"When I was growing up, I heard a lot of compilation albums being played by my parents. One of these was Abba Gold. That got me into the band. In the end, it was tough to choose between Arrival and Voulez-Vous, which came out three years later. There are two reasons why Arrival wins out. “Firstly, ever since The Darkness got into a position where we needed an intro, we’ve used the song Arrival itself. So, I hear it every night, and it’s become a part of my life. Secondly, there’s a helicopter on the album cover. That’s cool in itself. But what I recently had done was a photo with myself, my wife, my child and dog put into the cover shot in place of the band, all of us standing by the helicopter. That has pride of place in my lounge"

"Not lovely at all is the music of the Edwardses, who are always at least slightly off. Cynics say the pair are really actual jazz superstars Jo Stafford and Paul Weston, but I choose to believe there is really a woman who was born to sing 'You're Blasé; as if she were hanging upside down and swinging back and forth like a drunken pendulum, and a man who plays the piano as though he were also juggling. Hailing from Trenton, NJ, the couple tripped onto the world stage in 1957 – twelve years before the Shaggs – and off again in 1982 after five albums and five singles, some of which are pretty hard to find, so the two volumes of Greatest Hits are a good start. (Misleadingly, the Complete Original Albums compilation contains only the first two albums.) Now that I have publicly come out as a fan, I guess I have to buy all the albums. Excuse me for a moment. Okay, I'm back. "

"There was a compilation that came in the heady days of Electroclash, it had a track of theirs called 'If I Gave You A Party'. It's hard to put a finger on what music it is, it still sounds quite modern actually. The guy behind it hasn't done that much but everything you can track down by him is really weird and accessible as well. That record does trail off on side two as there's a silly track called 'Exercise Your Ass Off', which is trying to be Jane Fonda or something, but apart from that it's good. Again it's a bit like the B52s in that it's quite a simple sound, you can tell it's being made with not much money and it's just using a few elements in such a way that it really works. You'd not get away with being called Sexual Harassment any more - that's from a bygone age. "

"My mom used to play this and it's funny because recently she told me that she didn't even like it very much. But I liked it a lot. It's not like this is the definitive girl group compilation, it's just that I grew up with it. And it means something to me, I guess, because I've covered two of the songs [Dionne Warwick's 'Don't Make Me Over' and Barbara Lewis' 'Hello Stranger']. I probably didn't realise just how important it was to me back then, but the songs have stuck to me over time and so I've come to understand its importance. All these playful and soulful performances, they're still very inspiring to me even though I was five or six when I was listening to it a lot. There wasn't a lot of music my parents played that I enjoyed at that age, so it's in there pretty deep. It's very 1950s, very glittery, very Phil Spector-y. It was pretty formative."

"Dirty Mind is the first one where I feel Prince became the Prince we all know and love. There had been somewhat suggestive lyrics with 'Soft & Wet', which came out earlier, but this is where he went full force with songs like 'Sister' and 'Head'. The record cover, the whole package, really says something to me. Instead of looking like a black guy from Minneapolis, he looks New Wave and you can't really tell what he is. He's got bed springs behind him and the album is called Dirty Mind, the first song is called 'Dirty Mind' and it just hits you over the head with this new direction. Maybe my favourite song on the record is 'Partyup', the last song on it. I understand there's rumours that he sort of traded that song with Morris Day. He said if you give me that song I'll record an album for you or I'll put together The Time For You. It's just an amazing song. Spoon covered it a long time ago for this Prince compilation."

"The whole New York thing was kind of like the Bowie outer space thing – you’d see it on films. And when I first went out to New York I thought how right the music was for the place. It was the antithesis of the California thing. I bought a Velvets compilation with ‘I'm Waiting For The Man’ on, and every title fascinated me. When I got Banana everything about it was cool, a different kind of cool to Bowie, just this disrespective, narky cunt, with the greatest rock & roll band in the history of time. Technically it doesn’t matter, the chemistry between them was incredible. Every rhythm guitar part I’ve ever played I’ve just nicked from Lou Reed, even some of the punkier stuff. There were all these punky little rhythms. Not as important as Bowie in what he decided to do, but up there because it was a band with a definite front man. When I met the right people later in life I would use the Velvets model."

"This is a compilation of Zakir playing different concerts, and it blew my mind when I was 16. Its one of the albums I've listened to 1000 times. It's bizarre that that would be something I'd listen to so many times, because it's so sparse - there's only the tabla and occasionally one other instrument, but never more than two at any one time. I once got to see him play with John McLaughlin, they really opened up my whole understanding of rhythm. I felt like my brain was getting bigger, it felt like I was learning about music. It's probably the most sophisticated rhythm I've heard from any country at any time, but it's not show-offy and designed to impress you technically. It has so much soul, it's such passionate music. Some people can't stand listening to it, but it's one of those albums that I could be in a terrible state but still happy to hear it. It relaxes me. That album really opened me up to listening to Ali Farka Touré, Indian classical musicians and so much more."