"Niggaz4Life is just… both the De La Soul albums had a cinematic quality to them, you can see those songs. With that being said, [on this album] Dr Dre had this sonic brilliance and pristine gangster music that just sounded brilliant. And it was orchestrated and sequenced very brilliantly, too. It seems like an awful lot of thought went into it. To me, it wasn't Gangsta with an 'a', it was Gangster with an 'er' - with a suit and tie. This is the business gangster; this isn't hold your gun sideways, this is Scorcese. Ice Cube not being there for this album was part of the appeal; everyone wanted to know what they'd be able to achieve without him. And it's a triumph."

"Again, it's all about the outsider and making the ugly beautiful, which John Waters is very well placed to deal with. It's also about a very particular place, which is Baltimore, and about a particular pop culture moment: the early sixties, just before The Beatles hit, which is a forgotten time and much more interesting than everybody thinks. People often go with that Nik Cohn line that there's nothing interesting before The Beatles, which is absolute bullshit: I love all those songs like 'The Bug' and 'The Madison'. It's got Debbie Harry in it and it's got Divine of course, who's as wonderful as ever. What's not to like? It has a lot of charm and is fascinating on a number of levels."

"OK, maybe I’m cheating here. I know this is off Blood On The Tracks, but it’s my all-time favourite song. It’s one of those songs where the lyrics are ambiguous you can actually write the song yourself. That’s a lot of fun – it’s like Dylan fooling around with the listener, playing on the way he or she interprets the lyrics. “It’s very hard to take individual songs off Blood On the Tracks, because itworks so well as an entire album. I used to think ‘If You See Her, Say Hello’ was a more powerful song than ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ but, over the years I’ve kinda realized ‘Tangled…’ has the edge, just for the fun you can have with it."

"I have to go with a Coen brothers movie, because they are my inspiration as producers, filmmakers — I want to direct soon. Again, I think that Fargo is a nearly perfect film. Visually, comedically; it manages to be tense, and it’s smart. I love the fact that it’s based on somewhat of a true story — I think that’s kind of where my interests lie, the idea of doing a true crime story that’s darkly comedic; that’s something that really appeals to me. I could name several of their films, but Fargo is the one that just… I always think about that shot in the parking lot in the snow, when he’s just trying to scrape the window off and he just loses his mind. [laughs]"

"Such a devastating and beautiful film. It’s interesting to see Amy Winehouse as a young girl with raw talent, and watch how, like a wave, she goes up and up and up and then crashes. As a viewer, you feel almost guilty to be watching her – she was watched enough – but this is a respectful portrait and I like that it celebrates her music. A lot of the time, in films about female artists, they only focus on the tragedy of their emotional lives and not enough about how amazing their craft was – and with this film you definitely get a sense of what an amazing singer and songwriter she was. She was much more than someone with addiction problems: she was a singular talent."

"It’s one of those things you discover when you’re old. It relates to you. The simplicity of existence, that’s what you get from the album. I love the cover of ‘Jesus, Etc’, which is one of my favourite ever songs by Wilco. The Bill Fay album had a bit of an influence on Rewind The Film, but a generation in front of us. Guy Massey who did that album mixed a lot of our record as well, we were looking for the woodiness of it, the authenticity. It’s not something you’re just born with. There’s such a fucking fragile “I’m barely here”-ness about it. It’s not very often I go for that, but with this album the more you play the deeper you get into it."

"One of my favorite films has always been Tootsie. I think I fell in love with New York and the romantic idea of being an actor from that movie. I saw it in a theater when I was really young and I don’t think I understood it all, but I remember people laughing so hard and I just knew I was watching a great movie. And all that stuff between Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack is amazing. I revisit that movie a lot. I think, again it has that effect — it’s a very bittersweet movie, because it’s really funny but it also has those great sweet, honest moments. And it’s about a guy wearing a dress. I mean, it’s amazing that they pulled that movie off."

"When I was drawing up the list, I wanted to start with an album that had come out in the last few years. I had a long list, maybe 50 albums, and there were some recent albums and tracks I’ve liked in the last few months. But, when I’m saying these are my favourite 13 albums that matter the most, I realised there wasn’t anything much from the last 15 to 20 years, which is a little sad to me. There are albums that I love - don’t get me wrong. I nearly included a Daft Punk album, as they changed things a little and I played that a lot when it came out. I thought The Killers’ debut album was a good record."