Recently, HWS met up with Eddie Clarke at McChuills Bar in Glasgow. During our conversation, we discussed his five favourite and most influential albums of all time. As you can imagine, this topic was quite challenging and deserving of a separate article. Now, let’s hear from Eddie.
I don’t think I could ever choose my top 5 BEST albums, so I’ve went for my top 5 most influential albums. The thing with music is it’s very much based on my perception at the time and my mood for it to resonate with me.
Being born in the mid ’70s, I was far too young to remember a lot of the music around at that time, but my first introduction to what the youth were listening to then were the words ‘The Jam’ spray painted on the side of a house just down from me in my scheme. It must have been the early to mid-eighties. I remember squads of youths dressed as ‘Mods’ and remember thinking that they were cool as fuck. They stood out from the average lads at the time and they seemed to take great pride in their appearance. I admired the haircuts, the Fred Perrys and the parkas. It was a style, that even today, I still lean to.
No. 1 – The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
But at 10 years old, I was still too young to show much interest in the actual music. It wasn’t until 1989 that I actually got my first real introduction to something that would grab my attention musically, and it blew my mind. My older brother came home with a tape of a band Called ‘The Stone Roses’, and it was to become somewhat the soundtrack to my youth, and beyond. I instantly became obsessed.
When I first heard the opening track ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ all the way to track 11, the final tune on the album, ‘I Am The Resurrection’, I was totally gripped. Even at 13 years old the sound gave me a glimpse of the effect music can have on your mood and lift you out of the shit. This opened up the door for lads my age to be part of what would be known as Indie/baggy/Madchester scene. Baggy jeans were purchased, hair was grown in the style of lead singer Ian Brown, and long-sleeved t-shirts were the uniform for the foreseeable. We had arrived.
‘Don’t waste your words
I don’t need anything from you
I don’t care where you’ve been
Or what you plan to do’
- I Am The Resurrection
No. 2 – HAPPY MONDAYS – BUMMED
The revelation of The Stone Roses self-titled album opened a door for me into the already developed Manchester music scene at the time. Under-age nights were now being held in nightclubs all around and along with the dance music were indie tunes remixed with heavy bass lines such as The Stones Roses masterpiece ‘Fools Gold’ along with thee stand out song for me from this album ‘Wrote For Luck’. This was my first introduction to The Happy Mondays and Shaun Ryder. Although a very different sound to The Roses, Shaun Ryders vocals were raw with a punky vibe which resonated with the rebelliousness which we were all part of at the time. right on cue, Thrills’Pills’and Bellyaches would arrive along with the types of drugs that would make it sound epic.
‘And I wrote for luck
They sent me you
And I sent for juice
You give me poison’
- Wrote For Luck
No.3 – DEFINITELY MAYBE – OASIS
1994, 18 years old and feeling like I could take on the world Oasis arrived on the scene with what might well be one of the greatest debut albums of all time. The timing was perfect for me and this album just said everything in music that me and my mates couldn’t ever put together in words. It was a ‘Fuck you, we’ll take it from here’ statement and each track seemed to be better than the other. ‘SuperSonic’ ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ and ‘Live Forever’ total anthems that would be screamed at the tops of our voices in every boozer we’d frequent.
Oasis had arrived and taken clean over from the void left by The Stone Roses over that period (Although they did release The Second Coming later on that same year). It felt like we were absolutely spoiled for great guitar bands back then compared to the shite we’re subjected to nowadays. I don’t think there’s been a band since Oasis who’ve represented the working class so accurately.
One of the biggest attractions to the band themselves for myself was also their openness about their Irish background and their love for Irish rebel music, with Noel quoting –
“I feel as Irish as the next person. The first music I was ever exposed to was the rebel songs the bands used to sing in the Irish club in Manchester. Do you know, I think that’s where Oasis songs get their punch-the-air quality – from me being exposed to those rousing rebel songs. It was all rebel songs and that godawful Irish country and western music”
No.4 – THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO
This album is a bit out of place alongside my first 3 album choices but definitely had a significant effect on what I love about variants of musical tastes. Again, I was total obsessed from the day I heard this album and Lou Reeds influence mesmerised me from the first listen, along with Nico’s haunting vocals on ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Femme Fatale’.
The Velvet Underground released this album in the same year that the Lions won the European cup so the album release date is always etched on my brain. Not only is it an incredibly unique and varied listen, but it defines Lou Reed and the velvets to their core. It’s rough, there’s songs about substance use, there’s songs where the production was influenced by substance use, it’s edgy, revolutionary, fucked up and I just couldn’t and still haven’t stopped listening.
‘I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
‘Cause it makes me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vien
And I tell you things aren’t quite the same’
- Heroin
No.5 – ‘ALL MOD CONS’ – THE JAM
From way back in the mid-eighties when I seen ‘The Jam’ spray-painted on the side of a house not far from where I lived, it took me another 10-15 years before I really listened to their music. Noel Gallagher had recently released an acoustic cover from this album called ‘To Be Someone’ and it was outstanding. Noel’s cover took me to check which album the track was from and it was The Jams 1978 album ‘All Mod Cons’, which included timeless masterpieces like ‘Down In The Tune Station At Midnight’, ‘A Bomb In Wardour Street’ and ‘David Watts’. I’m sure this album would have been the voice of the working class at the time and had as much of an impact as to what The Stone Roses and Oasis had on me at my coming of age. Again, an album that I regularly revisit and I feel is a reflection of The Jam in their prime.
‘To be someone must be a wonderful thing,
A famous footballer, a rock singer
Or a big film star
Yes, I think that I would like, I would like that’
- To Be Someone
Thanks to Nick at McChuills for looking after us and Derek Monaghan for his input and photos.
Holywell Street 
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