"Bob Marley is complete energy! When I put on this album it takes me to another world and reminds me to use my voice to speak truth and love."

"My favourite Wailer. Bob [Marley] was the poet, Bunny [Wailer] was the mystic, but Tosh was the radical. It’s militant music with no compromise, born out of struggle but filled with empathy for the oppressed. Tosh was a wounded boy who knew injustice and his music transforms that personal experience into something universal. And it says, fight back!"

"The most detailed and fascinating book about a recording engineer who worked on some of my favorite records. I wish there were more music books as good as this. Even though it seems impossible to know the final two Talk Talk albums and Mark Hollis’ solo album better than by listening to their murky, beautiful, sparse sound worlds, this series of first-hand accounts of the sessions —and those for Nilsson, Bob Marley and others—is incredibly illuminating."

"A boy who was at school with me had been expelled for all kinds of misdeeds and mis-endeavours and whatnot – he had gone to what we called back then a remand school. He had finally served his time in remands and he had come home to a flat not far from my house – we were teenagers at the time – and he held a party to celebrate his freedom. 

 He had a flatmate there who was older than the rest of the kids and he put on Bob Marley and the Wailers' Exodus. I was literally like: 'What the fuck is this?' I'd never heard reggae before. Every single song was brilliant – so hooky, so interesting lyrically. My mum bought me the record because I came home I was like: 'Mum, I just heard this amazing record' [laughs]. She got me that record – I can remember it distinctly arriving for my birthday, that beautiful gold sleeve with the red font. 

 I just relate this with an amazing connection to freedom and discovery and to my beautiful mum loving me, loving on me, wanting me to be happy. Just an extraordinary potpourri of experience and a whole window opening to a different kind of music than I'd ever been exposed to before. 

 It's one of these records I'll put on every Christmas, every party, every birthday as it just puts me in a great mood. He was such an extraordinary, incredible soul and it made for a beautiful, feel-good moment in my life. 

 It also opened my mind up to other genres of music too. Up until that point I'd only ever heard pop music, soul music and rock music and here was a whole other genre from a whole different culture, a whole different way of thinking, a whole different way of living. I was just so taken by that and so curious about it. I've always tried to keep my mind open and try and be sure to explore other cultures – musical cultures – and experiences. 

 I'm so grateful to have discovered that record because I feel like that was the gateway to exploring other kinds of music and remaining open to other expressions of music."

"I’m a huge admirer of Grace Jones in many, many ways. She came out of the fashion industry, made a disco record and then went on to make three classic records that I think are some of the greatest sounding things anyone has ever put out there. Those albums were produced by Alex Sadkin and Chris Blackwell, who had worked with Bob Marley before that. We first worked with Alex Sadkin on ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’ and he went on to produce Seven And The Ragged Tiger and the Arcadia album with me. So, we worked very closely with Alex and the reason we wanted to work with him at all was because of the Grace Jones album. I was so astounded when I heard the sound on Nightclubbing – the depth, quality and clarity of instrumentation and the vibe of it. I couldn’t understand how anyone had ever captured that. I needed to work with this person somehow and fortunately Alex turned out to be one of our great collaborations. Grace combined her style with a reggae influence, with a certain pop sensibility and with grooves that people could dance to and created something that only she could have done. It was entirely original and everyone in Duran Duran loves Grace Jones. We’ve played her records more than most other artists. We got to know Grace and hung out with her quite a lot. She did the Bond movie [A View To A Kill] that we were on the soundtrack for and she is did a cameo on ‘Election Day’ for Arcadia. I also think Grace is one of the most fascinating performers out there. The stuff she used to do with Jean-Paul Goude – the photography, the videos, the album covers – was so stylish. They had great taste. I truly love the songs on Nightclubbing. The original of the title track is on Iggy Pop’s The Idiot - which I love – written by Bowie and Iggy. The song had the darkest vibe you could imagine being done in Berlin during that period and that Grace took it and made it so different and beautiful was really something. Often with a cover you either like the original or the cover – with ‘Nightclubbing’ they are both great."