I'm a curious kind of guy. I always wonder what other people read and listen because it is so unique to them, to so I thought I'd share a few of my favourite things with you. Think of it as one long out of control Desert Island Discs. You get the idea, 5 songs you couldn't live without… or 10, or okay, 30 because I am greedy. I admit it. So much of my life has been tied to music that I can hear a tune and place myself instantly back to someplace, sometime, where that song first became important to me.

So without further, or even much ado, music to live by:

Now and Then

15. Bend and Break - Keane
14. Yellow - Coldplay
13. Good Riddance - Green Day
12. Wisemen - James Blunt
11. Strange & Beautiful - Aqualung
10. Superman - Five For Fighting
9. Red - Martha Tilston
8. Damien Rice - The Blowers Daughter
7. Man of the Hour - Pearl Jam
6. Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
5. Counting Blue Cars - Dishwalla
4. Smoke - Ben Folds
3. Stupid Thing - Aimee Mann
2. Babylon - David Gray
1. Black Lucia - Roddy Frame

15. Big Country - Chance
14. Tears For Fears - Mad World
13. Simple Minds - Promised You A Miracle
12. Scritti-Politti - Absolute
11. The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
10. The Teardrop Explodes - Reward
9. The Day The Ravens Left The Tower - The Alarm
8. After Me - Marrillion
7. Chocolate Girl - Deacon Blue
6. The Blue Nile - Tinsel Town in the Rain
5. Icicle Works - Love is a Wonderful Colour
4. Talk Talk - It's My Life
3. The Bitterest Pill - The Jam
2. Fiction Factory - Feels Like Heaven
1. Oblivious - Aztec Camera

Every once in a while I will pick an artist off the list and give my own little potted 'Why I Love Them' speech… so, first up, because they rank as probably my favourite band of all time:

Aztec Camera - Oblivious

With Roddy Frame's unassuming, clean hooks and lyrical precision High Land, Hard Rain's "Oblivious" and Knife's "Birth of the True" rank among the most exemplary songs ever hoisted aloft by the 80s New Wave. Roddy recorded what to my mind is one of the few perfect albums of the decade in High Land, Hard Rain, and he was all of 18 years old at the time. His voice is at once striking and heartbreaking, his lyrics often sublime and always insightful. It is a haunting blend of poetry set to a jazz-folk-acoustic guitar pop soundtrack, full of angry bluster and arrogance of youth.

I've lived with this record almost all my adult life and on every listen it improves and just keeps on improving. How many records can you say that about?

In truth I could have picked any of the songs of High Land, Hard Rain, they are all unanimously excellent, but I plumped for Oblivious because it was the first song I heard from the album and was always a standout for me. This was the first song I fell in love with and to. I used to walk along the Downs in Epsom belting out the chorus at the top of my longs on the way to school, not a care in the world. This was the anthem of my youth.