"I first heard 'Frank Sinatra' when Erasure where recording the album Erasure in 1994 at the Strongroom in Shoreditch East London, which has now become metrosexual electro Grand Central. I love her completely nonchalant don't give a fuck attitude on Hollywood Star, it kind of reminds me of my pre-Erasure work with Pierre Cope - very minimal. On 'Frank Sinatra' she sounds like a Russian Mafia gangster that would kill you stone dead. They're also brilliant live."

"There's so much great music. For me, I'd have to say it's a toss up between Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Elton John. I never get tired of listening to them and probably never will… Any album by any of them is bound to be fantastic."

"This record is so special because of first of all as an album it functions so perfectly. It's a really romantic record. When I first heard it it gave me the feelings of what it must be like to be in love, it's like you want to put this record on and lie by the fire with your loved one. It's so smooth and sentimental and his voice is so warm on it. The record is full of songs from the classic American canon that Frank Sinatra would sing, but they are done in a much subtler way. Sinatra is the master, but he is a little bit too good of a singer and always has to let you know he's good. whereas Chet Baker sounds like he's speaking to you. It's warm, super romantic and sentimental in a good way with that cool jazz backdrop. It's very much of a night time record and it's always a satisfying experience to hear it. 'How Long Has This Been Going On' on this record is my favourite version of that particular classic, it brings tears to your eyes."

"This is a period of transition, which all of those early albums were. If you look at Bowie between 1967 and 1970/1 there was no constant in his life, whether he was a mod, whether he was going through his Dylan period with Space Oddity, God knows what The Man Who Sold The World is… it's like a prog heavy metal album really… He was changing the whole time. But if you look at Hunky Dory, I think he just thought that his future was as a songwriter as well as a performer, because I've also heard that The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars was his last crack at [becoming famous]. And the amazing thing about this album was two weeks after he finished it he was back in the studio doing Ziggy Stardust. There was a two week gap between the studio visits for those two records and they're so radically different from each other. So I think Bowie just thought, 'Right I'm having one last crack at being a pop star and I've written all these great songs.' And they are great songs on this album, 'Bewlay Brothers', 'Quicksand', 'Life On Mars'… When he wrote this song he'd just put in to write the lyrics for 'My Way' for Frank Sinatra and he got rebuffed and was really pissed off about it. So he wrote that song to say, 'This is what I can do.' And it is a great song: one of the greatest songs ever. I think he wrote it genuinely thinking that one day someone like Frank Sinatra would record a version of it."

"The best voice. Even against Leonard Cohen’s, Bowie’s, or whoever’s – Frank Sinatra’s is the best voice. My favourite was the period in the Sixties when his voice was just unbelievable. The only thing with Frank is you sometimes think he is just standing there and all he’s thinking about is shagging someone straight afterwards. It’s that good – it’s like he’s taking the piss. Did he mean it? I can’t see how he could, cos he’s thinking “I am going to fuck off to Rio de Janeiro like it says in one of these songs” or “I’m gonna shag someone absolutely beautiful and then I’m gonna get pissed.” That is sometimes what I hear, and you can’t be that good. It’s like he’s written the words, but that’s another thing, to be able to do that with the words – which were generally brilliant in those days, lyrics have gone by the wayside these days, it’s generally Les Miserables crap now. I’m sure Sinatra would have puked up had he heard my man Michael Ball strangle the fucking life out of things. I love Michael Ball just because he’s so crap, but when he’s on telly he fluctuates in weight, so sometimes you think: who the fuck’s that? He turns into that Doctor Who bloke, Colin Baker. He’s dead funny in interviews and you have to have one of them on the telly, and it was either him or Bono, and I decided he’s the one."

"In high school, I worked at The Video Room in Oakland, California. It had the largest selection of laser discs in the Bay Area. One guy owned all of them. I was smugly aware that most people were watching movies entirely wrong, and would tell them so. I’d explain aspect ratios and assure my friends they’ve never even really seen Jaws until they’d seen it at my house on the Pioneer, hooked up to my dad’s concert amplifier and massive stadium speakers, my own rig. I watched more movies during that time than I did in film school. The Manchurian Candidate was one of them, and it was just [on a] different level. I went in thinking it would be a masterfully directed political conspiracy thriller, which it was, but was also completely bananas. I couldn’t believe some of the choices made. That film gave me permission to get a little bit weird in my storytelling. Once you’ve seen an old lady execute a Korean POW while Frank Sinatra looks on in complacency, you know you can go to crazytown and the audience will stay with you. It’s not easy, but it’s possible."