Top 100 Greatest Albums (According to this guy)

“ Easy easy money baby, red wine from the well. He’s inspired , taste acquired, watch out mademoiselle” I honestly can’t remember where I heard of The Fat Cats, and why I bought this album, but my gosh was it one of my best discoveries! So much was my excitement for these songs that ‘Deadbeat’ went on to inspire a large variety of my writing with the band Little Blue Light. Take a pinch of Madness, a swig of the Stray Cats, even a small measure of Barenaked Ladies and some overdriven guitar and we are only part-way to describing the unique sound of this album. A mash up of boogie woogie, ska, swing, punk and rock; there is nothing quite like this out there. Very piano driven, with a strong sax throughout, and excellent vocals. The songs are super catchy and not one is alike, as they flow through various genres.  The piano right at the forefront of the compositions really set it apart from other punk albums. It gives the music a crispness, a swing, and an overall fantastic sound. Ha...

“ If you want my reasons for just why I joined the war; Well I’ll tell you, I had to; ‘Cause when they tell you, “Son stand straight and take this gun”; Well they also point one at you… ” Brixton Academy, 2004 - Deconstruction Fest. Arrived looking forward to seeing MxPx, discovered Yellowcard (with their backflipping vilolinist) and left having thoroughly enjoyed a little known but highly regarded ska band; The Slackers. With a boat load of albums in their repertoire, The Slackers are, in my opinion, the world’s best modern era, traditional ska band. Whereas their previous albums include around 20 songs, ‘Peculiar’ actually feels like a fuller, stronger album, with just the thirteen strong. Long punk albums can tend to lose my attention (The Slackers being signed to Tim Armstrong’s punk Hellcat Records), and they’ve got the length just right with ‘Peculiar’ Very political songs, covering different styles, but mostly brilliant traditional ska and reggae. ‘International War Criminal’ hi...

“Can’t fight corruption with con tricks; They use the law to commit crime; And I dread, dread to think what the future will bring; When we’re living in gangster time …” Surely one of the most influential British albums of all time, and certainly for me. From covering Specials songs in my first band, to being told that I’d, and i quote, done “Too Much Too Young” by my own Mother when I was 19. And the songs still depict so much of what we see in our times. The pioneers of the 2nd wave ska movement, and the first album to be released on the infamous Two-Tone label. Ska with mixes of reggae and dub, with a strong underlay of bass. A mix of old ska covers (Monkey Man, Too Hot, A Message to You Rudy) and original ska anthems. And a studio version of their no.1 single “Too Much Too Young”, the single being recorded live with a quicker tempo. Lyrics tend to focus on political and social issues. Do the lines quoted above remind us of a particular country’s government handlings of the current c...