The Flirtations – ‘Nothing But A Heartache’

Whenever I say you can't pick the best record of all time, it can't be done, then I think about this recording and think maybe you can. When Suede split I was really cynical about the music industry and I didn't want to have any part of it. I worked in offices, which I hated, but it was a period where suddenly music started meaning more to me than it had for quite a few years. I had got really caught up in that 90s competitive thing of being in a band where you're thinking about chart positions and sales figures, what music can get you. But in those years when I was in the wilderness, suddenly music became all the things that it had been to me when I was a teenager, a shield against the world. I can remember going to these crappy temp jobs and playing this track. It was like a thousand espressos before you walk into the lion's den and always makes me feel ten feet tall. It’s that weird mix of joy and sadness that are marbled together in a way that you can't really do in any other form apart from music.