The team at What Hi-Fi? are all pretty big music fans – which hopefully doesn’t come as a huge surprise given our ongoing mission to find the best audio hardware to make tracks truly shine.
This is why we love chatting to our colleagues across the office on the music desk about the latest albums we’re streaming, gigs we have coming up and, in keeping with this week’s theme, vinyl records we’re hankering after.
So to help celebrate our special Vinyl Week event leading up to Record Store Day this Saturday 12th April, we asked 10 of the big-name music journalists we share an office with which albums they treasure most – and the answers were revealing.
Ranging from original pressings of classic prog albums to rare greatest hits collections, our colleagues have all amassed quite a library. But, of that vast pile, these are the records they covet most.
Dave Greenslade & Patrick Woodroffe – The Pentateuch Of The Cosmogony
The 1979 collaboration between Greenslade keyboard player Dave Greenslade and fantasy artist, the late Patrick Woodroffe, The Pentateuch Of The Cosmogony (the first five books of creation, apparently) became something of a holy grail amongst my musically literate friends.
An expansive hard-back book, swathed in rich illustrations, and a double album of instrumental music to boot. Nothing seemed to sum prog rock up more than this wonderful folly of a release.
It came out in 1979, with new wave raging at the time, and apparently sunk without trace (of course!). I finally tracked a copy down in a second-hand record store somewhere a long time ago and was delighted with my find.
Full disclosure: I’ve not listened to it in years. It has lain gathering dust in my vinyl vaults 'til unearthed for this. Might give it a spin now – apparently Phil Collins plays drums on it…
Motörhead – No Sleep 'til Hammersmith (40th anniversary)
Ask any Motörhead fan and they'll tell you live is where the band truly came, erm, alive. The band's only number one on the UK, No Sleep 'til Hammersmith remains probably the definitive document of Britain's – possibly even the world's – greatest rock'n'roll band.
But amidst the squall of feedback, there's a sense that CD is just too clinical – don't even get me started on MP3s – meaning …Hammersmith on vinyl isn't just the superior version of that record, it's the only choice for the discerning music fan. Alas, it’s also the closest we can get now to the inimitable thunder they could bring to bear at every gig.
I already owned a particularly dog-eared copy of the album when I spotted the shiny new boxset sitting on the table at my favourite record store.
The album technically hadn’t come out yet – I was a day early and it was only sitting there to be processed as it had been delivered that morning – but, like Wayne Campbell, I knew it would be mine.
Sure enough, I walked away with that regal boxset like the cat who got the cream – best £80-odd I’ve ever spent. Well, other than on Motörhead tickets.
- Buy Motörhead, No Sleep 'til Hammersmith (40th anniversary) on Amazon
- Stream Motörhead, No Sleep 'til Hammersmith (40th anniversary) Tidal
Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory
I live in a flat, so I try to keep my vinyl collection small – not easy! Linkin Park's 20th anniversary edition of Hybrid Theory is housed in a massive box – complete with CDs, DVDs, a cassette and a photobook – but it's my absolute favourite.
As a teenager in the nu metal era, Hybrid Theory was truly formative for me, and remains a go-to comfort record. Although I'm still hugely sad about the loss of lead singer Chester Bennington, his legacy lives on, as countless bands I love today have been inspired by this debut.
The Sheepdogs – Changing Colours
During the pandemic, to make weekends feel a bit more 'weekend-y', my partner and I began making cocktails and playing records on Friday evenings.
I'd started buying vinyl about when I joined Classic Rock full-time, so my collection includes a lot of albums I've become attached to through work. Some got played obsessively during those vodka-ed up lockdown Fridays, bringing light and definition to a strange period.
Of them all, though, this double LP by Canadian rock'n'rollers The Sheepdogs feels like a true celebration of the format.
Thoughtfully sequenced over three sides – with a gorgeous, colourful gatefold jacket and sleeve art that still makes me happy when I open it (i.e. often) – it's bursting with lovingly crafted fun, nuance and transportive moments. Not a dud track in sight.
Mother Love Bone – Apple
This was nearly an impossible ask! And there's every chance I'd pick a different 'most cherished' vinyl if you asked me tomorrow.
In the end it came down to a toss up between my blue vinyl The Replacements Let It Be LP and the one I finally chose – my original copy of Mother Love Bone's Apple.
Bought on the day of release, which the internet tells me was July 19, 1990, from my local record shop – the long gone, much lamented Dominion Records – this album probably marked the beginning of my major obsession with the music scene in the Pacific North West. Which, in turn, is more or less how I ended up doing this kinda thing for a living.
My copy is beyond knackered – it’s an album I adore and I played it to death. I still do. Crackles and scratches be damned…
Metallica – Master Of Puppets (1987, Direct Metal Mastered, 45rpm)
Mick Wall's KKKKK review of Master Of Puppets was the lead review in the first issue of Kerrang! magazine I ever bought, and the San Francisco band's third album became the first record I ever bought.
It's still my favourite metal album, so I own it on vinyl, on cassette, on CD, and in a fancy box set, with a classy accompanying book... then got eight bands to record it anew for Kerrang!'s 20th anniversary.
But, annoyingly, my 1987 DMM copy of the record – two records, actually, as Music For Nations reissued it as a double album, playing at 45rpm – inexplicably went AWOL from my parents' home in Ireland at some point after I moved to London.
So sentimentality, and a generous book deal to co-write a two volume Metallica biography, meant I sought out a replacement on eBay a decade ago.
Worth its stupid price tag for Orion alone, to be honest, and for that Ross Halfin photo taken at 3132 Carlson Blvd, El Cerrito, California where they looked like the coolest band in the world to me as a teenager, and changed my life forever.
Soundgarden – King Animal
Considering the daft amounts of money I have often parted with in order to score a rare record on import, it’s not lost on me that my most treasured one of all was actually free.
While he was on holiday, my great friend and fellow journalist James Hickie bought me a copy of Soundgarden’s comeback album King Animal at a New York show. It was already special to me: an album that marked the return of one of my favourite bands after a long, long hiatus.
But thanks to James, this version actually also has all four members of Soundgarden’s signatures adorning the beautiful sleeve. When Chris Cornell tragically passed away in 2017, I spent a long time just holding and looking at it. And I still do to this day.
The Doors – L.A. Woman
This decision was a tough one. Should I opt for something that has been with me for years, or a more current album that has inspired me?
The short list included Plini’s Sunhead, a jazz/fusion/metal EP which pushes me as a guitarist, or Brian Eno’s Music Apollo, which has inspired many of my ambient creations which led me to write about synthesisers.
But heart and history won out, with L.A. Woman by The Doors, which has been the soundtrack to everything in my life from young romances, long sessions at my desk, discovering I’m a (half) decent musician, to simply being the backdrop to a contemplative evening.
Nothing, for me, beats Riders On The Storm, for any situation.
Deadmau5 – Random Album Title
Unavailable on vinyl for well over a decade – and I didn't actually own a record player during its original run – one of the greatest edm albums ever finally made its way back to wax last year with a lovely, blazing red disc glow-up.
I didn't so much as pause to blink before ordering my copy once it came on sale, and it was worth the hefty transatlantic postage costs. Mixed in its original format, genre classics such as I Remember and Arguru sound as warm, vibrant and propulsive as ever.
A true Desert Island Disc for me – and now I actually have one to take with me!
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – The Live Anthology
Tom Petty is recognised as one of the greatest songwriters of the past 50 years, with numerous chart hits on both sides of the Atlantic to his name.
Some of his albums, though, haven’t dated well, weighed down by at-the-time trendy, ornate or clunky production (sorry, Jeff Lynne).
The Live Anthology strips all that away, allowing jewels such as Breakdown, Mary Jane’s Last Dance and Runnin’ Down A Dream to be pared back and rejuvenated by Petty and the Heartbreakers, self-professed as “America's Greatest Rock 'N' Roll Band”.
The tracklisting packs in the hits alongside well-chosen covers like Green Onions and Oh Well. The vinyl set is the definition of comprehensive – 7 LPs and a book. It is superbly designed and not available on all streaming platforms.
Highlight is a sublimely placed, perfectly mixed It’s Good To Be King. When the time comes, I very much hope they bury me with this set.
- Shop for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Live Anthology on Discogs
- Listen to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Live Anthology on Spotify
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