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.