Name Tim Burgess
Best known for Obviously the singer in The Charlatans is at the top of this list, but I’m as much about the other stuff, too. Over the past few years The Listening Party has always come up in conversations, more recently The Merch Market but I try to keep my C.V. as relevant as possible; DJing, producing, and writing books have been a mainstay of the last 10 years. I’m not going to use the word polymath, but you could maybe drop it in the intro.
Current city London.
Dream City As well as being a good potential song title, I’m going to say Los Angeles. I’m about to go there and it was my home for 12 years, so it has a special place in my heart.
Excited about Upcoming U.K. tour dates with The Charlatans. We played a few dates at the end of last year, so it’s time to hit the road again.
My current music collection has a lot of New albums. 90% of the artists doing a Listening Party would offer to send a record and we did over a thousand albums, so I’m still working my way through lots of them. I curate my record collection as I go, some records that I thought I would never part with are now in The Charlatans studio. So the collection I have at home is about 1,500 LPs and 1,000 7-inch singles. All genres. Punk. Post-punk. Indie. Northern soul. Pop. Entire Crass 7-inch collection. Entire Factory records collection minus the posters, the menstrual timer, and the office cat.
And a little bit of Super current hip-hop. My 12-year-old son is into Yeat and lots of stuff he finds online, so we listen to his music as much as mine
Preferred format For ease, streaming is great. I love vinyl as an object. CDs have their place too—funny to think of them in the past as they always seemed futuristic. I still have an iPod which I use regularly, but it’s starting to struggle as I think their built in obsolescence came in about 11 years ago.
5 Albums I Can’ Live Without:
1
After the Gold Rush, Neil Young
Such a brilliant collection of songs by an artist at the top of his game. I came to know it in the ‘90s and have loved it ever since. That’s the thing about music; this album existed for 20 whole years and didn’t find its way into my cosmos, then it arrived like a comet and I was a convert. Now with Shazam and the nonlinear way music hits us from all directions, any song or album can hit your orbit at any time. That’s enough celestial analogies for now. If you are someone who hasn’t let After the Gold Rush into your life, invite it in at the next opportunity. If you already know it, hopefully you feel the same and we can chat about it if we ever bump into each other.
2
The Dreaming, Kate Bush
People seem to like to say what songs they would have played at their funeral, and when I pondered that and my own mortality the answer was “There Goes a Tenner” by Kate Bush. I haven’t worked out yet which part of the funeral but, that’s the detail. There is so much to say about this album, it’s a puzzle—and the key in her mouth in the photograph on the front cover. So much ground is covered, from the idea of dreamtime, through to “Houdini” and terrorism. “All the Love” is incredibly beautiful. “Suspended in Gaffa,” “Sat in Your Lap,” “Pull Out the Pin.” The forerunner to Hounds of Love, all of Kate Bush’s albums are masterpieces but I definitely identify with weirdo Kate, and The Dreamingwas the album that befuddled the world at large. I love this record.
3
Back to the World, Curtis Mayfield
Curtis lived through heartache, struggles and tragedy. It’s a blend of social commentary, from a world away from my own life, but delivered in the sweetest tones and is a direct hit to the heart. I was obsessed around the time The Charlatans recorded (2001’s) Wonderland and his influence on me was at its peak. Right from the get go with the sleeve art: bold and symbolic, American flags, protests, the Capitol and warplanes; a state of the nation via heartfelt soulful strings and the funkiest guitars, plus that voice. A must for any record collection.
4
The Top, The Cure
It could have been one of four or five Cure albums but this one stands out, mainly because it was the first time I saw them live at Manchester Apollo on May 2nd 1984, just as this album was released. It’s seen as a bit of an anomaly by many Cure fans, this record was a balancing act between The Cure, The Banshees, and Robert Smith and Steve Severin’s side project, The Glove. The most psychedelic Cure album: “Shake Dog Shake” and “Bananafishbones” evoke nightmarish Alice in Wonderland suffocation. The Caterpillar is essentially the follow-up to “The Lovecats”—just as jovial, wild, and wonderful—and it was a smash hit on any dance floor I was in charge of, taking my first tentative steps into the world of DJing. There’s an otherworldly trippiness that still hits home to this day.
5
Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order
This album means everything to me. I try not to mention it every time I get asked these kind of questions, just because I became conscious of always referencing it. I’d even sometimes leave it out of top five choices, but would always whisper it a little apology. But if I’m being honest it’s undeniably in my DNA.
The Manchester scene starts with this album for me. Released as I turned 16, these songs opened doors and beckoned me through—the music did the talking, little was shared about the actual musicians—but while I was listening to music from New York and London, half of New Order were from where I was born and the other half, literally the other two, were from 10 minutes up the road from where I was living. It was a sign – someone from my background and geographical happenstance could be on “Top of the Pops.” I fell in love with everything about Factory and how New Order went about the business of being pop stars but using their own set of rules. I spent the next few years following them around on tour, enough to get a nod from Hooky (Peter Hook) as he turned up for a soundcheck or a hello and a chat with Stephen (Morris) and Gillian (Gilbert). Oh, and “Age of Consent” is the best bass line ever written and I won’t be taking any further questions on that.
