9. Cabaret VoltaireCrackdown
It’s so different from any other record on my list because it sounded modern in a really weird way. I could hear their influences, I knew there was black culture, James Brown in particular, street culture, hip-hop, what was happening in New York, but they’d put it together in a way that was so uniquely them and so Sheffield. So few bands can do that. It seemed very sophisticated, a little bit of a reach out of my tastes, but I loved it because it was electronic. I loved the Neville Brody sleeve, Flood produced this like he did so many of my favourites, I got the bonus disc that had ‘Double Vision’ and ‘Badge Of Evil’, which really makes it complete. It’s the record where you see where they’ve come from and where they’re going next. They’re always one chorus away from getting to number one, but they seeped into culture in some sort of way, like with the poster in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They were so influential, so many people owe the Cabs a debt, myself included. I think out of everybody in this, with the Cabs and DAF there’s a direct connection with what I was trying to do, to ape their sound because there was something in there that was very danceable and hypnotic, and this awkward funk. I bought it from Virgin on Corporation Street.
