If you want to understand Zappa the composer, satirist, and bandleader, One Size Fits All (1975) is where all three shake hands. The humour is the smoke, the band’s precision is the fire. An album that winks at you and challenges you in the same breath. Zappa fans know: Respect the sofa! #Zappa

Face The Music (1975) is where ELO stops auditioning as a ‘rock band with strings’ and start acting like the job is theirs. Proving rock and classical elements could coexist. Opening with “Fire On High” is a bold move, following it with tunes your aunt can dance to? That’s strategy. #ELO #Vinyl

Charles Mingus’ Ah Um (1959) is full of social commentary, humour, and tributes. The music doesn’t follow a path, it clears one. The bass doesn’t support the story, it is the story. Ensemble playing where everyone gets a voice, but no one mistakes who’s in charge. #Mingus #Jazz #Vinyl

Utopia (1974/RSD 2024) is prog made by someone who understands pop hooks. Todd Rundgren didn’t just dabble in prog, he detonated it. This album is like he dared himself to cram 3 albums worth of ideas into one, and it works. Just thinking in paragraphs, not sentences. #ToddRundgren #Utopia #Vinyl

My favourite too. Part of that run of albums with all those hits, this is the one that’s the least commercial. It doesn’t have any big singles, but there’s no filler, just great songs that play like a story instead of a jukebox.

The 50th Anniversary reissue of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (2025/1975) is a reminder that Elton and Bernie Taupin didn’t just survive the ‘70’s, they defined them. It’s their origin story documenting their climb while still on the ladder. #EltonJohn #Vinyl

Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom (1974) is more dimly lit room than spotlight, drifting between lullaby and lighthouse. Fragile, intimate, and warm even at its strangest, it feels less performed than discovered, it feels like you are being trusted with a secret. #CanterburyScene #RobertWyatt #Vinyl

Live At The Fillmore East 1968 (2018) shows the Who were part of the British Invasion, but with heavier artillery. ‘Relax’ is an exploratory gem before ‘My Generation’ mutates from slogan into a 33 minute thesis on identity, ambition and nerve. #TheWho #Vinyl

John Lennon’s Power To The People (2025) is a version of the 1972 One to One concert that reveals clarity previously missing from earlier mixes. Mother, New York City, and Come Together now shine. Proof that his superpower wasn’t perfection, it was making imperfection feel intentional. #JohnLennon

When rock stars were becoming prophets, Frank Zappa showed up as a fact checker. Were Only In It For The Money (1968) is for anyone who questions a movement with a merch table. Zappa treats sacred cows like they are on the menu. Hippies, squares, cops, consumers are all skewered. #Mothers #Zappa

Live from the Rainbow from 1977 (RSD 2025) shows Elton John choosing depth over hits and storytelling over spectacle. Deep cuts can sometimes feel like detours, but here they are the destination. ‘Ticking’ and ‘Sweet Painted Lady’ define the night. #EltonJohn #Vinyl #RecordStoreDay

There’s something to be said for having a philosophical identity crisis and turning it into everyone else’s singalong. The Who’s Who Are You box set (2025) captures introspection on the original album and communal catharsis onstage in a 1979 show. #TheWho #Vinyl

Billy Cobham’s Spectrum (1973) is a fusion album disguised as a drummer’s solo project disguised as a rock record disguised as a jazz session. You don’t have to be a drummer to appreciate Spectrum, but hearing it might make you wish you were on. #BillyCobham #Vinyl #Spectrum

Harvest (1972) feels cozy, but it’s like a blanket that keeps slipping off; soothing music from someone suspicious of being soothed. It’s the centre of gravity in Neil Young’s catalogue. Everything before moves towards it, and everything after pushes against its success. #NeilYoung #VinylCommunity

Thanks for the nudge. It's on my 'need' list.

Your albums can definitely be granted asylum 😁

Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good is like opening a time capsule from 1978. There are avocado green appliances and the faint smell of shag carpet. If you don’t feel it, check your flux capacitor. Chuck Mangione was what was needed, he soothed a nation with a hat and a horn. #vinyl

Station To Station (1976) isn’t just a bridge between Bowie’s soul era and Berlin Trilogy, it’s the Thin White Duke at his most intense. Recorded in a cocaine fuelled haze he barely remembered, it fuses krautrock, funk, and art rock into a cold, hypnotic masterpiece. #DavidBowie

If you’re judging The Doobie Brothers’ What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits (1974) by ‘Black Water,’ that’s like judging a restaurant by the bread basket. The main course is in the deeper cuts. ‘Daughters of the Sea’ alone justifies the spin. #DoobieBrothers #Vinyl

One of the great ‘should’ve been huge’ records of the era.

Still the gold standard for ‘major‑label band goes rogue.’

Proof that sometimes rock needs a little velvet and a lot of drama.

There are albums you listen to, and then there’s Brilliant Corners (1957), where you marvel that anyone could even play it. This album shows why Monk was considered a genius. He didn’t think outside the box, he built a new one. #TheloniousMonk #Jazz #Vinyl

The title track from The Horace Silver Quintet’s Song For My Father (1965) is one of those jazz tunes that crosses genres an is instantly recognizable. If you like ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’, meet its father. Steely Dan didn’t steal, they saluted. #Jazz #Vinyl #HoraceSilver

A physician wouldn’t usually call it this, but a bruise is technically a small form of internal bleeding.

A great reissue makes you lean forward instead of sit back. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here 50th does just that. The extras don’t dilute the album, they deepen it. The two albums of rarities aren’t bonus material, they are canon expansion. #PinkFloyd #Vinyl

Listening to Bill Evans’ Explorations (1961) is like watching someone fold a napkin with absurd precision, you don’t know why it’s so impressive, but it is. The album doesn’t fill a room, it occupies it. Calm but not boring, beautiful but not sugary, it’s jazz that is sophisticated but approachable.

Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy isn’t just songs, it’s crime scenes, ghost stories and sociopaths set to piano riffs. “Lawyers, Guns and Money” is an anthem for any poor bastard who has woken up in a foreign country with a hangover and regrets. Zevon spiked the 1978 musical punch with sarcasm! #vinyl

Thrillington (1977) isn’t anyone’s desert island McCartney pick, but as a light orchestra detour through Ram, it’s surprisingly pleasant. like bumping into an old friend who’s wearing a tuxedo. If Ram is the main course, this is the mint that comes with the bill, and that’s why it works. #McCartney

Brian Wilson didn’t just write songs, he cast spells. Pet Sounds is what happens when a wizard with perfect pitch tries to exorcise his demons through harmony. A beautiful kind of broken. His music cried behind sunglasses, and still does. #brianwilson #vinyl