"This is sheer bliss and existential wonderment. It should be required viewing—not just for filmmakers but for people in general. It stitches together all the Apollo missions into one beautiful trip to the moon and back. The voice-overs from the astronauts are so poignant—these are men who have been to the moon and have seen things that none of us will ever see, yet they are so humbled by it. It’s magical. As is the score by Brian Eno!"

"Violent Femmes was a huge high-school record. I probably got it when I was 14 or 15. I just played the entire album on stage with [Femmes bassist] Brian Ritchie, Brian from the Dresden Dolls and [Bad Seed] Mick Harvey, so I found myself revisiting the record and my early experiences of it. The one thing I remembered was that when I heard that record for the first time, I thought Gordon Gano was a girl. But really sexy! The songs were so sexy and raw and filled with beautiful, actually relatable teenage angst. The music and the production was all so immediate. My cool friends and my older brother were all listening to punk. I tried to be cool and tried to like the Sex Pistols, but I just couldn't get into the records. There just wasn't enough song there for me. But the Violent Femmes was like punk music that my brain could actually follow. I played that tape into the ground, just a non-stop soundtrack. Another thing I realised revisiting it was there's just not a bad song on that record, not a single moment that isn't essential. There's not two seconds of filler."

"Is this the ultimate in production? It’s probably one of them. I think you’ll find The Beatles might say that! They were always in competition at that point. You know, I’ve obviously spoken to The Beatles a lot but I like every track on Pet Sounds; I think they’re all equally as good. I couldn’t even pick one out if it because the arrangements were so unusual at the time. I remember it was ’66 and in some parts it sounds like an old dance band. I’d think, ""wow""! That’s so old fashioned yet so brand new at the same time. The arrangements were weird with these big harmonicas and funny, deep saxophones and plain little paper cups and playing the drums on them. What the hell was that? Brilliant! Brian [Wilson] was absolutely marvellous. Luckily for me, I did get to work with him and we wrote a song together called ‘Let It Shine’ on his album, Brian Wilson, in about ’89 or something. I got to know him quite well and he was a lovely guy and we wrote this tune and it was very nice and I’m really glad that I did."

"Oh my gosh, that was another pivotal moment. Queen – for me – is the most unique rock band in history. I love Deep Purple, Zeppelin and all those rock bands from that time but nobody sounded like Queen and nobody could sound remotely like that. There was a magic to them – almost like the band was blessed with something. That band was such a perfect storm because with Freddie Mercury, how could you even quantify his confidence? You couldn’t –it was boundless and he just expressed that constantly in the music. The way Brian May approached the guitar was absolutely unique. You can compare me to other guitar players, you can compare Page to other players but you can’t compare Brian May to anybody because his touch on the instrument had a life of its own and the way that he heard the songs and was able to apply this unbelievable touch to serve the song – as opposed to just saying ‘here’s a guitar solo’ –meant he was the sound of Queen. In fact everyone in that band was the sound of Queen. When ¬Queen II came out it was the most musical, aggressive rock record of that period, for me."