My Life In Records

Lastly I have a record included that has probably been the one I have listened to most in the past three years. This Kinks nostalgic concept album is a masterpiece. Like many of the songs it makes me long for tradition and the past and the 50s and 60s in England Davies sighs over in turn brings back the childhood in the 80s I sigh over. I used to listen to this album when I was walking. I used to go for an hour walk every morning without fail for years. I used to bring a cup of coffee and walk through this kinda hidden trail that goes behind The Oscar Traynor Road in Santry and under the motorway. I'd go to my marker which was a local petrol station and I'd buy a rag newspaper to read about the footy. This was routine and I loved it and Village Green Preservation Society was so often the soundtrack. You probably wonder why I mention this now? I do because it is all about the little memories in life that mean nothing to anybody else - like silly little walks and picnics and nights out and food fights and records and village greens. Just listen to any of the songs on this album and you'll see what I mean. Actually, I'm gonna go listen to it right now.

I don't care what people say about Pete Doherty and the shambles that is his current band - this album is incredible. It's ragged, punky, shouty but irresistably charming and it remains, wait for it, one of my favourite records of all time. There is not a song I don't like and I have listened to it so many bloody times. Again, the lyrics are very English and behind the raspy guitars and rough live sound there are excellent melodies. Pete Doherty and Carl Barat had a seriously appealing chemistry before the drugs and destruction took over. The Libertines approach to their fans and guerrilla attitude to music really appealed to me. They fell apart and forgot how to write decent song but with this, their first album, they had a similarity to Mike Skinner's debut in that everything seemed a bit lashed together and shabby but it it had character and likability and complete spontaneity splattered all over it. People who want an expertly recorded, musically tight, slick record need never listen to this. People who want a record that sounds like 12 songs captured in their most inspired and exciting form should turn the volume way up.

Up until about 2001-2002 I was quite sheltered in terms of music. I was an out and out Hip Hop head and only dabbled with bits and pieces of other music but not too much. The artist that changed my life and made me the artist I am today was Morrissey. He a) made me realise that I was only getting such a small percentage of what a songwriter and lyricist could be by listening to hip hop only, b) made me realise that you could keep things very simple and they could be more profound than any complex sentence could ever be, c) made me realise that this kind of pop (previously a dirty word to me) ruled and d) made me realise that I was listening to the greatest lyricist that had ever walked the face of the earth and the greatest band in history. e) started my obsession with socially aware and quintessentially English songwriters (Jarvis, The Kinks, The Clash etc. were all to follow) Meat Is Murder gets into my list because it is probably the Smiths' finest work and it was my introduction to their beautifully profound, realistic and often very funny world that I felt so at ease with. I used to listen to this album walking through Santry on my way to and from work for practically an entire winter. Headmasters Ritual is flawless. Well I Wonder is glorious. I Want The One I Cant Have has one of my favourite couplets ever: "A double bed and a stalwart lover for sure, These are the riches of the poor" I could go on and on and on but I would only take up twelve pages!

And then everything changed. This record had probably the biggest influence on my writing now that I really think of it. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I had heard nothing like it. Many claim that Company Flow's debut sums up the late nineties indie-rap shift but this 1997 release is the one that got me all shook up and opened my eyes to the vast possibilities an emcee could explore. Some of the beats are dated but bloody nothing rapping-wise had been done like this before. The fact that Slug, the groups stellar emcee, was not from a typical Hip hop haven spoke to me. The subject matter and the wordplay and the tone spoke to me. The absolute originality and incredible use of vocabulary spoke to me. Ultimately though, Slug made me really really comfortable being me. I no longer felt confused about my place within Hip Hop. I realised that apeing others was exactly what Slug did not do. He was a tall, gangly arty fuck from Minneapolis and proud of it. I was a small tubby arty fuck from Dublin and slowly realising that I could be proud of it too. Aesop Rock, Sole and Sage Francis albums all had a massive impact on me in the early 2000s but Overcast! was the initial seismic shift.

I didn't actually hear KRS's first solo record til 1996 ( It had been released in 93 but it was definitely worth the wait). A mate in school passed this one on to me. I had been too young or was into other stuff when BDP were killing it in the late eighties so this was my real introduction to 'The Blasmaster'. The word I think of when I hear KRS One is 'authority'. He seemed so learned and so unwilling to deal with the hackneyed subject matter most other emcees were babbling on about. He can be too preachy and a little simple simon at times but he makes up for that in his attitude and he was the closest thing to the living embodiment of Hip Hop culture. He had his politics and outlook spot on and this record without question was the one that pushed a pen and pad into my pudgy little paws and made me want to write....to write like KRS One. Need I add that 'Sound Of Da Police' and 'Outta Here' are on this album? Case closed. I wore this one to death for years

Although there is no beating The first Wu- tang album, for some bizarre reason I didn't fully love Wu until Liquid Swords/Only Built For Cuban Links. What took me so long? I have no clue! But anyways, Liquid Swords had a major impact on me in that the Gza, lets call him the Genius, is an unbelievable storyteller and he paints pictures incredibly well. He is the wise prophet and he has incredible composure and authority on this record. He was the perfect antidote to ODB and the incredible thing about Wu in general was they were all such characters. I remember a guy I know once said they aren't really people but superheroes and he's dead right. On Liquid Swords there are tracks like 'Killah Hills 10304" which is like a Scorcese film in a song. It has a killer opener in 'Liquid Swords' and the heartstoppingly good 4th chamber. I thought Rza's verse on that song was the greatest thing I had ever heard on first listen. I would say this is in my top 3 most listened to Hip Hop albums. The other reason I include this is because it got me thinking about writing myself. The next album I pick left me with no choice....

Before I got neck deep in all things Hip Hop there was just rap music. To me, aged twelve, it was nasty, trashy and didn't give a fuck and came from LA. I remember feeling cheated when I bought "Fear Of A Black Planet" by PE because it had no swearing on it. Ice T didn't deprive me of that! OG was such a monumental album for me because it was everything alien to me. Guns, drugs, sluts, hustling, murder....A little removed from my world of games of rounders and top trumps and euro 92 stickers! I remember being at the back of the bus on a school tour and again, religiously learning all the words. I can still recite so many songs and 'Midnight' was my speciality! I particularly loved the lines "Two brothers strolled up talking bout "Get Out!"/Donald D blazed, shot one fool through his fuckin mouth/Why would they step, when they know we're strapped?/ I never cruise L.A.without a Gat in my lap." Then I found NWA and it was on but Ice T was the gateway drug

Where did it all go wrong! Michael Jackson to Jimmy Cliff to Slayer! Oh Dear. After dabbling with the now utterly cringe worthy sounds of Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Poison, Megadeth and Iron Maiden I became obsessed with anything heavy and god-hating around the ten - eleven mark. I loved the idea of satanic messages on records spun backwards and I convinced myself the tumble dryer at home one night gurgled "Satan"! This live double album was kinda the linchpin of it all for me. I mean with titles like "Captor Of Sin", "The Antichrist" and "Mandatory Suicide" how couldn't it be?! A dude called John Mc Gartel supplied me with a taped copy of this album and it is, as it says on the tin, full of aggression. I remember actually feeling a little turned on the first time I heard "Hell Awaits". I spent Halloween in a friend's estate and I remember being dressed up as a ghoul or something strutting round terrorising his neighbours with a ghettoblaster blaring Decade Of Aggression to the point of distortion. It's impossibly corny now and I have to admit metal is the only one kind of music that I can't really take seriously these days but oh, the fiery memories!

I had never seen the film but I knew all the songs. I had no choice. On family holidays and trips to the circus or whatever this was one of four or five tapes (Paul Simon, The Neville Brothers, Dolores Keane included) that was on constant rotation. The standout song for me was 'You can get it if you really want' by Jimmy Cliff and I remember arguing with my Dad that I should be allowed to have the ice cream he was denying me because the song said I could get it if I really wanted! Flawless logic right there! I still listen to this album all the time and there is not a bad song on it.

I remember being seven and lying with my cousin under his bed in Tipperary as we recited all the words to the Bad album. I remember the embarrassment I felt at getting two lines in "Speed Demon" wrong. That was how well me and my cousin knew the record. It was like a test...who'd miss a line first. I even knew how long each gap was between the songs. I miss those days when you had the one tape - side a five songs, side b five songs...no messing, just obsessive repeat listening. This album was the first obsession of mine. It also reminds me of the days when you would get lyrics wrong all the time but you were too young to question what you were saying and you'd just shout them out. In the case of "Dirty Diana". Instead of "unlock the door because I forgot the key" I used to holler "unlock the door because I fucked out the key" as if Mr. Jackson threw it out with the bins and just realised! Even better is this misinterpretation Michael Jackson: "She waits at backstage doors For those... Who promise fortune and fame A life that's so carefree " Michael Jackson obsessed 7 year old: "She waits at backstage doors For those... Who promised for Sinn Feinn A life that's so carefree "