5. Cockney RebelThe Psychomodo
I started off this list thinking about records I listened to at school, and this is one of them. It was given to me by this girl, she was a cousin of the drummer Stuart Elliott, who went on to drum for Kate Bush. He was a good-looking guy, and when we watched him on Top Of The Pops, we couldn’t believe we had a connection from school. I had already bought the single ‘Mr. Soft’, but then got this album, and it’s lived with me ever since. It never went out of fashion, but you don’t hear about it much. Steve Harley has a very unusual voice, he’s like a glam Bob Dylan to me. It’s obvious he loves him but I love that there is no real lead guitar as such, but there is an electric violin, so it’s not a big rock thing. It created an album that is so unique. It’s such a shame they split up after this record, although it’s perfect for Harley, because he wrote his biggest song ever about it – ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)’.
Their first two albums were really art rock, if I had to give a term, in the same way as Roxy Music were – things that were pretentious on purpose. His lyrics are superb, but especially for a kid at school, a teenager, the lyrics are so poetic, and Cockney Rebel is such a great name, you could have that on your jacket as well. If they hadn’t been called Cockney Rebel I might not have found them.
