best british albums

I sat on the couch listening to the Beatles and immediately started sobbing. This was supposed to be an experiment in British music, with albums picked from different decades, but my dad loved the Beatles. He’s died, and I still find some of his music hard to hear. There he was again in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I think the UK has produced some of the best musicians of all time. Listening to these records in full gave me a chance to revisit music I’d grown up with and try things I’d somehow missed. The familiar albums weren’t always comfortable, and the unfamiliar ones weren’t always my thing. That’s part of the fun.

Watch my British albums experiment on YouTube.

The music I grew up with

We were a Beatles family. For me, Sgt. Pepper’s is full of creative joy and odd, whimsical ideas, but that joy comes with sadness because I feel my dad in it so strongly. I tried to choose a favourite song and couldn’t. Abbey Road feels heavier and more serious to me, although I love both albums. Listening to them meant enjoying the music and crying through it at the same time.

Queen’s Greatest Hits brought back a similar feeling. My dad was a Queen guy too, and I grew up listening to them. I can go years without putting Queen on, then hear those songs and discover that all the words are still there. A compilation might be cheating in an album experiment, but I’m not going to apologise for wanting to hear those songs together.

The Spice Girls took me somewhere much less tearful. As a kid in Canada, I practised dance routines with my friends in our bedrooms. I didn’t need to understand British culture to love Spice. I was the right age at the right time, and listening again was pure fun. My sister and I even saw them in Toronto, at what I remember as a farewell tour. Then they toured again. Apparently farewell was negotiable.

Oasis didn’t have that childhood connection for me. I came to What’s the Story Morning Glory? much later, and while I understand why people love it, I find the songs quite similar. They run into each other in a way that makes it hard for me to tell them apart. I think the music you’re exposed to at particular ages influences your taste, and my Spice Girls enthusiasm beside my fairly lukewarm Oasis reaction makes that pretty obvious.

An album I somehow missed

The Dark Side of the Moon takes me back to being about 16 and riding my bike to work with my iPod. Probably shouldn’t have been doing that, but the memory is very clear. I still love Pink Floyd’s weirdness, even though I’m not always in the mood for it.

Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells was new to me. I put on my big over-ear headphones, pressed play and started putting laundry away, or something equally exciting. After a few minutes I wondered how long the first song was going to last. About 25 minutes, as it turned out.

If Pink Floyd feels experimental, this was another level. I appreciated it, but I have to be in the right mood for long instrumental pieces. What I really enjoyed was finding something British that I knew nothing about. My partner already knew it, of course. After ten years here, and a lot of deliberate trying and learning, those completely new discoveries are harder to come by.

Loving an album, disliking the memory

Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head is an album I love, and I’m happy to say so. Listening in order brought back songs I’d forgotten about, even while I still remembered their lyrics. It also brought back the period when I listened to it, around my early twenties.

Adele’s 25 has an even more specific association. It came out in November 2015, when I moved to England, and I played it on repeat during my early time here. I struggled after that move. I love the album, but it reminds me of a period I don’t love, so hearing it again is bittersweet.

That doesn’t mean I want to listen only to old favourites. I wasn’t a One Direction fan and had assumptions about Harry Styles, but Harry’s House surprised me. I recognised song after song and had a lot of fun. I’m a big believer in trying things twice. Even when a record doesn’t become a favourite, I’d rather hear it and find out for myself.