Prefab Sprout – Steve McQueen
Discovering Prefab Sprout was a kind of similar story to The Smiths. They came out when I was about 15-years-old and they kind of hit me right away. But in terms of their method of making music, it was a little bit more poppier which I really liked. When I thought about it again recently, I realised that I wanted to put a little bit more of a pop music element into my new album and I thought about Prefab Sprout right away. The thing that stands out about this album in particular is the arrangement and production by Thomas Dolby. At the time, it was absolutely outstanding compared to any other albums that were around. It was an easy choice to include in this list for me.   It's also another band that my son and I are also into together. It's been a really interesting give-and-take relationship between my son and I when it comes to pop culture stuff. My son works at a record store in Tokyo and he brings a lot of different albums and records home by all kinds of different artists. He gets to know what's really happening in this whole youth culture that I'm not as tapped into anymore [laughs] yet I often see either an obvious or a subtle influence from all the other bands that I grew up with. I feel like I've been learning a lot more from my son of late.