"My list of favourite albums does change every week… I’ll probably phone you up at 3am in a panic to change this to something else. I came up with this list three weeks ago and I’m already wavering a bit.
"The list will always include Bowie but it’s the same scenario really; his albums are so different that it depends on what I’ve been listening to and what mood I’m in as to what’s my favourite. There’s never always a constant that I always go back to. It might be Station To Station, it might be Aladdin Sane, it might be The Man Who Sold The World but generally speaking it’s Hunky Dory.
"Mainly the albums I’ve chosen come from between the late 1960s and when Hex Enduction Hour came out in 1982, because those are my formative years, but all the component parts are there. You’ve got prog rock, you’ve got glam rock, you’ve got Bowie, you’ve got Zappa, you’ve got punk… but also over the last few years, since I’ve been at 6Music, my thirst for finding new music has really come back to me. While I was on Radio One for so long it was almost like a comedy show, Mark Radcliffe and I. We just used to go into the studio, have a laugh and play crap music more often than not. I still went to gigs in the evening but the rest of the time was taken up doing the job. But now my job is to listen to hours and hours’ worth of new music every day and I end up finding the stuff that you only find if you’re committed to finding new music."
To browse through Marc’s 13 favourite albums click on the photo below.
The Marc Riley Show goes out Monday to Thursday on BBC 6 Music between 19.00 and 21.00. Keep on checking the Quietus to hear repeats of the show’s live sessions