| # | Quote |
|---|
| 1 | [on Steven Wilson] The Nile Rodgers of prog. |
| 2 | Alexei Sayle could rightly claim to be one of the great comic pioneers, steering a generation away from the cosy conservatism of the light-entertainment era. He doesn't do that, of course. When we spoke recently, he was keen not to come over as either sagacious elder statesman or sour old gunslinger. But he did seem a little bemused at how exceedingly ordinary comedians can now fill stadiums, and how blandness and sexism seem to have sneakily returned to the arenas by the backdoor. |
| 3 | [on Simian Mobile Disco] Two tracks from their brilliant Temporary Pleasures album, with guest vocalists - the icy, heartlessly hedonistic Cruel Intentions with Beth Ditto and the sharply witty Audacity of Huge with Yeasayer's Chris Keating - are among my favourite tunes of the past decade. |
| 4 | No one would have thought during the firestorm of punk and beyond that Fleetwood Mac would ever become fashionable again. It was a love that dare not speak its name. And yet this year not only are the Mac the hottest ticket in town, but their influence can be heard everywhere, not least in the lazy, sun-drenched FM pop of Haim. |
| 5 | Ron Sexsmith looks about 12 and would seem to be far too baby-faced to have seen the kind of things that inform his gorgeous songs of heartbreak. A couple of years ago I met him at the Radio 2 Folk Awards and he was in fine form. The lovely Tamsin Greig had presented one of the awards and gave a charming speech. Ron was much taken with her, a fact he conveyed to me forcefully and at some length over a few glasses of red. I liked him a lot. |
| 6 | The return of My Bloody Valentine has been rightly hailed to the skies in the music world. They're about as prolific as the Easter Island statue makers - their new album is only their third in two decades - but their influence has been enormous on a whole generation of bands; their blurry guitarscapes pretty much invented the genre known as "shoegazing". I spent a pleasant afternoon in a Camden pub with them for the NME. They were so quietly spoken that when I got back to the office I discovered on my tape machine that the Elvis songs on the jukebox had drowned out their words of wisdom. Ever the pro, I imagine I made it up. |
| 7 | [on Gentle Giant] One of the most complex and challenging bands of the progressive era - the absolute favourite of a bumfluffed youth from Wigan, who was so fixated with them that he won all three prizes in a Record Mirror competition in the late 70s. |
| 8 | I am now in thrall to a US band called The National. Matt Berninger and co have done things the way they used to be done: a long, slow build predicated on word of mouth and a series of increasingly brilliant albums. I took their latest, Trouble Will Find Me, on a moonlit midnight stroll around Paris recently. But it would sound as dark, melancholic and stunning in Peterborough or Penge. |
| 9 | Will Self is that rarity in modern cultural life, a genuine intellectual with a bracing command of words and ideas who is also droll, likeable and culturally savvy. Also, having some limited experience of this, he's also a great bloke to hang out with, though I can't quite hear him using that expression without a certain douleur. |
| 10 | If you've got a moment today, seek out a track called Have Another Dream on Me by Petula Clark. Written by Tony Hatch, clearly soon after hearing Sgt Pepper or some such heady psychedelia, it's a brilliantly quirky period piece, a pop tune straight out of his top drawer marked "Downtown", but draped in modish accoutrements like sitars, tablas and finger cymbals. I also love her new single, Cut Copy Me, which I promise will amaze you. |
| 11 | The Was brothers weren't called Was and they weren't really brothers. They were, however, the creative nucleus of one of my favourite bands ever, Was Not Was, a funky, faintly sinister crew from Detroit who melded that city's great soul tradition with art school sensibilities, humour and new wave spikiness. I spent an afternoon with them once in a soulless record company office in London and - even allowing for showbiz high jinks - it was surely one of the best times anyone's ever had in there. They had me in stitches, were fabulously clever and signed all my records. Since then, Don Was has become one of rock's leading producers and when I see his name on an album I always tip my hat to him. |
| 12 | I got the chance to announce on stage Nile Rodgers at the helm of Chic, a band whose records mean as much to me as any in my life. Nile negotiated the backstage mud with aplomb and humour and played a two-hour set that contained some of the most joyous pop music ever made. In my introduction I said that my whole life had been building up to this moment. I meant it. |
| 13 | [on David Bowie] The goodwill that has greeted his comeback has been genuinely touching. All the happier, too, that this is not just sentimentality. His new album The Next Day is bursting with energy, ideas and a kind of wisdom. |
| 14 | I have no time for the notion of the guilty pleasure. It reeks of snobbery. Therefore I'd never say my love of big 1980s American FM radio hits was guilty. I genuinely like Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City" and don't understand why rock hacks hate it so much. And I love the big hit singles of Toto, a band of session men whose songs reeked of moneyed languor and LA angst. For me, "Hold the Line" is clearly better than the collected songs of say, The Libertines, and, yes, I think "Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti" is a great line, if geographically shaky. |
| 15 | From using a stylophone on his first hit to dabbling with drum and bass in the Nineties, David Bowie has always been open to new sounds and sonic adventure. And never better than when in the 1970s, he incorporated krautrock and electronica on his Berlin masterpiece, Low. Chilly and beautiful. |
| 16 | [on Lana Del Rey's "Video Games"] It's a beautiful song. |
| 17 | Peter Gabriel is a man of many parts. Just as Genesis were about to cross from student cult to global MOR mastodon, he quit to make a series of inventive solo albums that made him an international star. But if you tell him that he's a man of many parts he's likely to reply with a Viz comic-style fnarr fnarr. During a chat about his album New Blood he revealed a fondness for Carry On-style humour. Asked whether he still played the flute, he replied: "I get it out from time to time... and I play the flute occasionally. Then he told us about the day he accidentally mooned at some Japanese tourists at his Real World studio. A lovely man, and a bit of a card. |
| 18 | Yes, we are the nation of Shakespeare (William Shakespeare), Bobby Moore, The Beatles and Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969). But we are also the nation of Jeffrey Archer, Glen Johnson, The Dave Clark Five and Terry and June (1979). |
| 19 | If push came to shove, I would probably take the music of the Tamla Motown label above all else to that fabled Desert Island, and The Supremes have a particular place in my affections. |
| 20 | [on Amy Winehouse] She's a terrific singer, a brilliant lyricist and Back to Black is one of the best pop albums of the century. |
| 21 | [on the The Stone Roses] I think they're still hugely important. Every British male with a guitar owes a debt to them. |
| 22 | By definition an indie band can't play to 200,000 people. |
| 23 | Every corner of my house is full of CDs. Not even good ones. It's a problem everyone gets. |
| 24 | I do still buy records. As a DJ, you tend to get sent records you don't want. |
| 25 | [on working as a DJ] I have views on quality. If I see an Annie Lennox record in the playlist, my instant reaction is to play Kate Bush instead. Sometimes people write in and complain. They can't believe I've played a track from Sting's 'Dream of the Blue Turtles'. I don't like it, but whether you like it or not, that was a big album. |
| 26 | [October 1990] Morrissey currently enjoys a critical standing roughly akin to a Saddam Hussein. Cat Stevens stands a better chance of getting a positive review than Moz these days. |
| 27 | Clearly Marillion can play. If only they wouldn't play so much of it. |
| 28 | I'd like to feel sorry for Chris De Burgh because I like to have controversial opinions, you know what I mean? Most people do, really, most people like to go out at dinner parties or the pub and say 'Aha, that's where you're wrong. Chris De Burgh is a fine man and an excellent singer and the course of pop music would be very different without him', but I can't. |
$950,000