9. Nick LoweJesus Of Cool
Again, it’s really hard to choose with Nick Lowe because he’s done so much that’s so great. Just recently he’s done a really fantastic album, he’s done a Christmas album as well – the man’s a genius. The tone of his voice is so great. But the reason for Jesus Of Cool being the one is, at the time I went to the Stiff Records tour, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury and Elvis Costello all on the same bill together, and Nick Lowe was the power behind all that. I remember trying to collect the first ten Stiff records, which was very hard to do as they became very collectable – I think Nick Lowe was the genius behind all of that music. I’m a huge Elvis Costello fan, one of the things I couldn’t fit into this list, which is annoying, is an Elvis Costello album. I wanted to put in either Get Happy!! or This Year’s Model, but if we have to get it down to 13 I’m going to have to have either Nick Lowe or Elvis Costello, and in fact I’m going to have Nick Lowe because he’s the guy behind it all. There was all the problems of calling it Jesus Of Cool, and all those brilliantly disrespectful NME adverts which I really liked.
