1. THE PIXIES: "Monkey Gone To Heaven" (from "Doolittle")

"Everything The Pixies intimated they could do on ‘Come On Pilgrim’ and ‘Surfer Rosa’ came to a head on ‘Doolittle’. Black Francis tells me there are elements of Husker Du in The Pixies, but I can’t hear them. Their approach is so traditional, but they’ve also got incredibly unorthodox elements. Since Francis and Joey (Santiago) aren’t technically gifted, the things they come up with are really unique. Knowing too much can be a dangerous thing."

2. RICHARD AND LINDA THOMPSON: "Don’t Renege On Our Love" (from "Shoot Out The Lights")

"Richard Thompson is the best guitarist I’ve ever heard. I mean, Hendrix, Townshend, McGuinn - they’re all pretty good, but Richard wins hands down. This album is the one where Richard and Linda’s marriage is falling apart, and the tension is amazing. Not many people could make a record with all that going on. At their last gig together, they walked offstage in separate directions to be met by the people they ended up married to. That kind of thing makes for a great record"

3. THE BEATLES: "Tomorrow Never Knows" (from "Revolver").

"’Sgt Pepper was cute and clever and had all the backwards guitars and stuff, but this was the culmination of all their years beating it out in the clubs. It’s their speed record, really raw and elemental, not too sophisticated. And the drumming is amazing. The Beatles are the greatest group of that whole period - they forced everyone else to re-invent themselves, made pop a little redundant."

4. THE BYRDS: "Renaissance Fair" (from "Younger Than Yesterday.")

"I got into the Byrds after the fact, when Husker Du did ‘Eight Miles High’. As with ‘Revolver’, this LP marks an end of an era for the band, before they went off into a country direction. Roger McGuinn had a pretty big influence on my guitar-playing - he could produce lots of Eastern droning sounds and resonating styles. The Byrds were far more underrated than the Beatles, and they certainly didn’t dictate fashion like, say, Paul Revere and The Raiders - they just looked like a bunch of bums - but their impact has been lasting."

5. THE WHO: "Armenia City In The Sky" (from "The Who Sell Out")

"This is a really interesting cultural piece, hinting at things to come. It’s very British, with lots of radio segues and Heinz Baked Beans ads, a glimpse at a different cultural mentality. It’s also very ambitious. I think pop should overreach itself. Sometimes, that can lead to disaster, but other times it can produce something brilliant - look at Hendrix’s ‘Axis Bold As Love’. Pete Townshend was a key figure in rock. He exposed the teen spirit, to use a current phrase, of frustrated working class youth who had nothing to do but destroy."

6. NEIL YOUNG: "Cinnamon Girl" (from "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere")

"I listened to this LP at least once every day during 1989 - it was just right for that moment, something I could relate to, a down, transitional record about loss. It’s a thought-provoking record, really moody. Neil Young’s obviously been though a lot of stuff in his life that has challenged him mentally and physically. That kind of diary-entry thing is something I got into on my solo albums."

7. THE RAMONES: "Beat On The Brat" (from "The Ramones")

"The whole album’s got the bass on one side of the speaker and the guitar on the other - what an art statement! I got this for my 16^th birthday, and it was a real shock when I heard it. It’s got very simple bar chords, real unrelenting rhythms, and the most ridiculous lyrics I’ve ever heard. And there’s these really odd Nazi references, which is weird considering Joey (Ramone) is Jewish. But then , The Ramones are the exception to every rule."

8. THE DIODES.: "Child Star" (from ‘The Diodes’)

"The Diodes were contemporaries of The Ramones, part of the Canadian punk scene. I grew up in upstate New York about an hour from Montreal, so I was affected by what the Canadian radio stations played in 1976/7. I always thought Canada was culturally half way between America and Britain, so The Diodes sounded like The Ramones but with a British angle. This one’s a real disposable punk statement about a Canadian TV show. Apparently, the girl who appeared in it turned into a street-walker and died of a drug overdose. I still play it all the time."

9. CHEAP TRICK: "Taxman Mr Thief" (from "Cheap Trick")

"Our High School organised a bus trip to go and see Kiss in Montreal, which was basically just an excuse to get pissed and throw up. Anyway, Cheap Trick were supporting and when they came on they were like these two Bee Gees and two total dorks. But after 45 minutes, they absolutely decimated the crowd. These days, they’re a bit AOR and they’ve kinda outlived their usefulness, but loads of grunge bands still pillage the first two Cheap trick albums. If you play the first Nirvana LP next to those, you can see where it all started."

10. THROBBING GRISTLE: "Hamburger Lady" (from "D.O.A.")

"I don’t know how I stumbled upon this band, because at the time - around 1979 - I was listening to heavy punk stuff or Oi or New Wave. Throbbing Gristle had nothing to do with any of that. They proposed an entirely new lifestyle, totally DIY, with political extremist dress and stuff. And this record really scared me, especially ‘Hamburger Lady’, which is about a guy who works in an emergency burns ward. Such a shocker."

11. THE BUZZCOCKS: "Orgasm Addict" (from "Singles Going Steady")

"It was a pretty transcendental moment when I first saw them back in 1980 in Minneapolis, one of the weirdest shows I’ve ever seen. Rumour had it they’d done a bunch of four way acid that afternoon. Steve Diggle was flailing with total disregard for anything and Pete Shelley was just calling out chord changes instead of singing. If The Beatles were a speed band, The Buzzcocks were a heavy LSD band ."

12. MY BLOODY VALENTINE: "Only Shallow" (from "Loveless")

"As with The Ramones, when I first heard My Bloody Valentine everything changes. They’re so far ahead of their time, in 10 years’ time people will be saying, ‘Have you heard this band?’ I wonder what they hear in their collective head. Far out. This record’s a real interesting example of what a guitar can do and how voices figure in the picture. People say the Valentines listened to the Mary Chain and Sonic Youth. I don’t think so. I’d say The Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ in terms of that whole studio vision, the way sounds are put together in a way nobody expects. As a guitarist, it makes me quite jealous. This record totally suspends place, time and reality, which is what pop music is meant to do."

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