I'm sure I could think of others, but this is what came to mind most immediately:

- Sparks - Kimono my House. I have loved them since the age of 13 and the first single I ever bought (2nd hand from a market) was This town ain't bit enough ...An album I still go back to regularly.

- The Bonzos - My pink half of the drainpipe. I'd bough a MFP compilation as a teenager and was struggling a bit to 'get' the songs, but this was the one that was the breakthrough for me. Later met my husband through our mutual love for the Bonzos.

- The Human League - don't you want me. Instantly takes me back to 5th year at school and the winter of 81/82.

- The La's - There she goes. Loved it from first release, the first gig I went to and reminds me of the year I spent as a postgrad student.

- Kirsty MacColl - Soho Square. Her death really shocked me and I have a tendency to get a bit miserable on my birthday these days, so this song tend to have me sniffling.

Best not to think too long about this so:

Family - Music In A Doll's House

Pink Floyd - Meddle

Yes - Close To The Edge

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Blockbuster - The Sweet (school)
Kiss Off - Violent Femmes (university)
I Am The Resurrection - Stone Roses (the Congleton years)
One Day Like This - Elbow (wedding)
Skylon - Gruff Rhys (now)

Stand and Deliver - Adam & the Ants (first record I ever bought with my own money - riot of colour and noise and a terrific drum beat)

This Charming Man - The Smiths (only 3 years later, the realisation that there was a bit more to think about in music aside from "a good beat and catchy chorus)

She Bangs The Drum - The Stone Roses ("My" band - university, girls and alcohol - saw them in early 1989 at the Amersham Arms in New Cross in front of no more than 30 people and at Ally Pally in the November in front of 7,000)

PCP - Manic Street Preachers (the most viscerally exciting sound I had heard to the point and probably still is today. Ideology, sixth form doomed lyrics, false starts and crashing guitars - the band and this song tied me in to a whole new group of friends who I'm still with 16 years down the track)

Jungleland - Bruce Springsteen (the one song that means the world to me. If I was allowed one song on my desert island, this would be it. It's a film in song form and one you can project so, so many different locations, themes, puzzles and faces - the first that allowed me match my own scripts and shots to the words Bruce was singing - opened up a world of creativity for me. Everything just clicked)

Relax - Frankie Goes To Hollywood (first record bought)

The Number Of The Beast - Iron Maiden (first hint of music obsession began when I heard this)

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back - Public Enemy (gateway to soul, funk, hip hop and a world of music far removed from the rock music I had heard before. Musical education started here.)

Planxty - Planxty (first intimations I ever had the the music of my parents wasn't all bad. I now love folk music, Planxty are the folk Rolling Stones)

Dayvan Cowboy - Boards Of Canada (practically my theme tune these days)

The first record I ever owned Was Memphis Tennessee,a gift from my Big Sis.The first album was With the Beatles another gift from my Big Sis bought for me when she returned from London after she'd gone to Big Beat 64'.The first single I bought with my own money was Penny Lane and the first album was Tommy.I still listen to the albums now and again,I'm afraid the singles have long ago disappeared.The music that I always turn to in happy times would be without doubt The Beatles and in sad times probably Blue by Joni Mitchell and if not Joni,a bit of Mahler.Out in front as far as what I still listen to from my teenage years,Jimi Hendrix,still sounds Extraordinary all these years later.

Abba's Greatest Hits Vol1 the one with them sat on a long bench,first record ever bought still wonderful, packed full of pop gems

Out Of The Blue-ELO I played this to death as a teenager still I think my favourite album magical

Green-R E M another record played to death in my student days went to see them live in Liverpool awesome

Apple Venus Vol 1 -XTC just a great album never get tired of it

Red and Blue albums-The Beatles simply the greatest music ever recorded on two flawless records

even with a double post

U2 - The Unforgettable Fire (First album I bought. Remember reading the cover on the bus back from town with my Nan)

Half Man Half Biscuit - Back In The DHSS (Reminds me of my school years, my copy was on an orange Sony C90. I could still recite the lyrics off pat.)

The Stone Roses - Made of Stone (late teens, as stated above 'My Band', saw them at Spike Island, tee shirts, drugs etc The first record I bought by them)

Billy Bragg - Tank Park Salute (Bragg has been a constant since I was 15. This song has helped me through 3 pretty big deaths. Not my own I hasten to add)

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin (My favourite band of the last 3 years. Their 'new' is out May 17th and I am like a kid with an advent calendar. Actually bought tickets for Snow Patrol, so we can see Band of Horses again [then get out of there sharpish]).

Singles

The Prince/Madness (School)

Dear Prudence/Siouxsie & The Banshees (Sixth form)

She Sells Sanctuary/The Cult (Uni)

Need You Tonight/INXS (Nice job)

Killer/Seal (Hateful job)

There should be a part two to this. I could go on and on.

1.Telstar by the Tornado's.('62 OR '63) I can remember being six at the time and was outside the butchers tucking into a salmon paste sarnie.That song was playing.Lovely keyboard sound;the escsence of the early sixties sound.It can still transport me right back there.I can still picture the scene. Still love salmon paste sarnies.

2.Sunshine Girl by Herman's Hermit's. The first record that me and my two brothers bought(jointly)cost us 8s/6d.A fortune then. Such a bouncy drum beat and carefree and happy making song Fun/fun /fun.(circa '67).

3. Ride a White Swan by T .Rex. Amazing guitar intro.It was playing in a room at school; we were all gathered having finished our exams;what a carefree time 14 years old and just getting interested in girls;oh bliss!Bolan was incredibly hip man!

4. Quo (Album self titled)Aquired this L.P. circa 1975 just turned 20 ;these were my introduction to headbanging.Just great to get all that youthful agression out of the system.Being in a crowd fantastic.

5. Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd. Bit darker this one.Took us out of the fun 70's into the grim 80's(came out Dec 79).Was controversial at the time because Pink floyd used London school children singing "We don't want no educashion"(sic).It didn't stop kids going to school; so what was all the fuss about?

Anyway that's my list;could have added more; but seeing as 5 was the permitted number............

Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blue (better known as Volare) by Domenico Modugno from 1958. I was about 3 and used to go around singing this song which was 3rd in the eurovision song contest that year. One of the few memories of being that age.

I Remember You by Frank Ifield from 1962. Memories of a summer holiday when this song just seemed to be played all the time. He was an Australian! Actually, he was born in England but he came from Australia and was, therefore, exotic. He tought us how to yodel.

Let's Dance by Chris Montez from 1962. The first record I bought along with my 2 brothers (several weeks pocket money). It was played at the funfair in the summer and the b-side was 'You're the One', a mournful dirge which I listened to obsessively for a while. This became a trend with different songs in later life - usually associated with another relationship gone awry.

Green Onions by Booker T & The MG's from 1968. Holiday related again when we used to got to Aunty Edna's in Widnes (we was poor). I discovered this when plundering cousin Eric's record collection. One small step for a teenager.....

With a Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker from 1968. I had not seen Joe when I first heard this and so naturally assumed he was a black american. Then saw him on telly and he was this big bloke from Sheffield. I still have fond thoughts about Sue & Sunny.

Obviously, the Beatles and Stones were a complete class of their own in my early teenage life and I could choose any tune of the time.

To be continued.....

"Flood" - They Might Be Giants (GCSEs)

"Together Alone" - Crowded House (A levels)

"I Should Coco" - Supergrass (Uni. Gutted they've split)

"Apple Venus / Wasp Star" - XTC (early days of marriage)

"Twelve Stops and Home" - The Feeling (round the time my dad died, it kept me going. I must have listened to it daily for MONTHS)

I hope nobody minds me cheating (already!) with a dual number one.

1. Catch a Falling Star (artist unknown) but my (single) mum used to sing to me at bedtime
Have I the Right - the Honeycombs, first record I remember hearing on the radio (about right, I was three in '64)

2. The Old Castle / Blues Variations - ELP, first exposure to real rock music. Consider that previously to this, I'd have been listening to Top of the Pops cover albums from Woolworths!

3. Run for Home - Lindisfarne, "Our tune@, first date and all that.

4. My Toot Toot - Denise Las Salle, on the radio at first child's birth and I still rather like it.

5. Always With Me, Always With You - Joe Satriani, my chosen funeral music.

All the best,
Pete

On Horseback by Mike Oldfield. A very lovely ditty from his Ommadawn album that my parents played all the time. It made the seven year old me fall in love with music. "Hey and away we go /Through the grass, across the snow / Big brown beastie, big brown face / I'd rather be with you than flying through space"...

Hasta Manana by Abba. I heard it as a 10-year-old on their Greatest Hits Vol.2. I used to play it over and over again on my parents' music centre and stare longingly at the gatefold picture of Agnetha sat on a bench with the other three. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

The Fine Art of Surfacing (album) by The Boomtown Rats. I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and pretended to be Bob Geldof. I remember seeing The Rolling Stones video for She's So Cold on The Six O' Clock Show with Michael Aspel and saying to my dad "That guy is copying Bob Geldof." He then put me straight about who had influenced who!

Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. Once my teenage years kicked in I became obsessed with it... I reckon I played it at least once a day every day for five or six years. Zeppelin weren't human as far as I was concerned... they were gods.

Alina (album) by Arvo Pärt. I suppose this elegiac, beautiful record represents where I am with regards to music nowadays. The trouble is I can't listen to it very often because I just find it too emotional an experience.

Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays (first record I WANTED to buy. Taped it off the radio (someone else did and gave it me. Honest))

Human League - Don't You Want Me (first record I actually bought with own money (got a record player for Christmas 1981 (plus a Barron Knights LP))

Iron Maiden - Run To The Hills (first "Heavy Metal" record I bought. "Life Changing" - now part of an elite group of 3 people at school who liked Heavy Rock/Metal)

The Who - Quadrophenia (Apprentice Years (87-91) - it was pretty much 'A Way Of Life' at this time)

Henry Priestman - Chronicles Of Modern Life (Current top player)

...here are my five

Its my party - Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin (first single I ever bought)

Shockadelica - Prince (High School/The 80's)

Tomorrow Started - Talk Talk (University)

Lover you should have come over - Jeff Buckley (Life changing new love)

Girl - Tori Amos (Soundtrack to my life...)

Wings - London Town. Ahem. The first album I ever bought. I leaned it against the wall and stacked every other LP I bought over the next six years or so in front of it, until the corners were torn and the disc was concave. But I now realise my 13 year-old self's instinct was right. You can't beat good songs.

The Jam - Setting Sons. Made me want to be in a band and write songs. Still does.

Everything but the Girl - Idlewild. Difficult conversations with difficult girls with big hair and ill-fitting knitwear, over late night coffee. 1984 was a shit year to be 20.

Woodface - Crowded House. Such craft. Made me realise I wouldn't ever write songs that good. I listened to it every day for a whole summer.

Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow. See, I thought it wasn't possible to fall in love with an album anymore, now that we all live on shuffle, but I managed it with this one. I plant a kiss that wouldn't wake a baby / upon the self-same face that wouldn't let me sleep. How can you not be dazzled by Mirrorball?

the first five that came into my head but it is almost impossible however.....

Monkees "Headquarters" My older sisters loved The Monkees and I fell in love with them too having heard this album on almost constant replay when I was very, very young.

Elton John "Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy" I just remember pouring over THAT album cover while the songs played in the background so evocative it's quite scary.

The Jam "All Mod Cons" could have been any Jam album but this was the first to come to mind (Setting Sons a very close second Captain). First album I learnt all the lyrics to. I remember reciting it in my head during a very dull French exam where all I did was put my name at the top of the paper.

Del Amitri "Waking Hours" I must have listened to this more than any album it began an obsession 20 years ago and I could hear it now and it still feels as good as the first time

Green Day "American Idiot" my kids loved this album so much it will always remind me of them. Hearing my son practice the title track on his guitar over and over and over again until he got it right puts it in the list.

Honourable mentions to several others but especially "New Boots and Panties" for the joy of hearing the into to "Plaistow Patricia" when I was about 12.

A splendid thread.

Greased Lightning from the Grease Soundtrack. Everyone else at my primary school was into 'Summer Lovin'' but this was much cooler. I had a dance routine for it.

Baggy Trousers by Madness. First band that made me realise that music was something special, a not merely a thing that my sisters were into.

Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. The soundtrack to my adolescence. Didn't get The Smiths but was obsessed by Lloyd for far too long.

The Amorous Humphrey Plugg by Scott Walker. Completely changed my world. Made me realise that there are two kinds of music: the kind that soundtracks your life, and the kind that soundtracks the life you wish you had. I adopted the latter and never looked back.

The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists. Even though there have been a thousand musical loves since Scott Walker in my early twenties, the Rake's Song Hitmakers reminded me what it was like to be overcome with a single album, even as I approach 40.

Nice question. It would be a different list tomorrow, but here goes...

She Loves You/I'll Get You by The Beatles. The Beatles were around throughout my childhood, and this was the very first record I owned, bought for me by my Aunt. Wish I still had that Parlophone single..

Cosmo's Factory by Creedence - first record I bought, and the soundtrack to my early teenage years

Exodus by Bob Marley - one of a dozen I could have chosen which take me straight back to uni

Colour By Numbers - Culture Club - the 80s, my first job, first house, marriage, etc

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Sinead O'Connor - Every family has some records which somehow work for everyone. This was out when our children were born, and Sinead was a favourite with us all through the 90s

Marc Bolan was the overriding reason that I got into music in the first place so I have to kick off with the first album I ever bought;

Electric Warrior - T. Rex

followed by;

Goats Head Soup - The Rolling Stones (first Stones album I bought with my own money)

Balck and Blue - The Rolling Stones (came out the year that I left school and co-incided with the first love of my my life, the very wonderful Dawn Huges)

The Clash - The Clash (now a fully fledged punk this was the soundtrack of my mispent years)

Wilco - A.M (a great debut from possibly my favourite band ever)

12 years old - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (album) - Elton John
16 years old - Seconds Out - Genesis
18 years old - Bullinamingvase - Roy Harper
22 years old - Koln Concert - Keith Jarrett
25 years old - The Joshua Tree - U2
32 years old - Automatic for the People - REM
35 years old - Protection - Massive Attack
42 years old - Seven Years of Falling - EST
45 years old - The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow
and now at 47 years old...current favourite - July Flame - Laura Veirs...but it'll be something different next week.

The earliest music that sticks in my mind from my childhood are Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk, Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer by Nat King Cole and She Loves You by the Beatles, but if I had to choose my life history songs, they would have to be...

Beach Boys - Good Vibrations - my mum bought it for me from the record stall on the local market - I must have been eight at the time. Sunny music for a sunny, happy childhood.

T.Rex - Metal Guru - O Levels, adolescence, platforms, trousers that were far too tight.

The Trammps - Disco Inferno. University - bopping to the disco beat every night

The Smiths - There is a Light That Never Goes Out. Our song, just pipping Van's Into the Mystic

Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection - my middle age track. Currently the most played track on my i-Pod

but still - here's one that started me off and four that have kept me going.

Jimi Hendrix Experience At Monterey (on one side - other side is Otis Redding at Monterey). Second album I ever bought, 99p in 1974. I still listen to it, despite the fact that I should have sucked all the marrow from the bones a long time ago.

The Cramps - Gravest Hits - raw, primitive rock & roll that gave me a jolt like nothing else did, in 79, and is still spooky

Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue - a hardy perennial. works in pretty much any circumstances. I first heard it in 81 and it is probably the album I have listened to most.

Glenn Branca - Symphony No 1. I first heard this in 85, on the way home from touring in France with my band. I was exhausted and in a perfect mental state to hear this strange din, part gamelan orchestra and part Guitar Army, as we drove home through fog from Dr Who. Apart from re-awakening my ears, it also led me to the marvellous music of Rhys Chatham, and to running the auditions for (and performing as part of) his 100 Guitars project when it came to Glasgow.

Brian Charles - Sadderdaydreaming 2000 - a genius powerpop album that still sounds fresh 10 years on.

(I could pick another 20 but I'll stop here)

1. I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am) - Gary Glitter
The first record I bought with my own money. I was 7. Glitter was my favourite artist for a long time (Alvin Stardust a close second). I can still remember the very first play - my mum grabbed the record player arm as she thought the sound of the motorbikes revving up was the sound of the stylus slipping off the record.

2. The Beatles Red Album
By the time I was 12, the Glitter phase had passed, my flirtation with the Shadows had come and gone, and I needed something new. I'd heard 'Can't Buy Me Love' and 'Penny Lane' on my Dad's reel-to-reel tape recorder and thought the Beatles might have something to offer. So I asked for the Red Album for Christmas. It resulted in a Beatles obsession that lasted until I was 19. When friends were getting into punk and 2-tone, I ploughed a lonely farrow extolling the merits of Strawberry Fields Forever.
(I sometimes wonder if I'd have developed the same obsession if I'd asked for the Blue Album. Would my 12-year old self be quite as keen on the more sophisticated fare on offer?)

3. Teacher by Jethro Tull
The first track on MU - Greatest Hits. Again, I was casting around for something new. I had no idea what Jethro Tull were about, but I liked the name...so I bought a greatest hits compilation. When I first heard Teacher, I knew I was onto something I was going to enjoy. A lot. The rest of the album sounded so good! From there started an obsession which lasts to this day. 25 years and counting.

4. Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis - Vaughan Williams
The first piece of classical music I truly enjoyed. It's ability to evoke a certain (cliched?) view of Englishness is unsurpassed. Having lived in hot, sunny, tropical Singapore for the last 10 years, I need to be reminded of 'home' on a regular basis. This does the trick every time.

5. Mister Heartbreak - Laurie Anderson
The soundtrack to a perfect couple of months in my life. After A Levels, before university, hanging out with the 2 closest friends I've ever had with nothing to worry about. We played this non stop as we spent day after day with each other, enjoying a level of intimacy and understanding I've not experienced since.

1 2001 OST (first LP, pretty much)

2. Going for the one, first "rock" LP I bought

3. Nina Simone Chess compilation, late 80s-pretty much my first CD

4. Beethoven symphony lp box-Bernstein-from late lamented Tower records.

5. Finzi, in years defaced-probably my most played CD.

1985: A-Ha, "Hunting High And Low".
The first record I ever bought with my own money. This was mostly on my sister's account: she was 10, I was 7, and she prevailed upon me to chip in. It was the first time I'd ever set aside money to save for a specific thing, and between us we'd built it into something akin to a Grail quest. The excitement on that morning, late in the summer holidays, as we waited for Woolworth's to open, is essentially what turned me into a music fan. I just HAD to hear that record, and when I did, it didn't leave the turntable for probably a year. It helps that it's actually a bloody good album.

1987: Guns N' Roses, "Appetite For Destruction".
It's impossible to overstate the impact this record had on me, and continues to have. The sheer volume, the loucheness, the swearing, the swagger, the utter quality of the songs. I didn't know exactly what I was hearing: I just knew it represented a Year Zero of some kind in my listening. I wasn't just an occasional buyer of pop records any more: I was a rock fan. Slash remains an utter guitar hero of mine, and early Gn'R are my Platonic ideal of what a rock n' roll band should be. Peerless.

1989: The Cure, "Disintegration".
I couldn't decide between this and "The Head On The Door" - both are seriously important to me. Anyway, as I got more into rock, I became aware that there were these slightly odd bands on the periphery. They weren't metal or hard rock; they weren't outright pop. They sounded, and looked, a bit weird. My friends Jack and Stu got turned onto some of these bands by Stu's older sister, and when Jack lent me "Disintegration", something changed. That lush welling-up of noise that resolves into "Plainsong" shifted something inside me, made me realise that although loud guitars would always have a place in my heart, I needed something a bit different too. These two records are lifers: I could never tire of them. Robert Smith made me aware that I could be discerning: I didn't have to automatically like something from a specific genre, and I didn't have to dismiss something from an unfamiliar genre just... because. The Cure are the sound of scales lifting from eyes, to me.

1992: Pixies: "Trompe Le Monde".
In my early teens I was a thief, a liar, a serial truant and struggling horribly to fit in at a new school - a very posh school to which I'd won a very, very large music scholarship. My parents could never have afforded the fees otherwise. Anyway, I did everything I could to sabotage my chances in those first years. No idea why, even now. I was a fuckup, and music was both literally and figuratively a refuge (literally, because the music department at my school was ENORMOUS, and once I'd nicked a set of keys from the dept. office, I could get into any room, any time). One of the many other things I stole was a tape cassette with a funny winged "P" on it. It belonged to a kid called Gareth Ball. Sorry, Gareth. Well, of course, it was "Trompe Le Monde", and it just changed my life. It wasn't wound to the beginning when I first put it in the player, and instantly I found myself being ROARED at. Some guy was just yelling "THIS AIN'T THE PLANET OF SOUND!" over a storm of guitars that didn't even sound that much like guitars at points. It was one of the most genuinely cathartic things I'd ever experienced. I was literally in tears by the end. After that, things seemed to get better. I don't say that the Pixies made me start turning my shit round, but they came along at a time when things were starting to improve. Magical.

1997: Radiohead, "OK Computer".
By this time, I was at university. I'd done well, got into Durham, and all the early teen crap was a memory, albeit a vivid one. By now, I was a genuinely obsessive music fan. I'd enjoyed "The Bends" a lot, and then "Paranoid Android" came out as a single. I think it was Jo Whiley who did the first radio play of it, and we were all clustered around the stereo to hear it. After it finished, there was silence. My friend Nick was taping it off the radio, and in silence he just rewound it and played it again. Then again. Then a few more times. In all the hype about "OK Computer", what gets lost is that when it came along, most of us had never heard anything like it. It's so familiar now that it seems hard to remember how different it was. A 7-minute single? In three movements? Each of which was better than the other? Bloody hell. I pick this record because, really and truly, this was the last record that I picked over obsessively, like a novel. I know it better than I know my own name. I don't seem to have time for that kind of obsessive longing to hear a record over and over any more. And for that reason, it's a special one.

Absolutely (Madness) - A birthday present from my uncle and auntie when I was 11. Funny, cutting in places, but with real tunes. Still love ERNIE to this day.

Back In The DHSS (HMHB) - Reminds me of being around 15-16 back at school in Middlesbrough. All the girls seemed to be Duranies, but some of my mates at the time got me into listening to Peel. Never really shared their love of the Wedding Present, but BackIn the DHSS was just a revelation; I got the references, and got the humour. It was a record that mirrored who I was, and in some ways still am. It was the record that really got me into music properly

Sit Down (James) - ubiquitous during my time at university (Durham, 88-91). Every college bar and disco was playing this, or The Stone Roses or Happy Mondays to death. A good mate at the time (and still) also got me seriously into the Floyd, but Sit Down is the thing that triggers the memeories.

Definitely Maybe (Oasis) - the soundtrack to my Masters degree (Teesside, 94-95). People who'd been to see them in small gigs in the Boro had been blown away be them so there was a real buzz about them on campus. When my MSc finished I treated myself to two gigs scheduled to take place within about 3 weeks of each other in November 95: Oasis at Whitley Bay and the Stone Roses at Bridlington. The Stone Roses were simply fabulous. But Oasis postponed and didn't play till the following March, by which time WTSMG had been released. And they weren't bad, but it clearly wasn't one of their better gigs.

Zoolook (Jean Michel Jarre) - the desert island record. Full of layers and nuance. Probably the best thing he's ever done and a return to his roots, but with the latest technology of the time (1984). Except hardly anyone in the UK bought it at the time. Listening to it now, it hardly sounds dated at all. I rmeember being given some Jarre stuff to listen to by a friend at the time and hearing a couple of the tracks from this album. Within 2 days I'd gone and bought the casette and played it incessantly. If I ever need to play something loud now, it's usually the last 5 minutes of the awesome (in its literal sense) Ethnicolor.

Desolation Row - Bob Dylan (formative years, and played at me by my dad)

Oliver's Army - Elvis Costello (first single bought by me- 1979)

Couldn't Love You More - John Martyn [One World version] (the beginning of my lifelong love affair with the great JM - 1981)

In The Neighbourhood - Tom Waits (when I first "got" Waits - 1987)

They Are Not Witches - Guided by Voices (heartbreaking harmonies from Pollard and the boys, floating my boat in the here and now - 2010)

1993: 2 Unlimited: "No Limit"

I was six years old at the time this was in the charts, and it was the first contemporary song I remember hearing, and thinking, 'I really like this'. Although it took me another year, or thereabouts, to discover TOTP (1994, Manchester United were number one with their FA Cup Final song- unfortunately.) 1993 was the year it all kicked off for me.

1999: Travis: "The Man Who"

The first album I ever bought with my own money, and for that reason alone it maintains significance. The final single, 'Turn', had already been released which would've meant I bought this when I was in year nine. I significantly remember playing it through for the first time and being slightly disappointed, except for the four songs I already knew; but given that I only had that CD to listen to, I gave it a few more chances over the following few days and, to cut a long story short, I'm glad I did. It took me two years to realise this was their second album too.

2000: The Beatles: "1"

Everybody begins their Beatles journey somewhere. For the first generation, it was either at the release of 'Love Me Do', or in 1963, when Beatlemania took off; for the second it was with the release of the Red and Blue albums. For my generation, however, we didn't really have anything to encourage us to listen to them, aside from our own curiousity, and influences. I was given this album at Christmas, 2000 and it began a love affair for me that's lasted since. Often I'd be mocked in school for listening to this instead of the latest radio hits.

It's not original, or necessarily cool these days, but they are without doubt the band I know most about; though not as much as Mark Lewisohn I hasten to add. It's because of them that I want to discover, and know more about other bands. I like knowing that McCartney plays the solo at the end of 'Ticket To Ride', I like knowing how Lennon began learning to play the guitar using banjo chords. I enjoy learning things like that.

2006: The Decemberists "Picaresque"

Without doubt, my favourite contemporary band. Brought to my attention by my housemate at university (whose opinion I trusted immensely) as we were out shopping with our student loan in Liverpool. The second song that played, "We Both Go Down Together" was the one that convinced me that this was the band for me. It was one of those moments where it just hits you and everything seems to make sense. As far as I'm concerned this band can do no wrong, and I've never been disappointed with anything of theirs I've heard so far. Also, I think their slight underground status endears me to them even more.

2009: The Leisure Society: "The Sleeper"

For the past few years, I've drawn up an annual chart listing my favourite albums of the past twelve months (regardless of their original release date, the only criteria is that I purchased them over the course of the year.) Last year's winners were The Leisure Society, so I've chosen them as my fifth record.

Spencer Davis Group - keep on running (first single bought with my own dosh)

Joni Mitchell - Shades of Scarlet conquering - played endlessly when I was dumped for the first time.I had always done the dumping up to this point and it hurt because I liked the girl.

Sinead O'Connor - Nothing compares to you - No.1 when my son was born

Loudon Wainwright - Your mother and I - played endlessly when I had to tell my son his mum and I were gonna be history

Alison Krauss - I will - song of choice when I married the love of my life (Wife no.2)

And the funeral record?
Elvis Costello - The scarlet tide - favourite record by my favourite artist.

The Barron Knights - 'A Taste Of Aggro.' I was 8 years old. I think this is the first record I bought with my own money. I just loved the idea of putting silly lyrics to pop tunes - and much to my family's embarrassment (and occassional amusement) I still do this frequently and spontaneously today. My abiding memory is getting the 7" single home, and taking it out of the sleeve to look at it - distracted, I left it on the stairs. My dog then ran up the stairs to greet me, stood on the record and broke it. I forgave him - he probably did me a favour in the long run.

'New Song' - Howard Jones. I was 13. Pop was riding a shiny new synthetic wave. It was a great time to be young and daft. Check shirt with the collar turned up, odd dayglo socks, white winklepicker shoes, asymmetrical haircut - I was one happy-sad hormonal teenage mess.  Did I invite a beating going out in a backwoods market town looking like that? Yes I did. Did I care? No I didn't.  I was 'challenging preconceived ideas' - and had the bruises to prove it.

'Close To Me' - The Cure. I was 16, the day-glo was gone, the hair growing out, the clothes uniformly black. I lived inside The Head On The Door and The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead. Music was serious, doomy, and dark - so was life - I was becoming what I took to be an adult. I began to disown any music made on a synthesiser. I sold my Yamaha DX27 and bought an electric guitar. Tragically I couldn't afford an amp. Or possibly mercifully.

'Can't Be Sure' - The Sundays. I was 19, just  started at university studying English - I wrote my first and only fan letter. Harriet wrote back, I was smitten and The Sundays became my band. You can keep your Roses, your Mondays, and all that baggy nonsense. This is the music for me - soaring, delicate, beautiful. I saw them 18 months later on tour - my love remained undimmed. I was a floppy haired, impoverished romantic, with dreams of forming a legendary band, marrying rock with literature - I now realise I should have gone clubbing, taken drugs, slept around & enjoyed myself... Too late to go back now. 

Fairport Convention - 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes?' In going forward I go back. Post-college, future listening is dominated by the past. Folk-rock, Motown, The Beatles and The Stones inform my 30s. Marriage, kids, a career of sorts - but always this song, recorded a couple of years before my birth, says it all. Melancholy, wistful, bitter-sweet and beautiful - this is music for grown-ups with real dreams lost, real partings of the ways, real hopes not quite faded...

The song of my 40s is yet to be decided. It may not even have been written yet. But I doubt it.

Slade Alive - Slade (school Days)

Quadrophenia The Who (Just started work)

London Calling - The Clash (Young adult becoming politicised!)

Skylarking - XTC (Becoming a bit more thoughtful and thinking about nature, life, the universe, and everything. It's all in this record. My favourite of all time)

Dig, Lazuras, Did! - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (still thinking etc, but growing old disgracefully. Still life in the old dog yet at 50+)

Note: No Springsteen in there. How disgraceful is that?!

1. I am five years old. We are on a family day out in Alresford, Hampshire. My parents tell me this is where the cuddly owl, who has kept me company since I was born, was made. I am very excited by this piece of information and have brought Owly along with me so that he can see his birthplace.

Standing by some wooden railings, overlooking a fast-flowing river, I dangle my stuffed owl by one wing. Suddenly I feel compelled to ask my mother the stupid question:

“What would happen if Owly fell in the water?”

Wuthering Heights is playing out of a speaker mounted on a pole. Kate Bush’s meandering wraithlike falsetto is the weirdest thing I have heard in my life.

2. My brother and I are obsessed with Nik Kershaw. Like a pair of teenage girls we spend hours devising detailed narrative dance routines to all of the songs on his debut album - Human Racing. We are 8 or 9 years old and therefore too young to understand the true meanings of the lyrics. As far as we are concerned Cloak and Dagger is an excuse for us to jump around in our dressing gowns while attempting to stab one another with toy knives. During the title track the pair of us run side-by-side in slow motion like we’re in Chariots of Fire, while glancing wistfully over our shoulders.

3. I am on the school ski trip. 16 years old; everybody, including the teachers, thinks that I am weird and they are right. We are sleeping four to a room on a pair of bunk beds. The girls in the dorm next door send me a Valentines Day card as a cruel joke, however I am too emotionally retarded to either take it seriously or be insulted by it.

When we get ready in the morning we listen to Club Classics Volume One by Soul II Soul. I have those songs going round and round in my head all day, as I traverse back and forth across the piste.

4. I am 22 years old and somehow I have managed to f*** up university. Now I’m living in my car, eking out a pseudo-nomadic existence in Dorset, having observed that there are fewer psychos per square mile in this part of the British Isles than there are elsewhere in the country. It’s freezing cold at night and I can’t have the heater on without running down the battery. I sleep in the boot with the back seats down, rolled-up in a piece of carpet that I salvaged from a skip.

One night I am parked on a cliff in thick fog. Every few minutes I hear the horn of a passing ship reverberating through the gloom. I decide that I have had enough.

I leave my car and find what I perceive to be the edge of the cliff marked out with an intermittent line of boulders. I back up a few paces and then take a running leap. A few hours later, in the cold light of day, I can clearly see that the cliff's edge is rather a long way from where I am parked, and that what I thought was the beginning of a sheer drop is actually a descending footpath. I find this out the hard way, crash-landing on my face, having fallen only a few feet, and sustaining minor cuts and bruises, instead of the mangled flesh and splintered bone that I was hoping for.

Badly shaken and humiliated by my failure to hit rock bottom I return to the boot of my car. My worldly possessions are scattered around in heaps. I find my CD copy of Lucky Jim by The Gun Club. It’s the Solid records edition. The cover (different from the one currently in use) features a blue-tinted map of South Vietnam. Inside there is a map of south east England which includes my home town. Caught up in the logic of the mad and desperate it dawns on me that the answer to all my problems lies in Vietnam.

A year later I touch down in Ho Chi Minh City. My arrival in this unfamiliar country marks the beginning of several years of hectic travelling.

5. The phone rings at six in the morning. I know what the call is about even before I pick it up. With the receiver pressed to my ear, I share a brief conversation with my mother who tells me that my grandmother has died in hospital.

At this point I have lived with my Gran for several years, having worn out my welcome with the rest of my family. I’ve spent the last 12 months as a virtual shut-in grappling with the impossible task of trying to take care of her. The news of her death comes as a huge relief which I attempt to rationalize with the explanation that I grieved for her while she was alive and deteriorating. I spend the following year living alone in her house, which is falling down around me, labouring under the mistaken impression that everything is fine. In fact there is nothing sane or normal about my behaviour. I habitually start the day by listening to Steven Jesse Bernstein’s bitter spoken word album Prison, after which events tend to spiral rapidly downward.

1) The Beatles - Sgt Pepper . Me and my brothers pooled our record tokens, pre-ordered it from Keating & Rumens in Southgate and picked it up, breathless with excitement, on the day of release. Happy days !
2) Spirit's first album - the one with Fresh Garbage on it. Played incessantly by my oldest brother who discovered it c/o the CBS Rock Machine Turns You On sampler. There's nothing else quite like it.
3) Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon. Simply THE soundtrack to my adolescence.
4) Little Feat - Feats Don't Fail Me Now. Older now, working for Harlequin Records and discovering bands independently of brothers and peers. I loved all the albums from the Lowell George days and was lucky enough to see them three times, most notably at the legendary Rainbow gig supporting (pah !) The Doobie Brothers.
5) Pat Metheny - Secret Story. My favourite musician of recent years and probably my most played album of all time along with Steely Dan's Aja . Metheny's meisterwork, it still repays repeated listens.

Elvis Presley - The Sun Sessions. My grandmother bought this for me in 1977. It was my first Elvis record, the only other times I had heard him was on radio, and re-runs of the films. It started a life-long obsession with the King, and every time I play that record it never fails to transport me back to my parent's living room, as well as make me think of my nan.

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars. The album that made me realise that I wasn't the only weirdo in the world! Whenever I listened to it I felt like he was speaking directly to me, and all the crap that i was going through at school just faded away.

The Style Council - Speak Like A Child. I had been a new romantic, and hated Weller because he hated us! However, when I heard this it was all over for Duran Duran! I became a mod, got into soul, Beatles, the clothes, hair etc. I still have the mod music and dress sense, although not as fanatical! It also reminds me of summer, so it gets an airing when the first hot sunny day hits.

Joni Mitchell - Hejira. When I first started playing bass another local bass player (that I was in awe of) made a cassette of this album for me. I had never heard of Jaco Pastorius, but fell in love instantly! Amazing songs and beautiful bass melodies, this album is still on heavy rotation to this day. Jaco had more impressive basslines, but he never bettered these.

Tom Waits & Bette Midler - I Never Talk To Strangers. In 2000 I made a compilation tape for a girl that I had been seeing for only two months, but was head over heels for! In the short while that I had been going out with her this had become our song, and we danced to it on many a drunken night! I was going on holidays to the US and Thailand for 4 weeks, so I made a compilation tape for her! On the drive to the airport she put it on, and this song was first up. It made her smile, and cry! I didn't realise that she would actually miss me that much. I missed her and cut my holiday short by two weeks! It's the first dance at our wedding next month.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose? - Dionne Warwick. The first record I can remember hearing on our giant radiogram in the sitting room. Too young to realise how great Bacharach and David were at the time but the memory of that first hearing has stayed with me forever.
Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West) - Benny Hill. Not chosen in an ironic way; I genuinely believe this is one of the greatest records ever made and still guaranteed to bring a tear to my eye even after all these years.
Parallel Lines - Blondie. The first proper LP of my own after being a bit of a late starter to the world of grown up music. Got given it for Christmas 1979 (on tape) and retired to my bedroom for a year with dreams of Debbie.
Yesterday's Men - Madness. My favourite song from my second favourite band. Heard it for the first time on the radio during a particularly tough residential training course and it helped me to see it through to the end.
Skylarking - XTC. My favourite band and my desert island album. Bizarrely, The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul has popped up on shuffle as I type this.
Great idea for a post and I've hugely enjoyed reading other entries.

I am really chuffed with the response this thread has received. Its clear from both the length of responses and time between responses that people have put a lot of thought into this. In particular Backwards7 post was one of the most touching things that I have ever read on this site (not to mention an arrow up for Nik Kershaw’s “Cloak and Dagger"). Having read these posts has inspired me to expand on my original post for any who are still interested:

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John – Summer Nights – for me this takes me straight back to the primary school playground and to the girl I genuinely thought I’d marry (albeit we were only 5 or 6 years old at the time). With the naivety of youth we spun around the playground – truly believing that we were John and Olivia – or Danny and Sandy.

OMD – Architecture and Morality – My dad bought me my first tape recorder for Christmas 1981. I only discovered music because I needed something to do with the tape recorder aside from presenting my own imaginary radio show. So I began taping the Top 40 and what a great time to start doing that. In those first few months of 1982, I got to hear XTC, OMD, The Stranglers, ABC, Depeche Mode, Madness, Trio, Soft Cell, Duran Duran, The Jam and Kraftwerk – all in their prime. Of course being so young I also strayed towards some of the more naff elements of the chart (Bucks Fizz, Tight Fit, Jon and Vangelis) but when it came to putting my money on the line, making that first financial commitment to recorded music, I didn’t do too badly. Having saved my pocket money for several months, I headed to WH Smith in Wood Green (the nearest decent record seller to Stoke Newington at the time). I actually bought two cassettes – the OMD one and The Stranglers’ La Folie. The second was bought on the strength of their recent hit, Golden Brown, and, having never heard The Stranglers before, I was hugely disappointed by the rest of the songs on the album (I later grew to love it). Architecture and Morality, on the other hand, was a revelation. The opening track, New Stone Age, sounded like nothing I’d heard before, from the opening sound effect (stones being dropped on some plastic possibly?) to the shrieking vocals and overall feel of Armageddon. I stopped listening to OMD, during my “year zero” indie phase, aged 16, but came back to them later in life to find those early albums sounding as fresh as ever.

The Happy Mondays – Step On – 1990: When I hit 16 it was all Madchester and I thought I’d finally found my “thing”. Travelling up to Manchester on a coach to make a pilgrimage to the Hacienda before getting thrown out for being less than discrete while smoking certain illicit substances. The thrill of that brief run of Roses and Mondays singles from 89-90 which I hoped would never end. The famous TOTP episode which featured both the Mondays and the Roses and the possibility that there was another Mondays or Roses waiting amongst the pretenders (there never was though “Loaded” and “This is How It Feels” suggested that their might be)… I guess this was the first time that I heard music from a scene which I felt I could be part of – my punk if you like…

Outkast – Hey Ya –Just everywhere at the time – I even heard it during a rave on an island in Thailand. And in that brief spell when my wife and me were flirting and going out regularly with our college friends, this was the song that was playing everywhere. I’m not a natural dancer, but when the situation demands (ie: trying to get together with one’s future spouse) I’m happy to oblige and what better soundtrack than this.

The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane. I’ve always considered myself lucky that my parents' record collection included The Beatles, Hendrix and Dylan as opposed to Mud, Neil Sedaka or Glen Miller. The sleeve of Magical Mystery Tour EP was really the first “Beatle thing” that drew my attention – with its cartoon book insert. However the “Fields" / "Lane” single is the one that has stuck with me through thick and thin. It takes me to many moments in my life – the first hearing as the record dropped from the stack on my parents old player, the wonder of rediscovering the Beatles during my baggy phase and hearing for the first time what an intricate arrangement “Fields” had, the perfect match of arriving in Liverpool to go to uni – and hearing “Penny Lane” on every juke box in town, and all of the hard times in which “Strawberry Fields” has provided a means of escape – I’ve given up trying to put into words what makes these two songs so amazing – you just have to listen to them…

Tornadoes - Telstar
The first record bought for me. I was 5 or 6. I still have it and love it. Shame it's Margaret Thatcher's favourite!

Beatles - I Wanna Hold Your Hand
It's hard now to comprehend the impact the Beatles had on my world and the world in general. I think this was bought as my Christmas present in 1963. Life was never the same again.

Moody Blues - Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
First LP I bought. Still wonderful. DESOLATION!!!

Pavlov's Dog - Pampered Menial
Blimey... this blew my socks off and the unrequited love song Julia was perfectly timed for my first unrequited love affair

Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays - As Walls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls
Memories of 1982.

Top of the City - Kate Bush (and the album Hounds of Love as a whole) - I love everything Kate has ever done, but this one has always given me hope when there seems to be none, whether it was university, love, work or just life in general. I have the lyric "keep looking up for the ladder" tattoed on me, since it became a kind of motto for me when I felt like crap and thought there was no point. This song also perfectly complements my obsession with New York City and the times I have spent wishing I was back there, on the rooftops. I suppose it's got the same connotations as 'Up on the Roof' had for so many people; just wanting to escape it all for a while.

Enola Gay - OMD - Reminds me of good times with my favourite people. It was the highlight of nights out at University and in years to come will no doubt remind me of what everyone always tells you; that those were my happiest times.

Spread Your Wings - Queen -(First favourite song) Freddie has been an inspiration of mine since childhood and this song always encapsulated what it felt like to want the kind of freedom you were never permitted to have, for me anyway.

Way over Yonder - Carole King - I've just noticed that these choices suggest I am defined by a desire for a freedom I haven't yet experienced. I grew up listening to 'Tapestry' (one of my Mum's favourites) and this track always reminds me of the existence of possibility. I love the idea of finding somewhere that you feel free and having that recognition that that is what you have been looking for; it feels familiar because it's where you've always been in your mind - " Way over yonder, is a place that I know" - I can see that it's also about a place you remember being happy, which is the kind of image that has always driven my life on.

I know this last one is cheating, but I couldn't possibly choose. Every song by Martha and Rufus Wainwright seems to have the ability to soothe me; whether it's some sort of spiritual confirmation of my feelings and fears I know not, but I suspect so.
'BMFA' makes me smile, because it expresses the experiences I had with my own Father, "Poses" reminds me of being helplessly in love for the first time, when nothing outside of it mattered and everything within it was so gravely important, even "comparing our new brand named black sunglasses", and I can look back on it with the same fond-yet-wiser humour that Rufus applies. I could talk forever about each of their songs, but what I think really draws me to them and their music is that when you listen to it, you can feel the world turning; there is that sense of the ancient, like when people describe standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, and also that as long as you have music like this you will be alright. They have something of the universal about them, and I will love them 'til the day I die.

R.I.P Kate McGarrigle, i will miss you. (haven't had a chance to put that out into the void yet.

My life thus far in five songs:
>Teenager in Love
>Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
>Baby Love
>Oops I did it again
>Working for the man

Three wheels on my wagon - (it`s The New Christy Minstrels apparently)my first musical memory. I grew up on a RAF base in Germany and my parents had this played for me on B.F.B.S....I would have been 5 or 6

Waterloo - Abba - 1974 and i`m nine now, back in England. I still remember the excitement of hearing and seeing this on the Eurovision Song Contest. Sill love Abba.

Public Image Ltd - P.i.L - 1978 - I wasn`t quite a punk but loved new wave and this bass line. Made me want to play the bass guitar and pogo at school discos.

Subdivisions - Rush - 1982 - ooops, i`m coming out of my metal phase but this is a pomp/prog corker. I`m also about to join the RAF (now, how did that happen...and strangely later I end up back in Germany where i was born)

Technique - New Order - 1989 - I`m on detachment in Cyprus with 92 Sqn and the bars in Ayia Napa are playing this. Something happens...one year later I`ve bought myself our of the RAF and i`m working in a music shop in Manchester.

And since then nothing has really meant so much to me musically....i`ve obviously liked stuff but not to the same degree.

I could do this exercise many times over,as i think of certain records and what they mean to me or what time they represent.
However here goes.

Donna Summer, I Feel Love. (Soundtrack to my mid teens,hot summers and girls).

The Clash, White man in Hammersmith Palais.(the song that really got me onto punk,New wave music and subsequently opened my love for all music types)

Soft Cell, Tainted Love (My formative college years in Bristols Dugout nightclub, oh yess!)

The Cure,Cool for Cats.(My wife and mine's song and first wedding dance song).

Crowded House, Weather with you(The birth of my twin boys)

Since then there has been some great records and memories,but i beleive the above are the biggest moments.

I can't.

I remember - probably falsely - "Big Country", "Making Movies" and "Brothers in Arms" as the albums playing as Dad drove us to the train to go to school. It's the reason that 'Romeo and Juliet' is one of the few songs that I never forward on the iPod. Dad was younger, me and my brother were kids, and the summer would never end.

Runrig and Motown - no, seriously, bear with me. I spent a year in France between school and University, and this was the soundtrack. It isn't a particular song, or a particular album, it's the sound. I still remember looking out the window at the chateau listening to "A Dance called America", and dancing in the kitchen, drunk, with the two other Assistants listening to a Motown compilation.

Teddy Thompson and Greg Dulli - soundtracked my separation and divorce, as well as my best friend's battle with cancer. I cannot drive through Charlottesville and hear "Separate Ways", which was Susan's album. Every time i think of her, I think of the lyric "I get tired watching your jaw move".

Ride "Vapor Trail" - that, and the rest of the Brit Indie scene in the late 80s and early 90s soundtracked my University years.

But not as much as "Mary's Prayer" by Danny Wilson. It's the song I listened to with the woman I was convinced I would spend the rest of my life with. One divorce (not her0 one child later, and it's still a song that has a "our song"mpment. I can't share that tune with anyone else.

Fantastic subject; but impossible to sum up all of my 43 years in five songs. I'll just settle for my earliest years before adolescence came along and compicated things... Hey ho, here we go:

1. Peter and the Wolf - Prokofiev
My dad was a classical musician so this was the first music played for me. A story for children where every character is represented by an instrument and a "themetune". The wolfs tune was scary, but the character my brother and I feared the most was the grumpy old grandfather! His themetune froze the blood in our veins to ice and my heart would start racing. One of my first memories is me in my crib at the age of two or three; staring up at the bookcase beside the crib, at the top shelf where I know the LP:s are kept. Stiff with fear, just waiting for the wolf to jump out of the sleeve into my crib to eat me. The first lesson of the power of music!

2. A Hard Days Night - The Beatles
My brother is seven years older than me and has a record player in his room. Every day when he has gone off to school I go into his room and put this record on. Our much older sisters have left it behind when they left home recently, and with it a book of sheetmusic and pictures from the album and movie. I sit on his bed and follow the lyrics with my finger as I sing along to all the songs. In the book the songs are in the wrong order so I have to flick back and forth, finding the right page for next track during an instrumental bit in the track now playing. For some reason I find a picture of Ringo staring at a sandwich utterly fascinating. My obsession with The Beatles lasted for a long time, but a couple of years ago I must have finally overdosed on them, now I find it hard to listen anymore. But there are exceptions; this album is one of them. I still love it.

3. Stealin' - Taj Mahal
My father goes on tour in the USA and bring back presents for us. I get a really ugly dog with a wind up-key in his ass making him bark - until it breaks a couple of days later. My brother gets a triple album called "The Music People" containing one track from each artist on that label that year ( 1971 ). He's not interested in pop and rock, he´s practising his piano, dreaming of becoming a classical pianist. So I hijack the album and dive into it's diverse menu. There are some absolutely awful songs on it...and some that lead me to discover artists I had never heard of before, but will be a part of my life forever. One of them is Taj Mahal. I'm only five when I first hear this, but instantly bitten by the blues. In years to come when I start buying records for myself, I start collecting his albums, and the blues in general. But Taj is the one for me, from day one.

4. Songs In The Key Of Life - Stevie Wonder
1976, I'm nine years old and ABBA is everywhere ( I'm swedish, trust me when I say that you couldn't move an inch without hearing an ABBA-song being played in a constant loop - tough if you weren't a fan ). My brother buy this album and I hijack this one too. One day my best friend at school is having a birthdayparty; four girls and four boys, our very first "grownup" birtdayparty. There will be dancing and crisps, and us girls put glitter on our faces. My friend is an ABBA-fanatic to the point of putting posters of them all over her walls and at the ceiling over her bed. I know that she only listens to ABBA, so I bring my Stevie-album to the party so I don't have to listen to ABBA the whole time... With visible reluctance she replaces her ABBA-LP with my Stevie-LP on the turntable. As soon as it starts playing her parents run into the room, obviously overjoyed to hear something other than ABBA-songs. They start dancing and grooving along to Stevie, but my friend is even less impressed because of this. After three songs she switches back to ABBA, and that's it for Stevie for the night. That's also the last we see of her parents. The party is fine, but I secretly think that my taste in music is better than all of my friends... I didn't learn to tolerate ABBA's music until I was an adult, but now it's just nostalgia. Stevie ? Pure love.
5. George Harrison - George Harrison
George was always my favourite Beatle. His All Things Must Pass is one of my top ten albums of all time, and the song Run Of The Mill from that album is my favourite song of all time - pure bliss! But I didn't get that album until I was older. This album came out in 1979, and I had tried to win it in a competition in a newspaper, but failed. The happiness I felt when I tore the paper off an LP-shaped christmas present and found this album inside was unmeasurable. I didn't even know that anyone in my family knew that I wanted it, so it came as an absolute surprise; wich made it even better. The next morning I got up early when the rest of the family was still asleep, put this record on and started assembling the jigsaw puzzle of a flock of horses running through a river while listening to George over and over again. To this day it's my christmas tradition. A new jigsaw puzzle and George Harrison singing - it has to be this album - otherwise it's just not chistmas to me!
That's it for my childhood five...

1. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys. The first song I remember - I couldn't get over the amount of tune in it. I was 7, tops.

2. Still Ill - The Smiths. On Peel, around 11:45pm. Sat bolt upright in bed to listen to it properly. Still sounds like nothing else on earth to me.

3. Up With People - Lambchop. Reminds me of my wife - they were the first band we saw together.

4. Atmosphere - Athlete. My son used to sing along in the car but couldn't manage "atmosphere" so used to sing "muss muss fear". Still makes me grin from ear to ear when I hear it.

5. Rule The World - Take That. Was on the radio when our twins were born in an emergency caesarian. Out went the planned for Sigur Ros birthing strategy and in came a Take That song. It's true that kids change you.

at 33 and 55:

Wednesday Morning 3am by Simon and Garfunkel. The magic of good songwriting, brilliant arrangement and voices in harmony. My earliest radio favourites are here. This bridged the gap between the Home Service folk programmes and the newer, more exciting things I was starting to hear.

Revolver the HJHMs themselves. Heard the singles on The Light Programme over cornflakes at breakfast time before leaving for the long walk to big school. I loved them, from the early singles, via this album, to my all time favourite album, Abbey Road.

In The Court Of The Crimson King certainly made youth club evenings more interesting at the age of 14, even if the vicar worried that we might be satanists. This was the precursor to a long and enjoyable period of progtastic record collecting.

Hot Rats, being a common introduction to mister Zappa, was my first exposure to the man himself, as well his guest vocalist, Mr. Van Vliet. I thought my dad's headphones were naff until I discovered Peaches En Regalia with the cans clamped on and the volume up loud.

Meddle was for me the ultimate Floyd album, and never bettered. My mate Willy Stroud had a great party when we were in the sixth form, soundtracked by screeching crows. Happy days.

1) One of the first albums I bought was Top Of The Poppers play the Beatles.
A cheap cover version LP which started a lifelong love of music.
Anybody on this forum who didn't own several Top Of The Pops albums is either very young or a liar !
Next step was the K TEL and Ronco 20 song compilation albums,then 45s and onto albums.

2) Slade - Gudbuy T' Jane. Playing endlessly on repeat as I was told I had to go for dental extractions under gas. Bawling my eyes out to Glam Rocks finest. I still have dental problems now.
All of the Glam Rock singles by Slade, Mud, Mott, The Sweet, T.Rex, Gary Glitter,are all still loved today.
Slade were also the first live band I ever saw, at Newcastle City Hall in 1974. The first time never leaves you.

3) Thin Lizzy - Live And Dangerous was the soundtrack of my late teen years. They were the first band I really went the extra mile to see live. Sleeping rough. Begging tickets. All night queues. Autograph hunting. We've all done similar.

4) Bryan Adams - Reckless. In my early 20s, where life was great.I had loads of mates. Playing football. Gigs. Boozing all weekend. One night stands. The first foreign holidays as a gang.
Soundtrack to all of this was one of the greatest and most under rated rock albums ever.

5) The TDK C90 blank tape, which was used for trading live concerts throughout the 1980s and nineties.
I had 100s of concerts, especially Springsteen.
Favourite album of that time was " For True Rockers Only" Winterland 78.
Now done via Dime etc, but it was much more fun waiting in the parcel of tapes to hit the door mat with a thud.

In the flesh live confirmation of why he is The Boss has been needed on multiple occassions since.

Music has always been a crutch in my life, and something I cannot live without.

Just wanted to expand my thoughts on my songs (and maybe change one or two), as everyone's written such interesting things

1) Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
1990. I used to hate taking the bus to school. It was a long, lonely journey there and back: I had friends at school, but not on the bus itself. So I'd sit there, wishing the time away, wishing myself somewhere else, listening to the radio over the bus's tinny speakers.

And then... "Birdhouse in Your Soul" came on the radio, and my world stopped. What was that wonderful noise? Those ridiculous, charming lyrics? Finally, someone had written a song just for me, it seemed. I fell in love with They Might Be Giants, hard, instantly. I still love them 20 years later.

2) "Distant Sun" - Crowded House
For the lyric, "I don't pretend to know what you want, but I offer love". Which offered me a lot of comfort during an embarrassingly long period of unrequited love. I blush to think of it all now, I really made a fool of myself. It's still a great song though.

3) Mr Sandman
The first dance at my wedding, in 2002. AND my husband has "lots of wavy hair like Liberace". And our 4 year old daughter sings along with it in the car now, although she's convinced the words are "Mr Smoked Salmon, bring me a dream"

4) New York State of Mind - Billy Joel
I bow to no-one in my love of Billy Joel. My father used to sit next to the piano for hours, listening to me play. When I asked him "Any requests?", this was always the song he'd ask for. That, and a particularly haunting funeral march (which I've been playing by heart for so long I can't remember the composer's name). He always told me that this was the song he wanted played at his funeral.

And I did play it at his funeral, when he died in July 2006. I sat at the piano, and played for my dad for the very last time.

5) Dream a Little Dream of Me - The Mamas and The Papas
Now I'm a mum, I sing this to my little daughters every night. It's our special lullaby. It's the snuggliest song I know, it makes everything right with the world.

Gypsies,tramps & thieves. Scarborough Fair. The things we do for Love.The Good The bad & the Ugly. The Quiet Man.

Okay this only takes me to Twelve years old. I cannot possibly fulfill your request...

Racing In The Street - Springsteen (continually played in Dad's car)

Walk Like An Eygptian - Bangles (first 7" bought)

The Times They Are A-Changin' - Dylan (16 years old, sat on settee at uncle's house when this came out his hi-fi. Eyes well and truly opened!!!!)

Rock'n'Roll Star - Oasis (late teens/early 20's)

Frankie's Gun - Felice Brothers (best song I've heard in years)

Hall & Oates – "Rich Girl" The first single I purchased, likely at its chart peak in 1977. It wasn't until 2004 when I bought Bigger Than Both of Us, its parent album. I recall it struck me as a bit Air-like in places at the time (but I may have been grasping at pop duo-shaped straws). I'd reckon the twenty seven-year gap between single and album purchase is likely never to be repeated.

The Kinks – Something Else LP. My first day's pay at a record shop. The experience was an education, where Suicide and Jerry Lee jostled for turntable time with the 7"-single of the Parliaments' "(I Wanna) Testify". It was, for me, the first signs of intelligent life on Planet Rock, even if I didn't know so then.

Style Council – "Money-Go-Round, Pt. 1 & 2" Destined to remind me of my University years, where a scarcity of musical talent failed to prevent me from forming a pop duo, with the unlikely job description of Style Council copyists. Still, this may be why I find the suggestion (as yet unheard) Wake Up the Nation sounds like Style Council songs played by the Jam particularly enticing.

The Beatles – "All You Need Is Love" What the heck else should you play on your wedding day? A cheat: find the full cassette [!] tracklistings to A Trip By Air Is In Your Future and Your Sense of Humour Will Be Your Key To Success can be found at www.artofthemix.org/AOTMCommunity/allmixes.aspx?intMemberID=1182

Paul McCartney - "Too Much Rain" Confirming these selections are 100% subjective, this track (from Chaos and Creation in the Backyard - disparaged in The Word, if I recall) will forever be the first song my first daughter sang along with. Now "Kumbaya" and "Poker Face" top her internal playlist.

And, I suspect, more to come… I nearly forgot the present! "Baby" by the Happen-Ins, or, or, or...

My five are:-

Alan Freemans History of Pop :- This was in my parents record collection and I used to play it all the time growing up, Double album of great stuff from the 50's and 60's

Buddy Holly Collection:- Moving on from the above, I suddenly had the urge to have my own music, and so asked for this for Xmas. 6 album box set of everything Buddy Holly recorded.

Matchbox - Rockabilly Rebel :- I'm embarrassed, but I was young and this was the first single I bought for myself.

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Beard Of Stars :- 1981, played to me by a friend and completely turned me on to Marc Bolan for which I've never lost the love. Inspired me to learn the guitar and sing like Larry The Lamb.

The Beatles - Abbey Road :- My all time favourite album, that I always return to. Constantly forms the soundtrack to my life.

The one that makes me who I am:
One of the things my parents bonded over when "courting" was mutual ownership of the History of The Byrds LP, so I guess without The Byrds I might not be here at all! If I had to pick just one song though, it would be Mr Tambourine Man - it's 12 years since I left home, but as those guitars jangle and the bass slides in I am instantly back with my parents...

The one that makes me cry:
Ah my teenage years... So many songs to pick from - maybe some Blur, my first ever gig; maybe something off Nevermind, an album me and my best mate once listened to for about 12 hours on repeat; maybe Single Girls by Lush, our bands signature song... But instead I'll pick a little Radiohead, a shared love with a good friend who was my honorary little sister. Sadly she didn't make it out of her teenage years, and one of her favourite songs, Fake Plastic Trees, was played at her funeral. Gets me, right there, every time.

The one that makes me dance:
Driving to work over the Forth Road Bridge in glorious sunshine, Is It Cos I'm Cool by Mousse T blasting on the car radio. Then dancing to the same song in some cheesy Edinburgh nightclub in the early hours, before getting up for work a few hours later and repeating to fade...

The one that makes me glad:
Let me tell you a story about a night out with the gang that included someone chatting up my mate's girlfriend by offering her first some crack and then a dead body, and when that failed trying to buy her from my mate "just for the night". We ended the night with karaoke back at the house, going to bed about 7am when the whisky bottle was empty and we suddenly realised the sun was up and the sky was blue. I fondly remember being serenaded by the boys, sometime in the wee small hours, with More Than Words by Extreme - since then, this song always cheers me up and reminds me of good friends, the sort of friends it felt like you'd known forever as soon as you met them.

The one that makes me smile:
H.W.C. by Liz Phair - Just because...

"What Can You Do For Me?

"I Got A Rocket In My Pocket!"

"Show Me!"

"Is That All There Is?"
.
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.
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"...Oops, I did it again"

Slade - Gudbye T' Jane got me started with a music fixation as a 10 or 11 year old on Top Of The Pops, followed very closely by Alice Cooper's School's Out.
Beatles - the Blue best-of album. Apart from Pepper, I never really got hold of the original albums till quite recently. But around then, post-HJH breakup, this was around the time I started buying albums and memorising every minute detail, memorising all lyrics, devouring everything.
Kiss - Alive, when life went 1 louder. After a brief detour into Quo territory I recovered and headed off down the AC/DC path and stayed there more or less.
Texas - Southside, played incessantly on cassette in the car as I bombed around between Oxford and Aylesbury.
Del Amitri - Change Everything, probably my all time favourite song writing collection and played to death for the last decade or so. Crowded House/Woodface and David Baerwald/Bedtime Stories are pretty close on that score too.
I can't believe there's no punk that comes to mind, where I thought it would when I started writing this. There was a whole Wings/ELO/Gallagher&Lyle patch in there too which was fairly influential.

The specials - Gangsters - Seeing them on my birthday last year & thinking ''where have the last 30 years gone ??''

Bruce Springsteen - Born to run -Seen him several times, without doubt, the best live performer I have ever seen, the intro to BTR always puts a shiver down the back of my neck, awesome.

Side 2 of Abbey road - genius

Jennifer Rush - the power of love - My beloved, late wifes favourite song, cant hear it without crying.

Kylie - Cant get you out of my head - Pure, classic, good time pop. Without doubt, my favourite single of the past decade.

Ask me tomorrow, there will probably be a different 5 songs.

Peace & Love.