All time top ten - #1 - OK Computer

Yes, it's a cliche. We've finally reached the point where it's now totally uncool to say that OK Computer is your favourite record ever. Uber-hipsters are disowning this record faster than Germans dispensed with Nazism in 1945, labelling it 'boring', 'overrated' and 'pretentious' to name but three of the less vitriolic adjectives that have been hurled its way in the music press and amonsgt the public musical intelligentsia of late.

Now I understand the desire to recant a love of a record that received phenomenal hype upon its release, the very essence of being musically literate, conscious and current is obscurity. And hype (and it's evil twin, popularity) is the natural enemy of obscurity. Your favourite Led Zeppelin song can't be Stairway to Heaven, it has to be The Lemon Song or (my favourite) What is And What Should Never Be. Owning up to loving something that is loved not only by millions of people, but millions of people who are unaware of who Nick Drake and Husker Du are, is the very essence of not being cool.

But revisionist history is a very evil thing indeed. Just as I imagine the music world probably turned on Sgt Peppers in 1977, and definitely turned on Off the Wall in 1988, ten years after the release of OK Computer, people decided to get it in their heads that they, and the rest of the world, were wrong after all, and it wasn't that great a record, we simply got carried away because it was WAY different from BritPop and we all loved The Bends so much.

Well, I feel compelled to disagree. Vehemently. It is not boring. In fact OK Computer is so exciting that even today, nearly 520 weeks after its release, it still sounds current, fresh, imaginative, as I imagine it will continue to do well into the distant future, much as the sprawling reverse flute breakdown at the end of Strawberry Fields Forever will always sound abstract and cool, no matter how many bands copy it and attempt to rob it of its lustre. Some music defies time.

Radiohead had already formed a habit (which continues today) of announcing their intentions with not only the opening track, but the opening bars of the opening track. Witness the empty cold wind of Planet Xerox, the descending keyboard refrain of Everything in its Right Place I or the sound of a guitar plugging into an amplifier on the latest return to guitar rock, Hail to the Thief. On OK Computer, Airbag announced the epic scope to come with a triumphal, soaring guitar riff, leaving no doubt in the listener's mind as to what kind of aural assault they wer in for. Drums loop, guitars squeal, mystery guitar and vocal sounds are cut up and scratched on a turntable, while melopies blend into each other and guitars morph into choirs singing a counterpoint to Thom Yorke's vocals in the final, mindblowing chorus and outro. Anyone who doubts the impact of this record should be challenged to sit in a dark room with headphones on and listen to that song, and not find themselves short of breath by the end. And that's just the opening song. The opening line, 'In the next world war/In a jack-knifed juggernaut/I am born again' recalls a time when lyrics were not only left open to interpretation, but were actively encouraged to be interpreted as the listener saw fit.

An ongoing theme across the record fear of the new, impersonal world being created by the increasing intrusion of computers into our lives, and the social disconnection they create. That the bulk of the album was recorded with the overt asssistance of newly available computer technology, lent the entire work a sense of irony that, in lesser hands, would have seemed churlish. 'Such a pretty house/Such a pretty garden' on No Surprises, or 'The dust/The screaming/The yuppies networking/.../God loves his children, Yeah!' from the schitzophrenic masterpiece, Paranoid Android positively yell this from the rooftops, alternating between sorrowful longing on the former and outright rage on the latter.

Radiohead manage to namedrop Bob Dylan's famous moment when he 'plugged in' on Subterranean Homesick Alien, clearly an indication that the band knew full well how this record was likely to be received. But here's the thing. When the chorus kicks in, with its gradually swelling and ebbing guitar and gorgeously escalating keyboard coda, with Yorke wailing 'Uptight/We're all uptight', none of it really matters. You can't help but be swept along with it all, as with the vitriolic, vituperative and viscious interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, Exit Music (For a Film), where sheer fury and indignation have never sounded so gorgeous.

Clearly there are 11 songs (and a computer-generated poem) on OK Computer, but it doesn't quite seem necessary to discuss them all. They're best left a mystery, on the off chance that someone who is yet to hear them can experience the sheer emotional tsunami that the first (and indeed, tenth and hundredth) listen of OK Computer can create. Right now, the final verse of Let Down is echoing in my headphones, and for the millionth time, I feel moved to tears.

Pretentious? Yes. But who cares, when it's so beautiful. Overrated? Probably. It's widely regarded as the greatest thing ever by alot of people, and clearly there is no one greatest record EVER, but it's my favourite. And don't you ever call it boring.

All time top ten - #2 - ( )

Pretentious lack of album name? Check. Pretentious song length? Check. Pretentious lack of track titles? Check. Pretentious lack of any writing anywhere on the case other than two mysterious shapes that have been interpreted as brackets, parallel sausages and everything in between? Check. Pretentious use of a fictional language when the bulk of your audience can't speak your native tongue anyway? Check. You get the idea. Compile any list of overblown, proggy, self indulgent records, and Iceland's own Sigur Ros' major label debut is likely to find its way to the top of it (or perhaps come a close second to Metal Machine Music).

So how on Earth does it find itself at this (fairly illustrious) position on this list? Because it is so amazingly rare to find a record that provides irony-free attempts at bringing high-art rock music to a stadium level and succeed this dazzlingly. Simply put, if you're this good, you can be as pretentious as you bloody well want.

Sigur Ros had established themselves as idols of the musical intelligentsia with their breakthrough second album, Agaetis Byrjun, full of ethereal, swirling sounscapes (yes, I know these are the Sigur Ros buzzwords, but they've become cliches for a good reason), sitting gracefully at the back of some of the most mind-bendingly stunning melodies ever heard. Celebrities arrived in droves. Metallica attended a gig, Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow's first child was born to the sounds of that record and Sigur Ros were the IT band. So what did they do? Attempt a retreat into obscurity.

All the vocals by Jón Þór Birgisson (the man with a voice like Thom Yorke mind-melding with a children's choir) were recorded in a fictional language which was originally named 'Hopelandic' by the band, and was later revealed as gibberish. Songs became longer, averaging 8 minutes, with two songs pushing out past 12. The songs and album remained unnamed, the band claiming that the music spoke for everything. They were reluctant to do interviews.

Some songs can almost be called 'mainstream'. Track 4, appropriated by one Tom Cruise (another fan) for the closing credits of his epically banal Vanilla Sky, is the most conventional offering here, with something resembling a chorus, over vibrato guitar plucking, gentle rhythms and sweeping bass guitar and keys, while the mammoth Track 8 (or 'Pop Song' as the band have been heard calling it) is 12 minutes of gradually building tension, released in an explosion of bass drums and screaming guitar, almost the logical 21st century extension of late Led Zeppelin. Other moments are less clearly defined. Track 3, an ascending piano loop, played again and again above a slowly growing crescendo, is more of a movement in a symphony than a stand-alone song, but is mesmerising nonetheless. Track 5, after 30 seconds of silence (perhaps splitting the record in 2 halves like the album's 'title' suggests, is a sloth-paced affair which, while possibly the weakest link here, is possibly the perfect preparation (and perhaps antidote) for the slow-building series of climaxes that close the record.

But behind all the stories, pretentions and supposed difficulties of the album sit a collection of the most hauntingly beautiful songs ever recorded. If ever a record rewarded repeat listens, benefited from being heard through headphones in a dark room, this is it. Contrary to popular belief, ( ) is anything but elevator music. Detail lies everywhere. No sonic nook or crevice remains unfilled or unexplored. Jonsi's voice is stretched to mosquito pitch, layered and thickened. Guitars are played with cello bows, not a piano key goes unplayed. And throughout it all, imagery is conjured, of sweeping, icy plateaus, eerily beautiful landscapes, starlight night skies and heart-crushingly gorgeous mountains, to name but a few possibilities. Because if there is anything, ( ) is about, it is possibility. The possibility that there is still new music to be made. The possibility that music will keep getting better. The possibility that it's still ok to be willful, obscure, self-indulgent (as, one might point out, the Beatles were in 1967) and create sheer, unparalleled, magic.

All time top ten - #3 - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

You must have heard the story by now. In early 2001, Wilco offered their new record, 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', to execs at Reprise Records (a subsidiary of Warner Music), ready for release. The suits didn't hear cash registers ringing, and turned it down, telling the band they wanted more country and less alt. country. Wilco refused to change a thing and wound up buying out the contract and posting the music on their website. And then everything exploded. 5 star reviews came out of the woodwork, tens of thousands took up the music and the then-burgeoning blogsphere ran riot. Reprise wanted back in, but Wilco signed to Nonesuch records (ironically enough another Warner subsidiary)for twice as much as they bought their old contract out for, making the Reprise suits appear biblically short-sighted.
Against a backdrop such as this, it's easy to see why people can get caught up in the rapturous claims of brilliance that now surround this record. Fortunately enough, the record itself is just that.
It's apparent from the opening, psychadelic drone of 'I am Trying to Break Your Heart', complete with bursts of of-kilter drumming, snatches of guitar and alarm clocks, that this is no ordinary pop record. When the pop is there, it's nothing short of quintessential, 'Heavy Metal Drummer', 'Kamera' 'I Am the Man Who Loves You' and 'War on War' equal parts nostalgia and futurism, many times closing by devolving into chaotic hum and buzz, and in the case of the amazing 'Poor Places', morphing into the dischordant, disembodied voice of a Mossad spy recording droning the titular 'Yankee....Hotel...Foxtrot...' again and again.
But it is the record's quieter, more reflective moments that truly give it it's classic status. In 'Jesus, etc.' the album finds ts heartbeat, a poignant, lovely and utterly desperate plea for simpler and happier times. 'Radio Cure' and 'Ashes of American Flags' in the hands of lesser beings would rapidly have been viewed as filler; here, they're raw emotion, singer Jeff Tweedy intoning 'All my lies are only wishes/I know I would die if I could come back new....I would like to salute/The ashes of American flags/and all the falling leaves/Filling up shopping bags'. And it's Tweedy's lyrics that are the unsung (pun utterly intended) champions of YHF. If it's playing the noun-as-verb game on 'I Am Trying to Break Your Heart', croaking 'I am an American aquarium drinker/I assassin down the avenue'. Such jive-talking lyricism is certainly not out of place on YHF. But it is the yearning, pain, regret and, ultimately, hope that set this record apart; 'Distance has a way/of making love/understandable' from 'Radio Cure' speaks this in dolby surround.
The album closer, 'Reservations' contains the line 'I've got reservations about so many things, but not about you'. This encapsulates the longing, love, pain and drink that YHF is soaked in, and what makes it one of the truly great records.

All time top ten - #4 - Bitches Brew

In 1970, Miles davis seemed to have lost relevance. 11 years ago, with Kind of Blue, he had provided modern music with a genre-defining moment, a statement of musical intent that redirected jazz for future generations and established himself as the premier jazz man of the 50s and 60s. However, in 1970, rock music had well and truly arrived. Hendrix had demolished 'Star Spangled Banner' onstage at Woodstock, the Beatles had spent nearly ten years bending conventional notions of popular music, Captain Beefheart had set new standards of experimentalism, possibly inventing Prog-Rock with the insane Trout Mask Replica and now Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones were taking the Blues and rocking it within an inch of its life. Jazz need a kick in the pants to remain current and important. And Davis provided it.

Bitches Brew is a law unto itself. Genre barely counts, it almost seems unfair to label it as a jazz record. The rhythm section is almost conventional - well, as conventional as two bass players and a veritible army of percussionists could be - but that's where comparisons to pre-existing jazz music ends. Horns and woodwind swirl in cacophanous harmony, keys dance around the backbeat, drawing on influences as diverse as The Doors and Thelonious Monk, all the while, all sections of the band retained the improvisational stylings that Davis pioneered in 1959. Over three days anger, confusion, and exhilaration had reigned in the studio, and the sonic themes, scraps, grooves, and sheer will and emotion that resulted were percolated and edited into an astonishingly organic work. This Miles Davis wasn't merely presenting a simple hybrid like jazz-rock, but a new way of thinking about improvisation and the studio. Both lauded and savaged by critics, many of whom took offense at the use of an expletive on a record cover, Bitches Brew invented fusion, defied definition and opened the eyes and ears of an entire generation of musicians.

First, there's the slow, modal, opening grooves of "Pharaoh's Dance," with its slippery trumpet lines to John McLaughlin's snaky guitar figures skirting the edge of the rhythm section and Don Alias' conga slipping through the middle. The keyboards of Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul create a haunting, iffing groove echoed and accented by the two basses of Harvey Brooks and Dave Holland.

The second half of side one, the title track, was originally intended as a 5-piece suite, but only 3 made the final cut. Polyrhythmic, ebbing and flowing, climactic and cataclysmic, it is possibly the most awe-inspiring piece of jazz ever recorded. Those who could carry on would find side 2 no less dazzling. Opening with the now famous 'Spanish Key', and allowing McLaughlin a four minute interlude, Bitches Brew powered on to it's rightful place in the pantheon of musical classics. And over the top of all of this, Davis' muted horn floats, swims, gallops and marches, setting the pace when required, while happily sitting in the shadow, allowing the band's talents to come powering to the fore.

Music has possibly never been so audaciously conceived while being so perfectly executed. A true moment in time. Mile Davis never had to worry about being relevant again.

All Time Top Ten - #5 - Abbey Road

It's the perennial question. Which Beatles record? Which of course raises innumerable other questions. Are they really the greatest band of all time, the modern day Mozarts? If you struggle to choose between, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Peppers and A Hard Day's Night, and you put Abbey Road at #5, should 6-9 be taken up by the others? John or Paul?
So first of all, yes, they're truly great. Mozarts? Maybe, only time will tell. the best ever? No. No-one ever will be. But they were great. And this (perhaps) is their greatest.
This was the record The Beatles truly recorded as a group of individuals. The final recording they made (Let it Be, while recorded earlier, was released in 1970 due to Phil Spector's production schedule), it was made at a point when the band were arely on speaking terms. As a result, it allowed the long-supressed talents of George Harrison to come screaming to the fore, with 'Something' and 'Here Comes the Sun' two of the most gorgeous arrangements the Beatles ever laid to vinyl.
Opening up the now utterly iconic cover, laden with 'Paul is really dead' clues, as many others were before it, side one doesn't reveal anything that significantly sets it apart from previous releases. There's the beautiful ballads, such as the aforementioned Harrison numbers, the children's song 'Octopus's Garden', the 7 minute long wig-out 'I Want You (She's so Heavy) and the slightly forward looking weird funk of 'Come Together'. Quality was never an issue, and it wasn't until side 2, when the 16 minute suite, made up of unfinished bits and pieces, blows all they had done before out of the water. Be it the startling 'Mean Mr Mustard', the melodic, floating 'Sun King', the achingly beautiful 'Golden Slumbers' or the hidden Beatles' classic, 'She Came in Through the Bathroom Window', and closing with 'Her Majesty', arguably music's first ever secret track, this was The Beatles: fractured, broken, dysfuntional, and yet still triumphant, powerful and magical.
A band as wonderful as The Beatles deserved a sensational swansong. It's hard to imagine a more glorious one than this.

All time top ten - #6 - Blood on the Tracks

Any list of the greatest Bob Dylan records invariably lists ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ and ‘Blonde on Blonde’ over ‘Blood on the Tracks’. They’re the legendary Dylan records, lending an enigma that will never be decrypted. Moving from folk to rock and blues, confounding fans, and creating a new brand of rock that is still emulated today. People tend to forget ‘Blood on the Tracks’. It wasn’t the record that blazed a trail, or established a mythology. But it was the record that stands as the bridge between the Wunderkind of 1966 and the modern day elder statesman of music today. Poignant, earnest, heartfelt and intimate, this is as close as Dylan ever got to bearing his soul on a record. While still full to the brim with allegory and cryptic poetry, ‘Blood on the Tracks’ is an open window into the true Bob Dylan, a man dealing with a broken marriage, and as a result is forthright in its honesty, sadness (‘Simple Twist of Fate’), anger (‘Idiot Wind’) and hope (‘You’re a Big Girl Now’) in equal measure.
After being somewhat forgotten since his motorcycle accident in 1966, Dylan had made some lackluster music (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid anyone?), and 1975 saw him returning somewhat to his roots. Dispensing with the amplification that made him (in)famous, it once again became about the words; the music merely a means of concentrating and focusing an emotion. While regressing somewhat to his acoustic heritage, this is not the record of the angst-ridden 24 year-old of 1966, but a worldly adult. His vocals were deeper, wiser and fuelled the lyrics with a life of their own, the music seems to have a greater awareness of the history they invoke when ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ rollicks over a rockabilly rhythm section.
Whether it be the stunning ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ making life as a fugitive cool, or the sneering, furious ‘Idiot Wind’ (“you’re an eeeeidiot, babe”), ‘Blood on the Tracks’ is resolutely human, examining the flaws of both singer and subject. But it’s when Dylan just picks up a guitar and punches out ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ which, at 2.55, is the shortest song on the record by a minute and a half, the listener is reminded how devastatingly effective a song can be without unnecessary instrumentation, particularly when written by a genius such as Mr. Zimmerman.
Dylan made a greater mark with other, earlier records, but it’s hard to argue that he made a better record.

All time top ten - #7 - Kid A

The opening bars of 'Everything in its Right Place' are a defining moment in modern music. The descending keyboard riff, interspersed with cut-and paste, nonsensical vocal mutterings from Thom Yorke was automatically dismissed as 'too hard' by many. But with this glaring statement of intent, Radiohead dispensed with conventional song-writing rules and notions of structure. Gone were the Johnny Greenwood screaming, tortured guitars, gone were much of the drums, replaced by skittering beats and drum machines. There was very little recognisable guitar at all. There were no choruses! Released in early 2000, if ever an album could have ushered in the 21st century, it was this.
Taking its cues from everywhere, and possibly nowhere at all, Kid A redefined what it meant to make a rock record. Vocals are twisted, sliced and distorted within an inch of their lives, such as on the title track, with Yorke's voice squeezed until it actually sounds like a child singing; on the driving, hypnotic 'The National Anthem' an insane, climactic, horn driven crescendo would not be out of place during the more psychadelic moments on 'Bitches Brew'; the instrumental 'Treefingers' is made entirely out of guitar samples, yet sounds nothing like any guitar anyone had ever heard and the thumping, tribal 'Optimistic' breaks down via a jazz wig-out interlude into the seasickness-inducing clamour of 'In Limbo'.
'Idioteque', a disco number for those coming down after the night out, is the most radical departure from 'Old Radiohead', while 'How to Disappear Completely' is the one track that might possibly feel at home on 1997s 'OK Computer'.
Harps merge with angelic choirs, saxophones conduct squealing, wailing duels with french horns, Yorke's tortured angel voice proclaims 'I'm not here/This isn't happening'.
Difficult it may be, but a more rewarding listen may not possibly exist for those with the patience (and the stomach). Radiohead plotted a course for the new generation of musician. Ignoring genre, convention and style, Kid A brought together every conceivable influence and made something that sounded like nothing else.
And the world is still listening.

All time top ten - #9 - Mothership Connection

Who gots the funk? In 1975, Parliament redefined party music, creating a new genre of sound. Perhaps not creating, but defining. Funk had a name, and an image. Someone born in 1990 can put on Mothership Connection and instantly feel like they've heard it all before, partly because of the umpteen samples that have been plagiarised by Snoop Dogg, P. Diddy et al, but also the clear influence it wields over R'n'B ever since.
Fusing together blues, jazz and rock, dressing it in a cape and sunglasses and soaking it in acid, George Clinton and his cohorts put in place a clear picture of what funk was. The opening two tracks ('P-Funk (Who Wants to Get Funked Up?)' and 'Mothership Connection') introduced two new characters on this starship of funk (there was a LOT of acid), including Starchild, who was to appear routinely in future Parliament records, guiding the listener through 8 tracks of party-inducing, drug fuelled insanity.
In 1975, there was no middle ground between rock, which tended towards overblown pretensions of a Pink Floyd-esque scale (Velvet Underground, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin etc) and disco, always rambunctious, but lacking in depth and vision (until the appearance of Chic in the late 70s). Funk filled the void perfectly, and never before or since has one record so amazingly distilled an entire muscial movement, while still thumping out record-scratching dancefloor magic of unparalleled fun at the same time.
This top ten list is dominated by bands and records renowned for being 'deep' and 'intense' and 'artistic', so for 'Mothership Connection' to grace it at number 9 speaks volumes for its power, influence, and sheer, hip-shaking brilliance.