Steven Wilson’s 20 favourite British rock albums
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Back in 2008 we published Classic Rock’s guide to the 100 Greatest British Rock Albums Ever, consulting a panel of DJs, critics, photographers, musicians and promoters. We asked everyone to compile their Top 20, and these were Steven Wilson’s choices. Ask him again today we’d probably get an entirely different 20, but hey, that’s the nature of things.
Steven Wilson’s upcoming album, The Overview, will be released aherad of a tour next year.
Pink Floyd – Ummagumma (1969)
“I was 12 years old when I first heard Ummagumma, and it was terrifying. The band were adding a rock context to the techniques of avant-garde classical composers like [Karlheinz] Stockhausen and John Cage. As much as it scared me, Ummagumma got me into tape manipulation and using the studio as an instrument in its own right, which was an important lesson.”
Hawkwind – In Search Of Space (1971)
“It’s an extraordinary whirlpool of cosmic sound, the definitive space-rock statement. I love the album’s repetitive, almost pagan feel. It dispensed with the idea of soloists, and has a real sense of ‘otherness’. Hawkwind were the first band I saw live – on the Levitation tour [1980] – and In Search Of Space just left me wondering how those amazing sounds had been created.”
Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1971)
“I could’ve picked any of Sabbath’s first six albums, but Paranoid has the classics, and sleepers like Hand Of Doom and Electric Funeral – not tracks people talk about a lot, but they’re great.”
The Who – Quadrophenia (1973)
“Not only a concept album, it’s also the height of Pete Townshend’s writing, with some of his best melodies. It’s harder than people think to make a true concept album, and Townshend was the master at making records that work on several different levels. You can pull out these songs, and they all work in their own right.”
King Crimson – Red (1974)
“King Crimson’s albums were sometimes patchy, but Red is so solid. It was the last album they made before Robert Fripp went into retreat and they split for a few years, and it features one of their classic long pieces: Starless starts off as a ballad and becomes this pummelling, atonal rock workout. The title track is also definitive Fripp.”
Yes – Tales From Topographic Oceans (1974)
“I know it’s a curve-ball, because this is album is seen as progressive rock getting too big for its boots. But some wonderful follies have resulted when bands think they can do anything. A double album of four side-long pieces based on mystic scrolls, Tales From Topographic Oceans is the definitive rock folly, but it does contain some amazing music. It deserves reappraising.”
Led Zeppelin – Presence (1976)
“Because my mother used to listen to a lot of disco and my father liked arty records like [Mike Oldfield’s] Tubular Bells, I developed a love of sophisticated rock and great grooves. Presence could have been the first funk-rock album; the Red Hot Chili Peppers might have based their entire career on it. It has a wonderful production, and Achilles’ Last Stand is arguably the greatest opening song of any record before or since.”
Van der Graaf Generator – Still Life (1976)
“Although I grew up with a lot of progressive rock, I don’t listen to much of it these days. The bands that inspired me from that scene were the darker ones. Van Der Graaf Generator was almost Wagnerian; it’s very dramatic. Although it was slickly produced, Still Life almost pre-dated the energy of punk that was just around the corner.”
Pink Floyd – Animals (1977)
“Coming as part of a very significant run of Floyd albums from Dark Side Of The Moon [1973] through to The Wall [1979], Animals has always been very underrated. For me it’s definitely their strongest work. There’s some astonishing guitar playing, and also the anger of those later records. Using animals to divide up the human race was a great concept. Floyd were still halfway between being a band and transforming into a Roger Waters solo project.”
Throbbing Gristle – Second Annual Report (1977)
“They invented the whole concept of industrial music, when most people thought punk the most radical thing around. When I was producing Opeth’s Blackwater Park album, Mikael [Åkerfeldt, guitarist/vocalist] and I were discussing the most evil music we knew. He played me a Bathory song, which was genuinely evil. But when I played him Second Annual Report his jaw hit the floor and he said: ‘Fucking hell, that’s sick.’ Even all these years later, it still sends a shiver down my spine.”
XTC – Drums And Wires (1979)
“One of my favourite bands, and this is such a great guitar record. XTC were always among the most musical of the punk-era bands. They used it as a springboard for some early career momentum. Andy Partridge was such a skilled writer, and Drums And Wires was where XTC started to make their mark as a very intelligent, witty, art-pop band.”
“It’s difficult to explain this one’s appeal. I love very primitive music that’s made by non-musicians. Because they don’t have the baggage that comes with chops, they can work in pure sonic innovation. Metal Box was a double album that was made quite like no other. It had long, repetitive grooves, and John Lydon’s extraordinary voice. On paper it shouldn’t have worked, but there’s something about it that gets under my skin.”
The Cure – Seventeen Seconds (1980)
“Following a fairly conventional punk-style debut [1979’s Three Imaginary Boys], The Cure’s second album was so incredibly dry and parched, you could almost hear the instruments inside your head. The closest comparison I can make was what Joy Division were doing at the same time. I’ve always admired it from a producer’s point of view, because space and silence are very underrated commodities.”
Diamond Head – Lightning To The Nations (1981)
“I bought this via mail order, with a plain white sleeve and no information, and it turned out to be the definitive New Wave Of British Heavy Metal album. I was buying stuff like Maiden and Saxon. In fact, when I was 12 years old I had my own NWOBHM band called Paradox. Unlike many of Diamond Head’s rivals, you could trace their lineage back to Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, as opposed to punk rock. It had a musicality that the others lacked.”
Kate Bush – The Dreaming (1982) / Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel (Aka 4 – Security) (1982)
“These two are paired because both albums relied on the Fairlight [pioneering sampling tool] and were by artists at the peak of their creativity. The Kate Bush album is very stripped down and percussive compared to her previous work, which I loved. She just didn’t give a shit what else was going on in the industry – who else would’ve drafted in [later disgraced] Rolf Harris and [bird impressionist] Percy Edwards?
“Although Peter Gabriel had more commercial success later on, he was at the peak of his powers. Here he was being experimental but still writing great melodies.”
The Smiths – Hatful Of Hollow (1985)
You either love or loathe Morrissey. To me he’s one of the greatest lyricists of the past 20 years. In the space it took Yes to follow up the 90125 album, The Smiths had made six albums, changed the face of music and split up. There’s a song here about teenage pregnancy, called This Night Has Opened My Eyes, that breaks my heart. Although I understand why some people hate it, I love Morrissey’s voice for its distinctiveness.
Talk Talk – Laughing Stock (1991)
In some respects this is closer to a jazz record than a rock one. Its production captured the ambience and not just the individual performances, which was completely against then-fashionable. In that sense, Mark Hollis [vocals/ keyboards] and Tim Friese-Green [producer] were mavericks, making these spacious records when everyone else was listening to grunge or Tears For Fears. There’s a quiet, sensuous beauty about Laughing Stock that hasn’t dated.
Mansun – Six (1999)
“Mansun came from the arse-end of Britpop, but Six is a progressive rock record. Its songs are up to 10 minutes long and all interconnected, with narration by people like Tom Baker [Doctor Who]. Nobody who’d championed Mansun until that point quite knew how to take it, and it also failed to connect with a lot of people who’d have liked it.”
Radiohead – Amnesiac (2001)
It contains my favourite song of theirs, the devastatingly beautiful Pyramid Song. I was always sceptical about Radiohead, whom I felt were a superior indie-alternative rock band. Some bands get to a point in their career and fail to exploit the fact that they can do whatever they like. Radiohead had the world’s ear and, to their credit, they chose to confront its expectations. That’s what rock music’s all about and what keeps it evolving.
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