13. Donald FagenKamakiriad

I’ve been a huge Steely Dan fan for many, many years and just lately I seem to be listening to a lot of Donald Fagen albums. I had to choose one, so I chose Kamakiriad but I’ve also been listening to Morph The Cat and Sunken Condos. I have them in my car on shuffle. He is just so incredibly inventive – that is what I love about his songwriting. He expands the idea of how a song should and could be – or how you write a song. It breaks boundaries and gives you new places to go in your head about creating a song. I love the quirky vocals. Again, a bit like Joe Strummer; I’m always amazed that he hits the notes because the quirkiness of his voice doesn’t sound like a quintessentially great singer – although of course he is. In the same way that Joe Strummer was, or Elvis Costello is. He goes to extremely unusual places lyrically – really leftfield, beyond where normal songwriters go. I love that – he goes where others fear to tread.