Blog: My Top Ten

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There's a MEME going round on The Facebook at the moment where you list the ten albums which have had the biggest effect on you and which you still listen to, putting up the cover to one of them each day for ten days. Normally I don't do these kind of things, but when Mr N Pillinger nominated me for this one I thought "Oh go on then" and CRUMBS I am so glad I did!

For LO! it turns out that my taste in music is TOTALLY EXCELLENT, and I say that as a completely objective observer. I had a good old think about what records had ACTUALLY changed my life, and came up with a list of ten ACE records, THUS:

• Songs for Drella, Loud Reed and John Cale
• Kite, Kirsty MacColl
• Giant Steps, Boo Radleys
• Gracelands, Paul Simon
• Allo Darlin', Allo Darlin'
• If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle & Sebastian
• Suede, Suede
• Grand Prix, Teenage Fanclub
• Tapestry, Carole King
• Revolver, The Beatles

I'll give you a moment to get your breath back from that ASTONISHING list of esotericsim... OK yes all right, I guess a lot of that is fairly predictable to anyone with the merest hint of knowledge of my output, but then that's kind of the point. If a record really HAS made a big impact on you, you'd expect that to be visible to the casual observer wouldn't you? Still, I was a bit surprised to find the other day that The Validators not only guessed pretty much THE LOT, but they also guessed the albums I EXCLUDED (like 'It's A Shame About Ray') because there wasn't enough space.

Thinking about which records to pick did remind me of three things though. Firstly, as stated earlier, I really do have QUITE EXQUISITE taste in music, OBVS, secondly ALL of those records are ACE (especially Giant Steps and Kite, which I listened to on the train back from Leicester last weekend), and thirdly that I don't listen to music on PURPOSE anymore. I always have 6 Music on in my earphones when I'm at work, and we often have MAGIC on at home, but I hardly ever actually BUY it anymore. Now that you can GET nearly all music so easily I don't really feel the NEED to own it, which is kind of a shame really. As demonstrated by this exercise, albums DO mean something, and continue to do so years later.

Maybe I should try having a listen to some new records again. If Woolworths is still open when I leave work, maybe I will!

posted 19/1/2018 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Meanwhile - please buy my albums!
posted 19/1/2018 by Hibbett's Inner Hibbett

This is like an episode of BLACK MIRROR or something! Except nobody has said "Whooooo mobile phones might be BAD" yet.
posted 19/1/2018 by MJ Hibbett

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