So there is this thing going around Facebook asking you to list your “15 albums that you have heard that will always stick with you”.  Ok I thought, that sounds like fun.  So I looked through my iTunes library and picked out 15.  But when I looked at it I wasn’t happy.  First of all not all the albums I own are on my iTunes.  I still have some on cassette tape that I’ve never bothered to digitalise.  Secondly there are some albums that I have heard, but don’t own.  Thirdly I wasn’t sure of the task – it’s not your favourite albums, or most influential, but ones that have stuck with you.  Well I have heard many albums that have stuck with me for being awful but I don’t want to list all them.  I think most of the albums that have really stuck with me are probably ones I’m least likely to continue to listen to and own now.

Like the ones that my parents used to play when I was wee.  We grew up on a diet of The Corries, The Dubliners, other Scottish and Irish folk music and if my dad got to choose – Runrig.  Now it wasn’t what I would have chosen to listen to when I was 8 or any age really, but nevertheless it became ingrained in me and was the start of my musical education.

Another major influence was this old record player and collection of records that was at my gran’s house, although I think they may have come from my other grandad’s.  There was stuff by The Drifters / The Shadows (Hank Marvin’s guitar = awesome), Bobby Darin (Dream Lover) and many others that I can’t even remember now.  It was all late 50s / early 60s rock ‘n’ roll and even though I was listening to them in the late 80s it was the first time I’d heard that kind of music and I thought it was great.  Later when I studied music in school and we covered walking bass etc I knew all about it and my classmates (not for the first time) thought I was some kind of freak.  I probably was.  How many 9 year olds listen to Hank Marvin?  Anyways I don’t own any of these records, and in any case they were singles, but they’ve got to count in my list of music that has stuck with me.

At school I had to contend with different influences – my friends were all into Kylie (when she first appeared) and Jason Donovan (same goes) and New Kids on the Block and I had to suffer listening to them when I really wasn’t interested.  Then at secondary school it was all boy bands (guess what – Take That the first time round!) or mindnumbing dance music .  So again I listened to a lot of that cos it was all around but I pretty much hated it.  Unfortunately I didn’t know what I did like, except I discovered REM so listened to them endlessly for about 3 years.  Then thankfully the whole Britpop guitar band thing happened so at least I could listen to that without wanting to pierce my own eardrums.

I was going to start writing about playing music and wanting to be in a band and create my own music but I’m working on a different blog post about playing the guitar, so maybe I’ll leave it for that.  Plus it’s late and I’m having trouble reading on the screen.  Time to go to bed.

Oh in case you are interested here is my list that isn’t really my list.

1. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

2. Bishop Allen – The Broken String

3. Editors – An End Has A Start

4. Elbow – Seldom Seen Kid

5. Eric Clapton – Unplugged

6. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

7. Jumper – Velkommen Hit

8. KT Tunstall – Eye to the Telescope

9. The Killers – Hot Fuss

10. Manic Steet Preachers – This is My Truth Tell Me Yours

11. Oasis – Definitely Maybe

12. Pulp – Different Class

13. REM – Automatic for the People

14. Radiohead – The Bends

15. We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor

See? It’s a rubbish list.