"Me and Rick were living in a terraced house in Splott in Cardiff, near Tiger Bay. That’s where we formed our first band, Freur. We were making dub electronics and listening to dub reggae and Kraftwerk’s Computer World and Bowie’s Low. What blew us away was Brian’s (Eno) analogue electronic sound – that kind of degraded sound that he was making – and the fact that this great icon, a hugely famous singer and frontman, had chosen not to sing for half an album. What guts and courage that seemed to take. Years later you read that it ended up like that because he wasn’t around and that Brian experimented in his absence. But it takes great foresight and courage for David to come back and hear that and say, "yep, that’s the album." And not to think that because he’s a singer he has to blast away over the top of it. So that became a part of the blueprint for Underworld – that the singer doesn’t have to be the dominant force. He can play a supporting role. That Berlin period – the three Bowie albums and the Iggy Pop record – deepened the mythology of what I love about Berlin. The idea of going to a place and locking yourself away and making quite an extreme record in a different environment"

"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."

"It's got to be Trans-Europe Express really. I was aware of Autobahn and that was like The Beach Boys from outer space, engineered by Conny Plank - that was what they called it in those days, it was a blur between engineering and producing. I think Trans-Europe Express consolidated that futuristic thing, and of course it had a namecheck for David Bowie and Iggy Pop in there, which was an endorsement in some way. Although they were German, they were aware of 'our world'. I think the only other German thing I'd heard of before that were Faust, and the reason I know about them was they brought an album out [The Faust Tapes] and it cost about 15p or something, so everyone bought it. 'The Hall Of Mirrors' is really dark! The album's quite song-y as well. With The Man-Machine, it had the perfect record cover, it was the whole red-ness. Futuristic art deco with a slight Hitler Youth edge to it, a sinister edge. I went down to London one time, down the King's Road - I think it was the week of release - and every single shop was playing it. However Man-Machine is everybody's album, whereas Trans-Europe Express is a more private album, which wasn't as widely known. I hadn't taken any drugs at the time, but it affected me. That line, ""Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass"", it was all just very atmospheric."

"This was a great time for Iggy Pop. He'd been through a lot but this particular time period, things really seemed to work for him. And I like the exploration of early synths here as well. You've got a song like 'The Endless Sea' which has the over-loud synths. I'd have turned them down a little bit but it's great because it's really in-your-face and you can really hear the excitement of the guys getting hold of a Moog. There's an innocence here coupled with an early discovery of stuff. And this album is more about the songs. I don't know if it's a case of something being overplayed but I much prefer listening to this than say, 'The Passenger' or 'Lust For Life'. Maybe it's because those songs are always on and they're just overplayed - and they are brilliant and amazing songs - but there's a tightness about New Values, especially in the drum sound. They've obviously come back from Hansa and the open room, which is a sound that people have tried to emulate over the years, to do something different. Certainly when you look at albums like this, Horses and Marquee Moon, Supergrass were really trying to channel that '75-'79 period and that edgy punkiness but with elements of sophistication. I bought a Telecaster Deluxe guitar in the late 90s and I was really chuffed to get it because it was probably played by one of those musicians from that time period."