"Murmur is the album that launched 10,000 indie bands. It had a vibe and a sound unlike anything that was out there. I'm a huge R.E.M. fan and I like a lot of their records but this one was something completely different and unique. It had a sixties sorta influence, the lyrics were elliptical - you really couldn't make out at all what Michael Stipe was singing. There's always touch and mystery and beautiful harmonies; there are churning guitars; it's psychedelic - all these things make it kinda hard to pin point what exactly the record sounds like. I don't know how they managed to pull it off. When I listen to this record I realise that this doesn't sound like any record ever. It really has its own sound. I don't think it had any commercial success but everybody who is a serious musician loved this record."

"I guess anyone who's read any sort of Nick Cave book will tell you this story, but when they finished this record his girlfriend at the time, Anita Lane, did the painting for the sleeve and he thought it was really, really shit but he let it be the cover anyway. But I like it. I'm a sucker for painted roses for some reason. When I was first in The Horrors, The Birthday Party were definitely one band that we all collectively liked, other than 60s garage bands. They are a fantastic band. In terms of Birthday Party-related things though, I think one of my favourites is Rowland Howard's first solo album called Teenage Snuff Film, but that isn't an illustrated cover so I didn't include it. But Rowland Howard is one of my favourite guitarists and that's probably what I liked most about The Birthday Party."

"The pre-dub stuff, which basically was called ska, was a bit faster: you've got Desmond Dekker, Dave & Ansell Collins, Jimmy Cliff. So skinheads loved that in the early 70s and rock fans looked up their nose at it. There were lots of silly lyrics. Rock fans who were into Clapton and Hendrix thought, ""What is this shit?"" That's probably part of the reason I loved it so much. Dread Locks Dread is an awesome, awesome record. I used to hate the way white rock bands would occasionally throw in a reggae number. But the whole reggae thing, the whole thing of instruments dropping out with dub reggae: suddenly the guitar will disappear and it's just the drums and bass, or the drums and bass will drop out and it's just the guitar. That kind of stuff. That awesome spaciousness. That's definitely something that very strongly influenced Gang Of Four."

"Punk rock changed my life. In 1976 in grim old England – grey days, Thatcherism, strikes, power cuts, unemployment through the roof – it was pretty bad out there. There are similarities to now, I suppose. I was a little kid and I would get up to go to school and it would be freezing as we didn’t have any power. I wondered what was going on. You needed something in life to shake things up and this punk rock movement seemed to come out of nowhere. There was glam rock which was fading by 1975, Bowie had changed identity again and then – bang – in came the Sex Pistols. It wasn’t just them – there were all these bands, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Damned. But, I chose the Sex Pistols’ album as I do think they were leading the race. They had Malcolm [McLaren] and Vivienne [Westwood] who were behind the scenes helping paint the picture – two of the greatest creative people of that time period. They had the most extraordinary image. The Pistols were so stylish. Everyone says it is anti-style but actually it was complete high fashion; their first show was at Central Saint Martins for God’s sake. The whole thing, to me, was incredibly stylish which of course I loved having grown up with glam rock. There was something about punk – it really did upset your parents. All kids need something at some stage that is theirs and doesn’t belong to their parents. Every generation needs to rebel and punk rock really was that. It tore up the rule book. Before that were all these technical bands like Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis – some of which are amazing – but at the time was all too complicated. Emerson, Lake And Palmer had too many notes. Punk rock just had a few chords and it was raw and you could feel the nerves. That’s the first time I realised that maybe I could be in a band. I remember going with John Taylor to Birmingham Barbarella’s to see a punk band – maybe Generation X – and I was stood watching the guitarist play and I knew all of the chords. I went home and got my guitar out and played the chords. I could play the song. That was an epiphany – I realised I could do it. I could never have done anything like that to a Genesis track. I’ve chosen the Sex Pistols album as I think it is the most significant one but I would say I almost chose The Scream by Siouxsie And The Banshees because it is a brilliant record – so enigmatic and different – and I played it so much. Siouxsie was so unique. In fact punk bands were unique, even if they had the same energy. I loved the Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP and then the album, which Malcolm Garrett designed and went on to do all of our stuff for the first five years. We got him because of Buzzcocks."