It's my Birthday!

Yes, even us hard-nosed cutting edge DJs have to have a birthday once a year. Obviously birthdays tend to be a time for reminiscing so, as a present to myself, here are my favourite albums from 5 of my favourite musical acts ever (in no particular order).

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

It's fair to say that I'm gutted that LCD Soundsystem will soon be no more. James Murphy is clearly a godlike genius - I'm amazed how tracks like 'All My Friends' can sound like a full band playing live, when in actual fact everything on that song is played by James himself. On stage they were amazing, as James surrounded himself with some great musicians, and then prowled around the stage tweaking everyone's kit all through the show. Title track aside, which I never really liked, this album is brilliant throughout, and probably contains the most intelligent and witty lyrics that you'll ever hear on a dance record.

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

A breakthrough album for the hip-hop genre, this often downbeat but never depressing album has layer upon layer of samples from obscure vinyl, covering multiple genres but transcendin all of them. Often imitated but never bettered, this is an awesome achievement, and 'Midnight In A Perfect World' remains one of the definitive trip-hop records.





UNKLE - War Stories

It's appropriate that this follows the DJ Shadow album, as without that this probably wouldn't exist - his contributions to UNKLE's debut 'Psyence Fiction' making up a large part of that record. Shadow was no longer part of UNKLE by the time this, their third album was released and by now they were defining their own sound much more clearly. I love everything about this album, especially the artwork (from guest vocalist 3D from Massive Attack), a print of which currently hangs on my lounge wall. My favourite track is definitely 'Burn My Shadow' which features Ian Astbury, and is guaranteed to make me drive faster than pretty much any other song I know.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

For me this is the album that best encapsulates the varied styles that Radiohead have had over the years. The fact that my favourite track changes every time I listen to this is probably one of the main reasons I like it so much - from the hauntingly beautiful 'Nude' to the crunching rhythmns of '15 Step' via the fuzzed up 'Bodysnatchers, this has everything you could ask for from a Radiohead record.

The Beatles - Revolver

Yes, I know it's got 'Yellow Submarine' on it, but it also contains 'Tomorrow Never Knows', a song that single-handedly invented most of the music I listen to. Everyone's got their favourite album by The Beatles, and this is mine.