooding epic in what could be considered textbook Coldplay style – downbeat verses contrasting with big swells of sound for the chorus. ‘Amsterdam’ is played as a virtual solo piece from Martin most of the way through – piano and vocals backed only with some quiet wordless harmonies. Then the rest of the band appear for the final section, throwing everything they have into the last few bars. Coldplay would remember this trick – they do almost exactly the same thing on ‘Miss You’ during the next album – but the impact is fantastic.

As an album, this was a giant leap forward on its release. You could argue over whether it was bettered afterwards, although you could make a good case for saying that it wasn’t. What seems undeniable, though, is that this is where Coldplay really worked out what they wanted to be. ‘X&Y’ and ‘Viva La Vida’ would, at times, differ considerably from this album, but little hints of structure and style can be traced right back to it, and listening to it now, several years down the line, it doesn’t sound like an early piece of work. A textbook second album. Brilliant.

'A Reality Tour' by David Bowie

Another 'not an album' listen - this is the soundtrack to a DVD release, although it will be released on CD next year. Recorded live in Dublin on Bowie's last major tour (to date, though it's looking increasingly unlikely he'll ever do another), this presents 30 odd tracks spanning the whole of his career.

There's a mildly surprising emphasis on his more recent work - welcome, as it's good - which shows a real confidence in his latter albums, but they're balanced out with some major hits ('Rebel Rebel', 'Changes', 'Ashes To Ashes') and some more obscure stuff ('Fantastic Voyage', 'Be My Wife', and 'Sisiter Midnight', co-written with Iggy Pop). His band are talented and versatile enough to play the songs pretty much as they were. 'Rebel Rebel' gets a new intro, 'Loving The Alien' is acoustic, but everything else is much as it was originally. Only a few key changes demonstrate Bowie's increasing age - but then 'Life On Mars' must have been difficult to sing in 1973, let alone thirty years later.

If this is to be the final major live recording from Bowie, it's a good way to stop.

'A Promenade Companion' by The Divine Comedy

Again, not an album, but a four track EP that accompanies one. This EP came free with early copies of Promenade, though I think my copy was a download in the days when Napster ruled the internet. It's not an essential part of the back catalogue - all the songs appear elsewhere in different guises - but it's a nice addition.

Recorded live (by the sounds of it) by Neil Hannon, a cellist and a violinist, this EP contains one track from 'Promenade', the parent album, and three from the previous one, 'Liberation'.

'Don't Look Down' and 'Your Daddy's Car' are straightforward interpretations of their orginal versions, but with less instruments. 'Queen Of The South' is the highlight, re-imagining the original track as a far more emotional display. 'I Was Born Yesterday' is played somewhat oddly - as if Hannon has recieved a new voice for Christmas, and is learning how it works. Good stuff, though.

'A Pretty Fine Mess By This One Band' by Grandaddy

The first proper release from Grandaddy, this 7-track EP isn't something I really own, but the tracks were all included on a later compilation, 'The Broken Down Comforter Collection', so on my mp3 player, it's stitched back together.

It's an incredibly unfocused piece of work, but a very interesting one. 'Away Birdies With Special Sounds' is a rambling idea, rather than a song, 'Egg Hit And Jack Too' finishes the record with a big blast of noise, 'Peeano' is a fragment of muffled piano, and nothing else. The other tracks are little more conventional, but only 'Taster' really shows any sign that they would go on to create actual songs later on in their career. A good start, I guess, but not a piece of work that stands up to much repeated listening.