The Best? Who Can Say...

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I may have written at some point about my choices of the best albums of all time for me - a perennial exercise for those of us who actually have experience of the art-form that is the 'album'. I usually cite Van Morrison's 'Astral Weeks' as the absolute apogee, an opinion which I still hold and cleave to: never bettered, impossible to improve upon and simply perfect. I also always include Frank Zappa's 'Hot Rats' in my list - not perfect, but close. My list of favourite albums could fill a book, but tonight we were watching a Netflix documentary on the inception and formation of Led Zeppelin, and I remembered how bloody influential the first [eponymous] Led Zeppelin album was on me and my mates. The first time I heard it was on the John Peel programme on Radio One immediately after its release in the UK; when the estimable Mr. Peel played the entire album, end-to-end, with no break or commentary, so gob-smacked was he - as were we - with the record. A truly epochal release, which sounded like nothing less than the changing of the old guard for the new. Me and Johnny K were floored by it and immediately went out to proselytise and proclaim the new gospel to the world; well actually our friend Clive in Laxey Road, for starters...   

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