"When I try to describe Jacques Tati’s hypnotic portrait of a summer season at a seaside resort to uninitiated friends, I ramble for a bit then cough up something like “Chaplin by way of Fellini.” In my defense I usually feel so guilty about this ridiculous description I end up buying them the disc."

"When I was drawing up the list, I wanted to start with an album that had come out in the last few years. I had a long list, maybe 50 albums, and there were some recent albums and tracks I’ve liked in the last few months. But, when I’m saying these are my favourite 13 albums that matter the most, I realised there wasn’t anything much from the last 15 to 20 years, which is a little sad to me. There are albums that I love - don’t get me wrong. I nearly included a Daft Punk album, as they changed things a little and I played that a lot when it came out. I thought The Killers’ debut album was a good record."

"I’ve started writing a lot of songs recently; I’ve always written but I put my writing on hiatus because Tim’s such a great songwriter for Keane and I think I felt a bit deflated by how good he was, but recently I’ve got back into it. Carole King, I don’t know why, but something about the way that she talks about her emotional world, I find really engaging. It’s romantic, in a way, in a broader sense, and just beautifully crafted. Every time I sit down and try and write a song, I have her somewhere in the back of my mind. The great songs have a real sense of precision, there’s no dead space, you know every bit’s there for a reason. I like 'So Far Away'; I grew up in a small town and I always found it annoying, even though I did this myself, that people would leave! Because they felt that’s what they had to do - I’m not annoyed with them, I’m annoyed that that’s the way of the world, you have to leave your roots. I suppose I did the same thing, it’s a necessity of modern society, but it frustrates me. I used to sit around thinking, "Where are all my old mates who used to live down the road?" And that song, its wistful longing for people to stay put in a world that’s growing so fast. It’s a timeless record"