Pearl Jam - Yield
Pearl Jam are without doubt my all-time favourite band. Since their debut album TEN blew my 16-year-old mind and connected with me in a way nothing else had ever done before or has since, they are my band. I could have easily named eight Pearl Jam albums, although that would still have been as difficult to narrow down as this list has proved to be. Yield, however, is my favourite album of theirs and that’s why it makes this list.
For me this album is perfectly balanced with a range of songs from ballads to mid-tempo, to all out rockers and a percussive instrumental, it’s almost a complete soundscape. This album does feature, if pushed into a corner and a light shone in my eyes, my favourite PJ track – In Hiding. I would also go so far that Given to Fly would be in my Top Ten and in Do the Evolution we have probably my favourite track to experience live – Hallelujah… It’s Evolution Baby!!
"This whole series of albums
are my childhood"
Motown Chartbusters – Volume 2
This whole series of albums are my childhood. Mum and Dad had these albums on vinyl (I managed to snag a couple now for my collection) and would play them regularly. I have distinct memories of Sundays in particular. The record player would go on as Mum prepared a Sunday Roast and these perfect pieces of 3-minute pop / soul would fill the air of the living room as the windows steamed up from the cooking.
I vividly remember the amazing album artwork from reflective covers to space bugs and even a moving fruit machine. I was totally fascinated by them. These songs are my parents, my childhood and they just happen to be some of the most amazing songs, song writing, singers, and musicians ever produced. The Motown sound has stuck with me forever and will always make me smile, dance and sing! I chose Volume 2 of the series as it has my favourite track on - Reflections by Diana Ross and the Supremes.
James – Goldmother
This album is what defines a turning point in my love for music, moving away from Mum and Dad’s music and coming out of my “teeny bop” Stock, Aitken and Waterman, Five Star and Bros prepubescent stage. I was turned on to “real” music by a friend who would provide me with mix tapes and taped albums. These included the likes of James, Stone Roses, Northside, Happy Mondays, Charlatans etc.
It was James that were the band that instantly stood out to me and I quickly wanted to hear everything they did. Ever since then they have always been my “Manchester” band in any debate as to who were/are the best. Come Home and How Was It for You? were the big singles but every track is amazing – frantic in parts and beautiful and mournful in others. Later copies of this album featured the monster hit Sit Down but instead of adding the track it replaced the amazing Crescendo which I was always disappointed about when my cassette version was replaced by CD.
De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising
This album was going around school and was my first foray into hip hop/rap. The album is just an explosion of beats, comedy skits, samples, pop songs - it was like nothing I had ever heard before. This record made me feel cool and grown up just owning it. I mean I’m not too sure how cool a 14-year-old Yorkshire kid sounds rapping along to every word of this album but it had to sound better than a forty something Yorkshire man doing it to this day! I still play this album regularly and I’m a big fan of Hip Hop/rap in general now because of this album.
"I'm not too sure how cool
a 14-year old Yorkshire kid
sounds rapping along
to every word"
Chris Cornell – Higher Truth
Chris Cornell is one of my all-time heroes, in terms of influence, song writing, THAT voice, the diversity from Soundgarden to Temple of the Dog and Audioslave to his solo work. The man has done no wrong in my eyes. It would be so easy to pick out Badmotorfinger and Superunknown to represent him in this list but this album and especially in light of his untimely death is so very special.
Simply put this album is beautiful and everyone should own it and most probably won’t. I was very lucky to see him on this album tour at the Bridgewater Hall and it was possibly the greatest performance I ever seen, it was emotional, educational, inspirational, even biblical – what followed devastated me and he is the first celebrity death that really shook me. I get emotional listening to this album and I love that too.
Silverchair – Diorama
Silverchair burst onto the scene as three 14-year-old kids who had won a talent contest in Australia and got to record Frogstomp, an amazing album completely geared to the massive Grunge market. This band should have been a one hit, one album wonder.
But in Daniel Johns there was a genius in the midst. Now, as with all geniuses, he had his troubles and the albums to follow Frogstomp are all great but when Diorama was released it stopped me in my tracks - it was nothing like Silverchair but was so Daniel Johns. Just go and listen to it, it is a larger-than-life epic opus - it’s like the spawn of Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury and Beethoven. There’s a cool story that Johns deleted 18 months of writing and recording when this album “came to him” and he sat down at a piano to begin writing the sounds in his head, he didn’t know how to play piano so learned as he wrote with the help of others to create this masterpiece, well it’s a masterpiece to me and maybe a few others.
"my get me out of a
stressful day album"
Incubus – Make Yourself
I first heard of Incubus thanks to the heavy rotation of Drive on MTV et al and I instantly wanted to hear more and bought this album on the back of just this one song, which could have been a risk as I’ve been burned like this before in my eagerness with many a dud album. To this day this album is on heavy rotation in my house. Such a powerhouse of an album: song after song, such a great vibe, amazing lyrics and great to sing along to.
I later picked up an extended version of this which had about four acoustic versions of songs from this album and an orchestrated version of Drive, and this just lifted these songs to another level. This is my get me out of a stressful day album. My play at full blast, jump around and sing my head off album. Brandon Boyd’s voice and lyrics on this album are just perfect, I’ve been a fan ever since and have never been disappointed but this for me is their very best.
Ben Folds – Ben Folds Live
This album was bought for me by a friend for no reason other than “you just need to hear this” and she was right, I did! At the time I had kind of heard of Ben Folds or at least Ben Folds Five but never owned an album or could instantly recall any songs, but since this album was brought into my life, I have owned everything and seen Ben Folds three or four times live.
What a great introduction this is, as it’s a kind of a greatest hits of both the band and Ben's solo work at the time. Firstly, the songs are fantastic, every one is a character led story, witty and heart-breaking, romantic and rocking. As it’s a live album you also get some great intros and insights to the songs too which add to them. What blew me away was the fact that this was just one guy and piano. He makes it somehow seem like a full band is on stage and with some amazing choreographed audience participation it is a pure joy to hear. I also have my friend, this album and Ben Folds to thank for providing my wife and I with our wedding dance song – The Luckiest, so it’s a pretty special album all round for me.
Bio
Simon Wake is 45-year-old Yorkshireman who has now lived the wrong side o’ t’hills longer than the right. Working in Sales for the past 20 years in the very niche Stadium Seating Market, most weeks are spent travelling the country from stadium to stadium and he makes the most of these journeys listening to music. A lifelong love affair with music and gigging the pandemic hit hard, but he used this time to get rid of his huge CD collection, refused to listen to music via a smart speaker and go back to vinyl, take time out and listen to albums as we all used to and as they were meant to be, in full and in order. Simon is known as APaperSleeve on Instagram where he shares his growing vinyl collection both old and new.
