My 5 Favourite Albums of all time

Hello all

I've recently been trying to get back into music that I used to like but had forgotten about, I figured I would combine this by also talking about my favourite albums of all time, you lucky devils.

So, in not particular order, my top five albums are.......

BLINK 182 (2004) by Blink 182

I first got into Blink 182 when I heard "All the Small Things" on the radio in what must have been the late 90s, early 2000s. I bought their "Enema of the State" and "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket2 albums and you always got the hint from songs like "Adam's Song" and "Stay Together for the Kids" that they always wanted to release a more serious album, and that's what happened with this album in 2004.

I bought the album from Asda after finishing work and listened to it on the bike home. I really didn't like it at first, I thought it was ridiculously dull and didn't sound good at all. I left it well alone for 2/3 months before giving it another go......and I loved it after that.

There are some brilliant songs on there and they link up so well. Whether it's the singles from the album, such as "Always," "I Miss You" and "Feeling This," or the ones you will probably have not heard of unless you've own it, such as "I'm Lost Without You," you will be hooked on the songs. It is as near perfect as an album gets.

MUTTER by Rammstein

I first heard of Rammstein on the soundtrack to Mortal Kombat Annihilation in 1997 and found their style to be quite unusual, but an enjoyable unusual. Skip forward four years and I am really starting to get into my rock music, saw the album "Mutter" on the shelf and bought it.

Instantly I was hooked to the German lyrics, even though I had absolutely no idea what was being said but I loved. Songs such as "Links 2 3 4," and "Ich Will" still feature on my list of favourite songs and all around the album has an excellent array of songs, all of which get the heart racing, with the exception of the closest thing they have to a ballad on the album, the title song of "Mutter".

Skip forward another 10 years and I have five Rammstetin albums but none have even come close to being as good as "Mutter" ..... although "Liebe ist fur alle da" (2009) has probably my favourite Rammstein song of them all, "Frühling in Paris".

To say how much I love this album, I once found it in my car snapped in half, the first thing I did was

Playing My Game - Lene Marlin

Those who know my usual music choices will be surprised that I have a Norweigan pop album in this list, but I do, so get used to it.

Lene Marlin was popular in the early part of this millennium but is largely unknown now. To be honest, I don't even remember why I bought this album, at the time I liked her, but not enough to buy her album, or so I thought, but then I needed something to listen to on the way to Mansfield, so went into the shop and bought this.

11 years on and I still love this album. There are a few typical poppy songs on there such as "Where I'm Headed," but there are also some beautiful acoustic songs on there and it's music you could just listen to in the bath and fall asleep because it makes you that relaxed. My personal favourite is called "Flown Away," a beautiful, slow tempoed song.

The real shame about this album is that it was her first and by far the best, the three albums that have followed have been largely disappointing in my opinion.

Thank You by Canterbury

Probably my favourite band at the moment is this four-peice from Basingstoke. I first heard of them when channel surfing after getting home from work. Their song "Gloria" instantly became one of my favourite songs and today I could still listen to that one song over and over again and not get bored.

Strangely that song isn't on this album but that doesn't make the album poor, quite the opposite infact. "Gloria" wouldn't really fit into "Thank You" as it's mainly fast past rock, although there are little, slower-paced gems on there such as "Hospital" and "Diver".

There are one or two songs on the album which I am not overly keen on, but for a debut album that hasn't been released on mass, it's very good, especially as you can get the entire album (and Gloria) for a free download off of http://www.canterburythankyou.com/.

I have seen Canterbury live and they are four of the most down to earth people you could ever meet. They're up for a laugh and their treatment of one of the support bands was hilarious, changing Not Advised's entrance music onto the stage to "YMCA", you should have seen the look on their faces, it was hilarious. I'm hoping to go and see them for a second time in a few weeks in Sheffield or Leeds.

They have since released two EPs and their second album gets released in the summer, hopefully it'll be as good as "Thank You".

HYBRID THEORY by Linkin Park

Before they sold out and started doing hip-hop songs with Jay-Z and others, I had a lot of respect for Linkin Park. They were probably the first band I ever fell in love with this was probably the first album I ever loved. As far as a debut mainstream album goes, this was near enough perfect.

You don't get an entrance to the album which "eases" you in, you're just straight in there with two of their singles straight away, "Papercut" and "One Step Closer." It doesn't ease up either with the voices of Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington bellowing in your ears, but bellowing brilliance.

On an album of 12 songs, there's only one which I don't like and some of them again feature in my Top 100 songs of all time list. My parents also used to hate this album because I would play "Crawling" at loud volumes, and let's put it this way, it's not a song that the older generation will like.

It's such a shame that they sold out because had it not been for that, I would probably still love them as much as I used to. I do still like a few of their songs that they release every now and then though.