Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden
When Talk Talk started, I thought they were the Aldi Duran Duran. Then I remember getting a new record of theirs when I was first working at Radio 1 as a producer, and it was It's My Life. 'Oh! This is a lot better than before!' Then I listened to the rest of The Colour of Spring – now that's an album that's got more strange and beautiful things on it than people give it credit for. And then this came next. 
 The idea of becoming a pop star and then using the platform you've reached to make a record of wildly experimental music like this is hugely admirable, I think. It's staggering they got away with it, really. But you can possibly see Radiohead as having copied that model, although they obviously kept touring, and have had bigger success with it over the years. Spirit of Eden again seems to exist in its own world. It's really beautiful, so minimal at times, its music almost goes down to nothing. It also staggers me how you make a record like that, how you look at that blank canvas, and think, OK, this is where I start. That mystery is what keeps me fascinated by records like this, records that don't give up their secrets too easily. And by music, full stop, to be honest.