Answer these in relation to your top 25:

1. What was the first song you ever heard by 6? Ha, The Smashing Pumpkins. I can't remember. I do remember hearing Disarm on the radio when I was little. I was aware of them even before I got into them properly.

2. What is your favourite album by 2? Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Ease Down the Road.

3. What is your favourite lyric that 1 has sung? The National. The lyrics to "About Today", probably. I'm too lazy to try and single out a line.

4. How many times have you seen…

Live at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland, on the 12th of April, 2006, is the single most moving version of this song I've ever heard, and this is saying a LOT.

I love Will Oldham because he's so movingly human, so flawed. Everything about him screams, "I've made mistakes and I'll make them again, but this is my life." And his voice, his voice fills more space than what you'd first think there was to fill. It gets inside you, all the way to the marrow of your bones.

This part in specific has always been my favourite bit of the…

Ah… what The Smiths have achieved in this song is capture adolescence. They've perfectly nailed down that feeling - not the feeling you laugh at a few years down the road, but… the other one. A feeling of such intensity as you may never experience again. Huge and overly dramatic and maddening, yes, but… rightly so. Genuinely so. And it stays with you, and it makes you who you are.

I don't at all regret the way my life as turned out, but this songs fills me with longing for things that haven't been, for chances missed, for things that…

I've noticed that last.fm has changed the way I listen to music ever-so-slightly. I tend to go back and pick up my old favourites, because I don't like to look at my charts week after week and see they have no place in them.

And yet, this is a mistake, because I can't really equate most-listened with favourite. Neutral Milk Hotel are one of those bands that will never rank hight on my charts, and yet they are one of my favourite bands in the world.

The reason is simple - listening to them stirs my emotions in such a…

I've got two sets of headphones
I miss you like hell

Sometimes I forget how much I love a certain album, or a certain band. This song, "Friend of Mine"… I had almost forgotten it existed. But I love the pleasure of rediscovery - it's as good as falling in love with a band for the very first time.

This album, Alligator, reminds me of being lost. It reminds me of desperate September days during which I'd play it exhaustively. But that only adds to it, really.