Top 10… albums for the car

Abba Gold

One of the most successful acts of all time and this CD/DVD collection has all of the hits that you either heard at the time or reminded of the last time you watched Mamma Mia the movie or had a night at the stage show…

Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd

One of the best selling albums of all time that still sounds innovative more than forty years after it was first released.

One suspects that there’s a few successful albums from the last decade that won’t be held in such high regard in forty years time!

Hits Collection – Dusty Springfield

There’s a documentary that keeps reappearing on BBC4 that tells the story of Dusty Springfield and it makes for interesting viewing.

Almost all of Dusty’s hits are on this CD (the ones with Pet Shop Boys are missing), but it makes for a fine reminder of a singer that didn’t need Autotune or other modern recording techniques to commit a great song to analogue tape.

Hotel California – The Eagles

Yes, it’s that 1970’s classic album – the one you either like or hate (one of my University house mates hated it with a vengeance).

Can go a couple of years without playing it and then put it in the CD player and sing along with it all over again.

Live And Dangerous – Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy in fine fettle a few years before I blagged my way in to photograph the band.

I have both the CD and DVD versions of this album and it’s interesting to hear the stories regarding the finished album that are related by band members in interviews on the DVD.

No Sleep ‘Till Hamersmith – Motorhead

One of heavy metal’s heaviest bands caught live with the bomber lighting rig on the cover and their best tracks on the CD.

We Are The Road Crew was recorded at Newcastle City Hall – I know, because I was there!

I also know what the dedication was for the song No Class on that night….

Real To Real – Marillion

This is the Fish era live album from the 1980’s that sounds good thirty years on from its original release.

Garden Party and Market Square Heroes still hit the spot, especially when the car stereo is turned up to eleven!

The Essential Nina Simone

Name checked at least once in an episode of CSI Vegas and featured and mentioned in the Bridget Fonda film The Assassin, Nina Simone has one of those voices that pre-dated modern recording techniques.

The Collection is a three CD box set that mixes studio and live recordings that showcase one of the best singing voices of all time.

Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors – Fish

This was the former Marillion singer’s first solo album and I’d still rate it as his best so far.

All of the songs were heard first live in a mix of club, town hall, village halls and small cinemas in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland a couple of weeks before Vigil was released and there’s still memories of that rather hectic week lingering years later.

(What’s The Story) Morning Glory – Oasis

One of the few albums that really caught my attention when I was a student writing for a student newspaper back in the mid-1990s.

Others may disagree, but it is still Oasis’ finest album to date…