11. Ben HowardEvery Kingdom
I fucking love Ben Howard. Every Kingdom came out a few years ago, it’s acoustic, now he’s not so acoustic but this was his Bob Dylan moment and it’s a beautiful album. I mean the acoustic guitar, his voice, it’s stunning. Oh my God, I just realised I should have put Jeff Buckley Grace in here too. This is a chilled album, but it’s different. He’s got a very interesting, very individual voice. He doesn’t sound like anyone else. I call them whispering dudes, white boys, scruffy folk singers.
It’s easy to get into the ruts of just listening to the same old music. You’ve got to dig yourself out of it and it’s hard. Especially when you’re in a rock band and you had success. It’s very easy to just keep repeating the same thing. I think the boys in my band suffer from that more than I do, they like what they like, men are just like that [laughs]. It’s hard to move them around. But I’m a researcher.
