"This takes me back to when we were on tour in America with The Bends, and we had all our equipment stolen. We only had three days to buy more. I remember Jonny and I travelling into this guitar shop in San Francisco, where I saw this Telecaster Strat I fell in love with, then me, Colin, Jonny, our soundman and our tech hiring this van to drive six hours north. We had only one cassette to play in it, which had Swervedriver's Ejector Seat on one side and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On on the other. I'd never heard it before. I was like, what is this? Oh my God! All I knew about Marvin Gaye was that he'd been involved in Motown. After this, I got trainspotterish about the album, and its band, The Funk Brothers, and how they made music.

This was really influential on the way I made music from that point. Before that, my bands were Pixies, Nirvana, The Posies and other grunge stuff, but I'd more or less reached a saturation point with all that by 1995. Hearing What's Going On? was like suddenly hearing music in five dimensions; it really made me think about how I wanted to contribute sonically to OK Computer. I thought 'Inner City Blues' was the greatest song I'd ever heard in my life, and it's still up there for me. This music felt like truth. It elevated and transported me. It was music that made me love the music I was trying to make."

"For me Pavement were my favourite band of the 90s and they really defined the 90s for me better than Nirvana or any other band, because they were shambolic and had elements of all the things that came right before them like the Sonic Youth era and the grunge period. Malkmus was such a literary voice and they were such a great band in spite of being everyone living in a different city. They hardly ever rehearsed and their songs were always thrown together in some way but they made this music that inspired me almost more so than anybody else at the time. I would listen to them and see them live and it really moved me in a very basic sense. I felt it was very sophisticated in spite of it being a little shambling and rambling on stage and maybe that was part of it. They were never really a tight band. They never cared to be a tight band. On stage things were a little bit messy and blurry and that maybe was part of their charm, it showed that that didn’t matter in a way. What they were getting across was something that was nothing to do with whether they were a tight rock band with heavy riffs or whatever. Sonic Youth always prided ourselves on being really well rehearsed. We were super rehearsed most of the time and could really kick it out and Pavement was not like that at all. Yet they were really impressive and powerful in this kind of shambling way. I always loved the songs."

"The thing about this band is that it came out of a grunge background, obviously Dave [Grohl] came out of Nirvana. But he can play guitar just as well or better than Kurt, sings great. The most interesting thing I find about Foo Fighters, and songs like 'My Hero', is that they are based in pop melodies. Not based in the blues. Which is really interesting, having that big wall of sound guitar thing with pop melodies and interesting lyrics. Just an interesting band. This album just has the songs and it has the attitude. You can have good songs on an album but... well I remember getting the Blur record [Blur] after hearing that 'Song 2' and I was shocked to find the rest of the record was just synths and stuff. What the fuck? You hear 'Song 2' and you think, 'Wow, that's great!' and then you hear the rest of the album and it's like REEEEOOW REEEOW. It's like The Communards or something. Almost disco electronica or something. So, you know, consistency is not just a big word like gymnasium, you want an album to make a statement song after song. Maybe the most consistent band is AC/DC. Song after song could almost be the same song. There is a great interview with Angus where a critic says, 'I don't want to insult you, but I think your new record sounded just like your last record', and Angus said: 'I don't agree. I think our new record sounds like every record we've ever made.' Sometimes the biggest criticism you can make can be the biggest compliment you can give. Colour is a consistent record. It makes one statement. So what that means is that they can take that music and play it live and it should sound similar to that record, consistent. I would include more if I could, but when you pick an album, it's not just a standalone item. It's about what's happening in your life, where you are and so on."

"I think I’m going to go with Singles, and it’s because of a very specific time in my life. Soundtrack is really important to me, and I’m a child of ’90s grunge. That movie was Seattle, Nirvana, Pearl Jam — it’s the greatest soundtrack. My favorite band was Smashing Pumpkins and my favorite song by Smashing Pumpkins is “Drown,” and that’s on there. Plus, I loved all the different storylines being woven together. I love Cameron Crowe, and the idea of these people living in Seattle and looking for love. I was a senior in high school when it came out. I mean, I saw it in the theater like three times. I was like, “Oh my God, this is gonna be my life. I’m gonna move out of my parents’ house, and I’m gonna go and try to make it in the city somewhere, and it’s gonna be like this.” And, you know, Bridget Fonda as Janet was just the greatest character. I was like, “I’m gonna be like her. I am kind of like her. But not the pathetic parts of her, the great parts of her.” But everyone was just was trying to find themselves, find love, find a career, find a path, find their life. It was really aspirational for me at the time that it came out, so it really scratches that itch that I had then, and it will always be that meaningful to me. I recently made my husband watch it. I can’t remember if he had seen it or if he just didn’t remember it, but I just could tell, even though he loved it and appreciated it, like, it didn’t kill him the way it killed me. And you know, he was like, “Yeah, no, it’s good. I like it.” But he is obsessed with Almost Famous, and I love Almost Famous, but that was more meaningful for him. Singles is just… the movie, the music, the time, the look, the actors, the wardrobe, the backdrop of Seattle. Just all of it."

"For me, this is very much a hallmark of where I was able fit in musically in my career. When I started out I was in Montreal, but went to New York periodically and failed miserably with what I was trying to do. It was right at the time that Jeff Buckley was on the rise, and grunge, and that whole movement was incredibly heterosexual, incredibly nihilistic, incredibly guitar-based and very, very dark. I admired it, I'm not against that, but when I was dropped into that equation I was this gay piano-playing opera queen who wanted to be romantic and harken back to other more refined eras. What I was trying to do just didn't make any sense in New York. People would often try to categorise me and say I was cabaret or that I should be doing Broadway. It was very complicated and I never figured it out. Then I was signed to Dreamworks, by Lenny Waronker – whom I believe helped make Pet Sounds. I went to Los Angeles and suddenly realised that I was definitely more part of the Brian Wilson tradition. Whether it was him or Randy Newman or Van Dyke Parks or Harry Nilsson, there was a kind of spot that I could fit into. So I listened a lot to Pet Sounds. You can hear it somewhat on my new album, songs like the last track 'Alone Time', but all through my career there's been a real concentration on harmonies and interesting chord changes and a dreamlike quality. I was able to find my niche through that tradition, as opposed to the East Coast. I have a lot to thank Brian Wilson for, he allowed me to inhabit my world comfortably, as opposed to when I was in New York and I was a total anathema to what was happening there. I can't say that I listened to the album obsessively or that I'm obsessed with him and know all his work, but I definitely feel I am a Wilsonite."