"Just Kids was my entry point into Patti's career, and after finishing it, all of her previous work made a lot more sense to me and I became an obsessive fan. My favorite parts ofJust Kids are the stories in the beginning, when she first meets Robert Mapplethorpe and they are living together in Brooklyn with no money, listening to records and making art and surviving by sharing .80 cent grilled cheese sandwiches. I can't help but relate to all of it, as it's so similar to the way my friends and I all lived, in Brooklyn, when we were the same age. But it's fun to imagine their experience as opposed to ours, a pre-Internet, pre-Brooklyn-Boom New York. I ended up meeting Patti by chance a few months after finishing it the first time. Hopefully rereading it a second time will hold the same fate."

"I have this real image - for some reason - that it came out the summer I left prep school, and was going to public school. I was 13, and I remember playing it at a friend's house - Benjamin - and I also have this image of me sitting in the bath listening to it on the cassette machine and having to wipe my hands when I changed the tape over. I thought it was a man to begin with, when I first heard 'Fast Car' on the radio. The a capella one, 'Behind The Wall', blew my mind. There's not many records that are that concise as a piece of work, and it often happens when it's a new artist because they're not having to try so hard and they just come out with what they want. That record was a real moment, whatever that moment was."

"Sorry to pick this. Just saying the title's enough, really, isn't it? I know it's really obvious, but it's such a masterpiece. 

It's been strangely hard picking my albums for this, as lots of things don't resonate with me now like they used to when I was younger. I've been listening a lot more to classical and choral music in the last year, for example, but this fits in with that, because this is sacred music. It's music that transcends genre. Every track is profoundly beautiful – and I say that having liked Talk Talk before this, too. I remember the first album coming out at the same time as Duran Duran's Rio, and people comparing them, then hearing The Colour Of Spring. 'Life's What You Make It' was a big song when I was at sixth form. But this album… this is a bigger thing. I still love it so much.
"

"I love that album because it’s in two parts. The first part is mostly him recording everything himself and doing like a print thing where he’s exploring the studio. He’s a great producer – he did Bat Out Of Hell and loads of other stuff as well – he knows studios and studio techniques and trickery. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, and I always enjoy listening to people who are like that because they often approach their second and third instruments totally differently to an accomplished drummer or bass player. But the second part is with his band, who are also great. It ticks both boxes really! I think of these as classic rock songs even though English people never know who I’m talking about. So I feel like I’m part of some little exclusive club, even though everyone in America knows everything about Todd Rundgren [laughs]."

"I think Hanin [Elias] from the band was a Bikini Kill fan so she sent it to me. They mixed punk rock with electronic music and it was the first time I'd heard that done. So definitely that inspired Le Tigre, and I was listening to it while I was making the solo Julie Ruin record, in 1997. It inspired me to get into electronic music because I was like, "Oh, if I want to do something different and if my band's not practising, I can make electronic music." They gave me the idea to learn how to programme a drum machine and use a sampler. It's just really like the world is opening up for you. Their music had a huge effect on the direction my career was going in, that I could mix electronic music with punk rock, that electronic music could be punk."

"When I left school, The Wall was the pothead’s album. Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here I maybe overplayed but The Wall I could never get tired of. That track ‘Nobody Home’ just brings back so many memories for me. After leaving school, I just used to go round my mates house, skin up, and we’d listen to this. Happy, carefree days. I met Dave Gilmour once at an industry thing and I think I pissed him off. I said to him, 'Dave, I think The Wall is your best album but my wife won’t have it, she prefers listening to Meddle.' And he said, 'Well, clearly your wife has impeccable taste where you have little. I suggest you listen to her.' I was like, 'What the fuck are you talking about? She hasn’t got a clue! Get out of it…'"