10. The BeatlesRevolver

Obviously I’d always heard The Beatles’ hits because growing up the radio was always on. ‘Penny Lane’, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, the classics. Then, you get to your teens, punk kicks in, The Paleys, The Teardrop Explodes, The Bunnymen. I was busy, and there were no CD players. No one was putting Revolver on. So, when I got back to Liverpool in about 1986, I was sitting in a pub. I was about 25. Something off Revolver came on and I said, ‘Who the fuck’s this?’ They go, ‘You’re joking aren’t you?’ I go, ‘No! It’s boss! It reminds me of someone…’ They said, ‘It’s the fucking Beatles!’ and I go, ‘Oh right, sounds amazing.’ They say, ‘Have you heard Rubber Soul?’ I go ‘No’, and they say ‘You’re off your fucking head.’ So I had to get over that immediately. They’re incredible albums, obviously. Revolver blows you away and takes you somewhere else, especially, without harping on about it, if you have discovered different states of consciousness.

So yeah, it was a late one. It was the same thing with The Byrds, or The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society because I’d only heard the greatest hits. The Beatles ones we had were the ones where they’re sitting in the block of flats with short hair, and the one where they’re in the same block of flats with long hair [the 1962-1966 ‘Red’ album and 1967-1970 ‘Blue’ album compilations]. You’d think you’d heard everything because you’d heard ‘Across The Universe’, ‘Help’ and ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’ but you hadn’t heard stuff like ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ on that tape.