Music Love. Blog Everyday in May.

Nearly everyone who knows me also knows that I love music and that it's impossible for me to name my top 5 albums!  This is partly because I have a memory like a sieve but also because I've been lucky enough to hear lots of music when I wrote for the music section of the Huddersfield Student newspaper. Some great... some not so great...

As a child born in the 80s most of the music my parents played was Queen, ABBA, UB40, Eurythmics, Roxy Music and Human League with a bit of Madonna and Kylie thrown in there for good measure. Queen and ABBA seemed to be played most though...  As I got older I had a small pop phase before being introduced to Belle and Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields and The White Stripes as a teenager. At a similar time I also discovered The Smiths.  Something in this music spoke to me, I'm not sure what. 

I think with The Smiths it was a recognition in the music that there were other people out there that were shy, cynical and a tad melancholy.  With Belle and Sebastian I enjoyed the melodies and the fact that this beautiful sounding band were self deprecating too.  That and their witty songs full of humour, jangly guitars and barbs.

My first experience of the Magnetic Fields was through their album 69 Love Songs and I enjoyed the heartbreaking sweetness of some of their songs juxtaposed with the silliness of Chicken with It's Head Cut Off.

The White Stripes were great for their seeming simplicity and some of their foot stomping tunes like Hotel Yorba.  They also had great style and the rock n roll aggression resonated in the angry young woman in me.

 

Another band I discovered at a similar time was The Pixies, a band who are the right kind of mental for me with their surf-punk fusion.  I must admit I still have debates about which of album of theirs I like best Doolittle or Surfer Rosa... I used to maintain it was Surfer Rosa in arguments but I'm not sure if it's age or my hormones that are swaying me to Doolittle more.

 

Over the years I've grown to know and love many more bands like Sons and Daughters, The Long Blondes, Camera Obscura, McLuskey, Monkey Swallows the Universe, Allo Darlin, Slow Club, Flaming Lips and of course Arcade Fire. I could wax lyrical about all these bands forever and a day... ..so I think that may have to be another blog post or ten for another day!  So there you have it I can't choose just 5 favourite albums out of my hundreds of cds but I can pick 5 influential bands!