"Yeah, my mum bought it for Christmas. I must've been 18 at the time or something. I find it quite cool that my mum actually went into a record shop and asked for Metal Box by Public Image! There were only a few thousand made, so it was limited edition. But I was a huge PiL fan, I loved the Sex Pistols, Johnny Rotten/Lydon and when the Pistols split, everybody was waiting to see what he's going to come back with. Nobody could believe that he would return with this. They sounded like nothing you'd heard before. The first track, 'Albatross', is basically listening to Lydon screaming that he wishes he would die for ten minutes, or a junkyard having a nervous breakdown! The album has these metallic smashes and clangs, which I'd never heard in music before. This is considered one of the first post-punk albums, alongside the Siouxsie and the Banshees record, but before Metal Box, it would probably have been Pere Ubu's first album. From a UK fan's perspective, Banshees and PiL would have made the first post-punk records. We'd bought 'Death Disco' on 12"" records, but to buy an album in a canister, cut and mastered really loudly, bursting out of my speakers was something strange. These were not rock & roll songs, they didn't have a lot of dynamic to them at times either. They were danceable though, with a disco drumbeat, a dub reggae bass, playing Swan Lake on guitar, with Lydon screaming about his mother having cancer over the top of it and ending up on Top Of The Pops. That's avant-garde being taken into the fuckin' mainstream. To me that's very revolutionary and subversive. It was a real howl from the soul. Every time I listen to Metal Box, I remember what it was like to live in Britain in the late '70s when I was a teenager. It was a grey, damp, repressive country and that record reflects the state and times perfectly. It was a snapshot of the times."

"“What have you done to its eyes?” How does a movie become a classic? Is it timing? Was it the dream-team collaboration of Paramount, Polanski, and Robert Evans? Was it producer William Castle, the mastermind who purchased the Ira Levin novel with plans to make it himself? Was it Mia Farrow, who had been painted with the brush of scandal after marrying Frank Sinatra? Did the devil himself have a hand in it? Whatever the reasons, my fascination with this film has never waned. There’s an enjoyment in watching Rosemary’s Baby that is similar to another gothic horror film, The Shining. It’s like listening to an album you love. Seeing the repetition of familiar scenes and faces. Shaking your head at Rosemary’s innocence as she tries to convince people that her neighbors might just be in a cult with Satan! Another highlight is the production design and cinematography. Not a frame is out of place, and it’s beautiful to look at. It captures a kind of sixties avant-garde vibe. I get the feeling Warhol would have liked this film. There are all sorts of great exterior location shots of New York, and the Dakota building on Seventy-Second Street adds the right spookiness. Does anyone remember or talk about what an amazing actress Mia Farrow is? Watch Broadway Danny Rose, and then watch Rosemary’s Baby. There’s some range there! Farrow as Rosemary has a beautiful, waifish glamour, enhanced by short dresses that make her seem more fragile and doll-like. John Cassavetes playing the “actor.” I love that he’s an “actor.” I love that his name is Guy! He makes a great prince of darkness. With his dark eyes and leering smile, well, you know he’s guilty of something the minute you see him. Then we have Ruth Gordon, who almost steals the film. Her caftan-wearing, mousse-making devil worshipper is the perfect amount of comic relief. I also love Charles Grodin as the fink doctor who squeals on Rosemary. Ralph Bellamy: terrifying! Every woman’s nightmare! Maybe that’s why I love it: Rosemary’s Baby plays on every woman’s fears. The man I married is different. Oh wait—maybe he’s sold his soul to the devil!"

"There are certain records that I know a lot about and others that I don't, and I think this one, for me, purely on a symphonic, musical level, it just is one of my favourite classical pieces. I think it's especially about the first movement, where the double-basses come in barely audibly, and it builds and they're just repeating their pattern. There's something about pattern in classical music, and that's why I've chosen Steve Reich as well: phrases and themes that get repeated and then get others on top that repeat, it's a cyclical thing that starts to happen with this harmony and rhythm, and it fascinates me. I also love double basses being bowed, there's just something about that that really pleases me. It builds into this huge thing and there's this moment where there's just one piano note, like a summoning, and the woman's voice comes in. I just think it's really soulful. I could've chosen Ravel's Bolero, which is also a really popular piece of music, but it's another one of my absolute favourites because again it's repetitive, it's almost like dance music, it's a repetitive theme that builds and builds. When I was going to see Underworld, off my face, in a tent - I think there's something similar, when instrumental music just builds and builds and builds. [Górecki] is really interesting technically as well as emotionally, which is the theme of this whole discussion almost: my greatest love is of people that have managed to walk that line between technical, competent songwriting or structure or understanding the art form and understanding the craftsmanship and at the same time imbuing that with reality and grit and fucking true connection to soulfulness and the universe. You can make a person cry because of what you're doing. That combination is just dynamite, isn't it? There's nothing better. You can sit in a room making a lot of avant-garde white noise and wanking over yourself, that's fine, or you can make amazing, soulful pop songs. Surely the artist's job is to be a consummate craftsman but within that be a complete child, innocent of expression and tapped in."