"I have an older sister and she was into things like Bros, New Kids On The Block and Kylie Minogue, and I think she ended up buying a few Cardigans records. We used to listen to them a lot. I remember being aware that the drums sounded really different to other bands. The production was incredibly good, it was catchy pop music. One of the guys involved, Peter Svensson went on to become Hollywood and write for Ariana Grande. I think it was probably the first of a few times when I realised that you didn’t have to be into production or catchy songs, you can be into both. All of their records are very good, I think."

"One of the other records that lived in our house when we were growing up was The Best Of The Animals and I was trying to decide between that and this but I went with Animalization because it's an album. I was really into 60s-70s British rock, I really like that sound, and I really liked The Animals, I loved Eric Burdon's voice. After listening to The Best Of… growing up it was Animalization that I bought when I first had money to buy my own things with."

"I first heard this maybe eight or nine years ago. It was a new record for me in terms of it being something that I hadn't heard in my teens but as soon as I heard it I really liked it. I like the sound of it and the delivery of the vocals. It felt very throwaway and raw and instinctive and in the moment, which is brilliant. And then hearing more the story behind it and, as I understand it, I think it was their dad getting them out of trouble saying: 'Look, I've got a studio with loads of instruments. Just go in there and stay off the streets and out of trouble and see what you can do.' And then they made, with the help of a few people hanging around, this mad record that ended up being one of the most sampled records of all time. I'm not that good about nerding up about records, as you may have gathered, but I hear little snippets and I love that story. I think it's brilliant. And I gravitate to records that are instinctive and not too forced and it feels like a record where these girls are just enjoying themselves and having fun with these beats."

"They're an incredible band, on Fiction and maybe even slightly discovered by The Cure. They were Americans but lived in London and were involved in the Camden scene with Silverfish, Ligament and all these kind of bands. It's almost metal, but it's also really bleak. A wonderful band, they made two records and then the bass player died so I never got to see them live. Martin our drummer saw them play. When we started Mogwai they were one of the bands we all bonded over. We were all big God Machine fans and actually used to do a couple of covers of their songs. The records have definitely held up and stood the test of time. I think I found them, you're about the same age as me so you'll remember this, but whenever a major label like Fiction tried to punt a new band they're pretty much give the records away, so you'd get singles and 7" for 49p. You could try out a lot of bands. When I moved my records a few years ago I had so many 7" of horrible bands that are just cataclysmically awful that I bought just because they were 50p. But that's how I discovered The God Machines and they're a big Mogwai band, there's no argument about that."

"I go to Amoeba Records, and this always stayed on top of the pile, and I went, "Fuck, I'll pick it up". I know it's a hipster record, so I'll pick it up! I got the first NEU! album and then I got number two. I like the fact that it's a couple of dudes from Kraftwerk, and I loved Kraftwerk. They made a wiseass task of it: they took a song and went with it, and then I guess they ran out of money! It turned into an, "Ah well, we ran out of money, you're going to get this!"

"I loved The Prodigy and obviously this album The Fat Of The Land was a big deal for us. I was about 13 years old when it came out and I’d already come up on their other two records, but this was just ‘whoa’. It was the best thing I’d ever heard. I can remember my brother talking to me about ‘Climbatize’ and saying that he got stoned to it and I remember thinking how cool that was. The production is just phenomenal across all their records to be honest. “It felt like a new world to me then, this deeper dance thing; even though it’s not even dance music, really, but that was my childish interpretation of it. I loved that squall and I just thought they were a great band."

"It would be easy to say I’m massively into Big Audio Dynamite - which I am - but it’s like, here’s Mick Jones, holed up in his little London studio, quietly making these records for digital download. He makes these really long songs sometimes. They’re really minimalist records. They have that kind of hi-fi, sampled guitar riff kind of aesthetic that Mick Jones is so well known for. They’re really solid records. 'The News', the opening song on this record is really great and it doesn’t really have any end. It’s like: “You know what, I’m alive and I’m really going to kick it. I got me a little song I’m going to sing.” It’s not trying to be heavy or anything: the sun is shining and everything’s groovy. He gets away with it. He gets plenty heavy in other songs. He has 11 minute songs and retells sci-fi novels! I just love those Carbon/Silicon records. He’s not shoving it down my throat or trying to have a career. He just knows how to play the guitar really fucking good and his vocals are so great. It’s not about having a great voice, it’s all what the fuck you do with it. His vocals are casual but he chooses to do that. Mick Jones is so fucking casual man. With Mick Jones there’s nuance, you either get it or you don’t."