Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring
I bought this on the strength of the fantastic artwork and how much I loved 'Life's What You Make It' but it ended up completely changing my opinion of the sort of music I thought I liked. It's such a beautiful, sad record with a depth and a poetry that really spoke to me. I loved that melancholy thing and always have and I think it permeates into my writing now. Certainly the way this was recorded influenced me on the last couple of Bluetones records and on my own stuff in terms of giving things more space. It's got that 80s polish on it but that doesn't bother me, I don't hear it. In the context of what else was released at the time The Colour Of Spring sounded natural, organic even. If you see footage of them performing songs from that album they're completely free from the shackles of the production and they're just so good it's unbelievable. I went to see them on that final tour, I got a ticket as my 15th birthday present, and it was their last ever gig at the Hammersmith Odeon. I wasn't in a band at that point but I was writing poetry. I was! We all were, weren't we?