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Baker's Dozen

Proper Stories: Emilíana Torrini's Favourite Albums
Tom Hughes , August 29th, 2013 07:38

Ahead of the release of her sixth album Tookah next month, the Icelandic singer-songwriter scours her record collection (mentally) to pick her top LPs

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Melanie – The Very Best Of
Melanie had a huge effect on me, even how I sing. I even covered a lot of her songs when I was singing in hotels, like 'I Really Loved Harold', 'Christopher Robin' and 'Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)'. There's a musical theatre called Stone Free, set up like a festival - everybody sat on stage but there was a stage on a stage, it was like an old rock festival - and when I was about 18 I performed in it. I had to put lots of wigs on and be lots of different people, but I got to choose a lot of the songs that we were singing and Melanie was played a lot. She’s really up there for me. There's something about her music that's really comical, there's this undertone of humour and hilarity, and I really like that mixture - when there's a comedy and a tragedy together.