On your top five albums

On your top five albums

I've done made a list.

I've made a list of my top five albums, because all the other ones you see in glossy music publications fail to address my specific tastes, and are, by definition, shit.

Shit because I suspect they are put together by music journalists more worried about their cool credentials instead of owning up to a CD rack full of dodgy New Romantic classics.

Pet Sounds? Yeah, right. And frankly, I'd take Revolver or Abbey Road over Sgt Pepper any day of the week.

My list is certainly not shit, because the selections are tried and tested by my good self, and come with the Scaryduck SEAL OF APPROVAL that proves that everybody else listens to awful music, while I do not.

Strangely, while these are my favourite works of music, I find I hardly listen to them at all these days, preferring to savour them on rare occasions like a rough bottle of cheap vodka, binging the entire list at once and feeling slightly soiled afterwards.

1. Radiohead - The Bends: Far, far better than the critics' favourite OK Computer, and streets ahead of anything they've done since they decided not to bother with tunes any more.

2. Marillion - Misplaced Childhood: It took me about 20 years to finally "get" this album, but now that I have, I've recognised it as the rock masterpiece that it is.

3. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses: A complete one-off of an album that the lazy dogs could never, ever hope to repeat. After the doomed 'Second Coming', I'm rather glad that they stopped trying.

4. Kate Bush - Hounds of Love: Came to this one late after a friend noted that - of all the music in my collection - I only had about three discs featuring female artists. And Gad, he was right, for that's 50% more music available to my lugholes.

5. The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps: There's one track on this pre-Wake Up Boo CD where the music stops for just one beat, before everything surges back in one big explosion of guitar bass and beautiful analogue feedback. It's my favourite bit of music, ever, and having accidentally listened to it at full volume this morning, just a little scary.

OK, let's make it a top six, then:

6. Win - Uh! Tears Baby!: I've written on this obscure 1980s masterpiece at length in previous blog posts, and I still love it.

Crap. It's a top seven.

7. Ultravox! - Ha!Ha!Ha!: That's pre-Midge Ultravox! with a '!', thrashing their way through their art school punk critically-acclaimed-but-no-sales-at-all second album. Any album that gets Radio 1 inadvertently playing the line "Fuck like a dog" has got to be good.

So. That's Scary's top seven. I'm sure I've missed one somewhere and it'll be a top eight. Enlighten me.

8. Blondie - Parallel Lines

9. The Jam - Sound Affects

Somebody stop me.