Okay, maybe ‘records’ is archaic. Maybe it can be an either/or word; either a description of a 45 or 33 ⅓ RPM vinyl recording with 2 sides or a collection of songs in a cloud. I don’t recall which critic wrote the book but that doesn’t matter. Let’s use the word ‘albums’ - still in use today - to describe a specific collection of works.

I’ll start.

Stuck on a desert island, I would want ten albums that defined me and that I still listen to again and again. So let me begin:

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece
Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks
The Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks
The Replacements - Tim
Leonard Cohen - The Essential Leonard Cohen*
R.E.M. - Murmur
The Clash - London Calling
The Velvet Underground - Gold: The Velvet Underground*
Elvis Costello - Spike

*Compilations

By the time the 1990’s came around, my musical influences were pretty well set in the music of the 1960’s through the 1980’s. Dylan and Cohen and Morrison were my 1960’s heroes, followed by VU/Reed, punk, ‘college radio,’ and Costello. Not that I didn’t listen to other music! I had an enormous record collection with record store contacts who would inform me of new artists that I might like. The L. Cohen album is the latest, I think, but has some ‘60’s tunes. The earliest album must be Astral Weeks?

Yes, I listen to other albums, other artists, frequently. But these are my MOST frequently played albums. I don’t know why; they just are.

And yours?