"This was originally going to be last but instead I put Alfie Boe last, and I thought I’d bookend things with classical music, without wanting to sound snobbish. Actually I do want to sound snobbish – there’s nothing wrong with being snobbish when what you’re being snobbish about is the gold dust of our musical worth. Beethoven to me is the consummate classical composer. He learnt stuff from Bach, and Mozart, but he came at a time when he could bring all of his many influences together and not only from the classical tradition. He had an awareness of folk music and rhythm that I think is demonstrated in the ninth. The scherzo from the ninth symphony is a very rhythmic affair and one of those occasions where he utilised elements of rhythmic folk music, which is kind of interesting I think. A lot of composers looked down on the traditions of more naïve music forms but Beethoven seemed to recognise their worth. And of course towards the end of his days he would leave the symphonic work behind and concentrate on string quartets, and that again is a very disciplined, controlled fine art in music, to work with finite musical resources and treat them almost as if they are a symphony orchestra. So Beethoven is kind of the guy for me, he’s the top man. I probably first became aware of Beethoven’s ninth through A Clockwork Orange and that took me through the electronica versions of Walter - now Wendy - Carlos, and then to the original score by von Karajan. That is the one I still enjoy best to this day, the Sixties Deutsche Grammophon recording, where the tempo’s just right. I’ve listened to lots of other variations that are too fast, too slow, a bit sloppy, too cacophonous, but von Karajan in spite of his rather dictatorial nature, did the job."

"I remember buying the tape of this song. I must have killed that tape, I rewound it and rewound it. I think that was my first recognition of realising that I was in love with pop music and how it’s so addictive and how it made me feel. Even now, if I hear those opening bass notes I’m like ‘Fuck! It’s so good!’ It hit such a chord inside. “I think with ‘Without You’ and ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ they were me experiencing just the songs, but this was like ‘Oh my god, I love Britney’, I became obsessed with her as a pop star. The song definitely has the power of attraction and falling in love, being able to repeat, repeat, repeat and it’s such a good melody, but also Britney was an icon from day one. I felt like I just wanted to be like her. “I would watch the music video over and over on TV and that’s when I fell in love with pop music as a thing. I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew I wanted to be part of it. I liked the simple production back then too, it was so non-aggressive. I find a lot of the production in pop so aggressive now, whereas Britney was just so fucking pure, it was easy on the ears and I wanted to hear it over and over. “Britney takes me right back, like I can feel, I can see, I’m in the back of my mum’s car, I’m looking at the tape player, hitting rewind. I can see that and I’m like a zombie. I’m here going… [tape rewind sounds]. If someone puts on '...Baby One More Time' I’m ‘Oh god, turn it up! I have the same love for it each time, it’s amazing."