Another new one for me. I have heard some Sisters of Mercy but never a full album. It’s well produced, sounds somehow cinematic to me, big reverbs. I can hear Depeche Mode, and the beginnings of Rammstein. I’d listen to this again.

I don’t really have much of a frame of reference for most rap and hip hop, but over the years, if there is one group that resonates more than most, it is Public Enemy. They will never be on my most listened list but I can appreciate the production values and the political anger. And the links to Anthrax and ROTM make it a little more accessible for me. This is certainly miles ahead of the gangsta/bling/look at what I got stuff that seemed to dominate the genre a few years later.

An exquisitely crafted album, one of my favourites and the album that got me into Steely Dan. Becker and Fagen employ the cream of the session music world - Larry Carlton, Joe Sample, Chuck Rainey, Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie - and combine them into as many groups as there are uniformly excellent songs. It’s all superb but highlights include Wayne Shorter’s solo over Gadd’s subtle drum patterns on the title track, and one of the most incredible guitar solos in popular music, in Peg, a masterclass by Jay Grayson, who was allegedly the 11th guitar player to give it a go. What a great album to start with.

Ziggy, Moonage Daydream, Suffragette City, Hang On To Yourself, Starman; Ronson, Bolder, Woodie, Bowie. Apocalyptic glam. Extraterrestrial rock. Bowie’s first hit album and, as with so many of his albums, there’s an argument to be made that it’s his best. And some days it is…

I really only know Louis Prima from the voice of King Louie in Jungle Book and Dave Lee Roth's cover of Prima's Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody medley but this album is a fun collection of jump jive jazz. Gigolo/Nobody opens the set and is great fun and, while the rest of the album is not quite as good, tracks like Oh, Marie and Jump, Jive An' Wail come close, Prima's Louis Armstrong-like scatting perfectly complimented by his (20 years younger) wife, Keely Smith's sweet voice. 32 minutes of enjoyment from almost 70 years ago.

While I didn't appreciate it initially, seeing them as fairly one dimensional compared to their '70s peers, I have come to appreciate Sabbath so much over the years; there is so much more going on that the, admittedly spectacular riffs. Listen to Geezer Butler's bass runs, especially at the end of War Pigs, the way Bill Ward plays, like a jazz drummer, and always to serve the song rather than merely to keep time, and Planet Caravan which holds the listener, at least this listener, spellbound for the duration, despite consisting of two repeated chords - Tony Iommi's deft jazz guitar solo skipping over the top. Black Sabbath would go on to even greater experimentation on later albums, particularly Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage but Paranoid built on the promise of their debut and laid the groundwork for even better things to come.

Aretha has one of the most distinctive and individual voices in music. And she also plays piano and saxophone. This album contains the classics “Chain of Fools”, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “Sweet Sweet Baby (Since You’ve Been Gone)” and excellent versions of “People Get Ready” and “Groovin’”. The remainder of the album sparkles almost as brightly, Aretha’s stunning gospel vocals raising even lesser numbers close to the heights of the hits. Such was her talent that there was no such thing as filler on Aretha’s late ‘60s and early ‘70s albums.

Never fell in love with this. Janis’s voice is singular, the music fairly basic garage rock. It IS good and I do enjoy listening to it but I think Pearl is my Janis Joplin album.

This was new to me, although I have heard other St Etienne songs. Pleasant enough, a blend of ethereal chill and house music, amen breaks, piano riffs and samples. There’s a nice version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”. I’d listen again but it won’t be on regular rotation.

Another new one for me. I have heard some Sisters of Mercy but never a full album. It’s well produced, sounds somehow cinematic to me, big reverbs. I can hear Depeche Mode, and the beginnings of Rammstein. I’d listen to this again.

I love Solid Air, John Martyn’s voice and guitar, the jazz folk feel, the upright bass. It meanders and take detours and the journey is rich and rewarding. The songs are uniformly excellent but the echoplex tour de force that is Martyn’s cover of Skip James’s “Rather Be the Devil” is breaktaking. Every time.

I know Masekela’s name primarily from the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, very little about his music. This is a double album of entertaining, if relatively unchallenging, soul-jazz with an Afrobeat flavour in many tracks. Really well played by the whole band with Hugh’s flugelhorn and Dudu Pukwana’s saxophone in particular standing out, the tone of each is excellent. Nothing earth shattering but a really pleasant chilled listen.

I don’t really have much of a frame of reference for most rap and hip hop, but over the years, if there is one group that resonates more than most, it is Public Enemy. They will never be on my most listened list but I can appreciate the production values and the political anger. And the links to Anthrax and ROTM make it a little more accessible for me. This is certainly miles ahead of the gangsta/bling/look at what I got stuff that seemed to dominate the genre a few years later.

I admit my heart sank a little when this popped up; slick modern R&B is not my thing at all. I had never heard of Kalela but knew exactly how this would sound. And I was so wrong. Take Me Apart is modern R&B but it has a huge soundscape. Atmospheric, with rumbling sub-bass and glitchy beats. Loads of EDM elements but also proggy (especially in the layered, 10CC-like vocal parts) and consistently interesting. Apparently Kalela played in metal bands at one stage and it’s not too fanciful to hear some of the things Sleep Token are doing, particularly in the breakdowns.

Again my lack of anything but a superficial knowledge of Hip-Hop means I only know, and like, Kendrick Lamar’s Black Panther soundtrack. But I do know George Clinton and Ronald Isley and Thundercat and Kamasi Washington, all of whom appear here. Yet To Pimp A Butterfly sounds like a cohesive album. There are echoes of Parliament, ‘70s Stevie Wonder, Prince - impressive.

It’s been a while since I listened to this album, although I used to play it a lot. I enjoyed getting to know it again. kd lang’s voice is excellent and really suited to the material, essentially country jazz torch songs. I first heard her on her duet with Roy Orbison and her voice sits somewhere between his and Patsy Cline’s. Black Coffee and I’m Down To My Last Cigarette are particularly good. Really well produced and played, with a lovely pedal steel snaking through many of the tracks.

Yet another hip-hop album, 3rd in 10, but one that I have listened to, and like, a lot. It has recently been voted best album ever by Apple Music, it’s not that, but it is very, very good. I can hear a direct line from ‘70s soul like Donny Hathaway and Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley too. Strange that she never made another but perhaps Miseducation said everything she needed it to…

This is one of those albums which has a reputation as the musical equivalent of coffee table books; everyone had a copy in the early '00s and it was mostly played low, as background music, at a wine and cheese party... Come Away With Me is actually much better than that. Norah Jones's smoky voice and deceptively simple piano playing are sublime; some of her chord voicings are stunningly good. The backing musicians are excellent, the light jazz/country ballads uniformly good. Don't Know Why is a torch song that can stand with the best of the American Songbook greats.

Rubber Soul is the start of the second phase of the Beatles. They have been great a great band before, and many of the songs have been wonderful, but this is where the experimentation really begins. Within a year they will have quit touring and become a studio band and the soundscape will open even more but here we have sitars, and fuzz bass, and double-tracked vocals, more complicated arrangements, a touch of psychedelia. They would push things even further on Revolver and Sgt Pepper's but Rubber Soul deserves to be held in the same esteem.

Been a long time since I listened to this album, possibly because it’s a little inconsistent. It starts and ends really well, Moribund the Burgermeister being very Genesis-like and Solsbury Hill still being among my favourite Gabriel songs, Her Comes the Flood closing in epic style. But, much as I love Bob Esrin’s production style, he’s a little bombastic for PG in places, particularly when his favourite Alice Cooper guitarist, Dick Wagner, shows up on Slowburn. And the Randy Newman sounding blues of Waiting for the Big One doesn’t suit Gabriel at all. Tony Levin and Robert Fripp would have a bigger impact on the better albums to come. Good, not Great.

I probably liked this more at the time. The production, by Don was, is slick and very '80s in places, with a few tracks full of synths and electric pianos, and a little too much reverb on some of the snares. It is still a very good album, the singing and guitar playing, particularly Bonnie's slide is fantastic. The bluesy numbers, some with The Fabulous Thunderbirds are better, elsewhere the sound is very like Eric Clapton’s mid-‘80s output and just sounds a bit dated now.

Not my favourite of the Berlin Trilogy (this week…), although the only one entirely recorded in Berlin, Heroes sits with Low (my current favourite) and Lodger as part of an atmospheric, ambient trilogy, pretty far removed from Ziggy or Aladdin Sane, but still Bowie. The core band of Alomar, David and Murray is excellent, then add Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, both of whom are all over this, and Tony Visconti’s production. The first side, more traditional song structures, foreshadows New Romantic and industrial rock; the second side, largely instrumental, is more ambient and reflective, echoing Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk. Bowie’s voice is slightly alien, almost synthetic, and it really suits the colder, even bleak, music. Love it.

Other than Act Naturally, i don’t think I have ever listened to Buck Owens - I didn’t know he wrote Cryin’ Time which is on this album - but I have listened to a lot of artists whom he influenced. This is twangy, guitar-driven honky-tonk out of Bakersfield CA. You can hear Owen’s influence in Gram Parsons-era Byrds and Burritos, and Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yokum and many more. Telecasters and Nudie suits - this is where it started.

Back to Black is Amy Winehouse’s magnum opus, but her debut album, Frank, is equally impressive. Frank has a stronger jazz influence compared to its more classic soul-inspired successor. The title, evidently referring to Amy’s love for Sinatra, could equally apply to the candid and raw honesty of the lyrics. There are also ‘90s Neo-Soul influences in the music. For instance, “October Song” blends these influences with the jazz elements, with a playful reference to “Lullaby of Birdland” and a nod to Sarah Vaughan. At the age of 19, Amy’s voice, while not as confident as on her later material, is still strong and distinctively hers.

Not for me. I know, and don't particularly like, Britney from the singles; a whole album doesn't make it better. It's well-produced (possibly over-produced) bubblegum pop, largely inoffensive, although I don't like Britney's nasal, adenoidal voice, but some of the songs, like the duet with Don Phillips, are really poor. Apart from Baby, Hit Me... the best song is probably the cover of The Beat Goes On... and that pales in comparison with the Sonny and Cher original.

Stunning album and astounding to think that this came out in 1969. It is such a jump from Isaac Hayes writing and production for other Stax artists, amazing though many of the resulting tracks were. Only four songs, one of which is growling, distorted funk of "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic", another the good but relatively forgettable "One Woman". It is the other two tracks which make this album essential - covers of Bacharach and David's "Walk On By" and Jimmy Webb's (Glenn Campbell's...) "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", the former just over 12 minutes, the latter 18:42 - over 8 minutes before the recognisable part of the song starts, Isaac rapping, free-styling, telling a story to introduce the narrative of the song. Amazing stuff - orchestral strings, fuzz guitar, soul choirs. Unmissable.

I knew nothing about Mercury Rev other than the name. Apparently this album is unlike their earlier, noisier sound. This is delicate, fragile, ethereal. There are orchestral sounds, string quartets, mellotrons, calliopes. It is reminiscent of Funfairs & Saloon pianos. It’s well-played and sounds great and, although the material didn’t grab me, it’s a pleasant listen. The second half rocks a little more and is more compelling. Enjoyable but not essential.

I must admit that I overlooked this album despite a growing fondness for Madness that I didn't necessarily have when they were at their height. I know a few of the songs, but I wasn’t prepared for such a powerful, mature, and thought-provoking collection. It’s like a loose concept album that explores childhood and London, similar in feel to the much later “The Liberty of Norton Folgate,” which I also enjoy. I’ve heard comparisons to the Kinks’ “Village Green Preservation Society,” and that makes sense. The humour in Madness’s singles is still present, and the album holds together remarkably well, with a level of sophistication that isn't necessarily gleaned from a casual listen to the band’s greatest hits, good though they undoubtedly are.

Excellent band - Muddy’s incredible voice, Otis Spann on piano, James Cotton’s harp - with a great setlist. This live album, and the concert at which it was recorded, effectively introduced Waters’s brand of electrified country blues hollers to entire America, and inspired a who’s who of British artists to play this music - the Rolling Stones, John Mayall, and the guitarists who developed in his band - Clapton, Green, Taylor - and so many more. Essential stuff.

Simply the best Christmas album ever. Darlene Love, the Ronettes, the Crystals, Bob B Soxx and Phil Spector’s wall of sound production never sounding better.

1001 Albums describes these songs as “rock and roll stem cells” and they’re spot on. Little Richard, as much as anyone ever has, influenced all that rock and roll became. The Beatles recorded his songs, Paul McCartney was proud of his Little Richard yell, the showmanship of Jimi Hendrix, who played in his band, the flamboyance of Disco, the driving, rattling rhythms of metal; they were all in Richard’s debt. And the songs - “Tutti Frutti”, “Long Tall Sally”, “Slippin’ and Slidin’”, “Rip It Up”, “Jenny Jenny”, my personal favourite, “Can’t Believe You Wanna Leave” and the rest - all classics and all as vibrant as the day they were cut.

My favorite period of my favorite Motown group began with this album. Norman Whitfield, who had already produced singles for The Temptations, took full control of production. This coincided with David Ruffin’s departure and the arrival of Dennis Edwards. “Cloud Nine” featured the five Temps sharing lead vocals, often trading lines within verses, to an increasingly funky, psychedelic soul sound. The Funk Brothers added wah-wah guitars and intense instrumental vamps to the traditional Motown sound, and the lyrics introduced social commentary to the more familiar love songs. The title track kicks things off and we’re in Sly & the Family Stone territory; the 9-minute “Runaway Child, Running Wild”, which builds to an organ- and guitar-fuelled crescendo, is stunning and points the way to the even more powerful workouts to come in the early ‘70s. The ballads were still here but times were getting tougher and, with Whitfield’s encouragement, so were The Temptations…

I don’t really get grime, fam. But then it’s not targeted at me. Some of the beats are good and I really like the sub-bass. If it comes up randomly I won’t skip but unlikely to seek this out.

I have a weird blind spot when it comes to The Afghan Whigs. They weren’t really on my radar in the ‘90s and I discovered them later through Greg Dulli’s work with Mark Lanegan. I own Congregation and several Twilight Singers albums but rarely listen to them. I’ve seen Dulli and Lanegan live as The Gutter Twins and love the album. And I really like this. I’ve probably heard it before. I should probably listen more frequently.

I’ve just never got Billy Bragg. He does what he does well but I’ve rarely heard one of Bragg’s songs and wanted to replay it. “Greetings to the New Brunette” and “Levi Stubb’s Tears” come as close as any.

While I prefer "Songs for Swinging Lovers", this album, Sinatra's first with Nelson Riddle arranging, is arguably more consistent in that it holds that melancholy mood throughout. It reinvigorated Sinatra's career and, as one of the first records released on the new 12" vinyl format, allegedly kicked off the album era. Not as much fun as some of the later recordings, it is an album to wallow in, late at night, perhaps with a whisky in hand.

Never heard this before nor, as far as I recall, have I heard of the Triffids. It’s not a bad album, jangly pop-rock, a little earnest. The production is of its time, big snare reverb, and reminds me of something, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions possibly. I can’t imagine rushing back.

It’s a fun pop album. Cyndi has a unique voice, quirky, the arrangements are good. A lot of it still stands up 40 years later, obviously “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Time After Time” but others too. And it has a bouncy song about wanking…

Another big surprise - I know the Waterboys from Whole of the Moon and a few other tracks but this album is excellent. It’s like they saw what Dexy’s had done with traditional Celtic folk instruments and thought “We could do this so much better” even down to the Van Morrison cover, “Sweet Thing” which incorporates “Blackbird” by the Beatles. It’s like prog folk and I wasn’t expecting it.

Only album by short-lived LA punk band featuring Pat Smear on guitar and produced by Joan Jett. It’s fun, frantic and fast, with the exception of the last song, Shot Down (Annihilation Man), which at almost 10 minutes compared to the sub-two minutes of most of the other tracks, might be my favourite on the album.

It’s become fashionable to hate the Eagles, and some of them don’t seem to be particularly likable people, the current touring version of the band is a cynical money grab. The truth is, in the 1970s, they were very good at what they did. I still listen to Desperado on a fairly frequent basis but I haven’t listened to Hotel California for a good few years. It’s an excellent album. There isn’t a bad song on it. It’s well played, it’s incredibly well produced, and Don Henley, no matter that he appears to mime certain songs these days, was an excellent singer. Meisner and Frey were good too but Henley was top drawer.

It appears I like more hip-hop than I realised. I’d forgotten how good this album is. The first track compares hip-hop to bebop and that’s really apt, not just due to the jazz samples, but also in the fast riffing throughout. One of the most musical hip-hop albums I’ve heard.

Another album that I am embarrassed, particularly as an Irishman, to have neglected, if not ignored. And it is an excellent album, a mix of punk-cèilidh thrash, more tender reflective ballads, some great instrumentals, even a touch of Ennio Morricone in "A Pistol for Paddy Garcia" and all anchored by Shane Magowan's wild, slurred growl. A lot of credit has to go to Elvis Costello who, as producer, controls the mayhem and gives the instruments and voices, including that of his soon to be wife, Cait O'Riordan, room to breathe. It feels like you are in the room with them, and what a room that would have been...

BB King captured at the height of his considerable powers live in concert at the Regal Theater in Chicago in 1964 and released the following year, the year I was born, so this is as old as me, and just as great. It is a remarkable live recording. The tight rhythm section never stop, literally - until it's time to flip the record; the music segues seamlessly from one classic blues song to the next, BB introducing each with a little story "Ladies and Gentlemen" about having a girl, or losing a girl. The horn section is clear and sharp, the sound overall is stunning. And on top of the fantastic band, BB's guitar and voice are supreme. His lead playing is sounds so simple and is so perfect, and many greats have failed to duplicate the magic. His voice slips and slides from deep throaty growls to falsetto highs. This record marked the start of BB King's move from chitlin circuit to rock audiences. Innumerable guitarists, many of them white, many of them British, many of them great players took influence from this. A few came close...