6. Tracy ChapmanTracy Chapman

I have this real image – for some reason – that it came out the summer I left prep school, and was going to public school. I was 13, and I remember playing it at a friend’s house – Benjamin – and I also have this image of me sitting in the bath listening to it on the cassette machine and having to wipe my hands when I changed the tape over. I thought it was a man to begin with, when I first heard ‘Fast Car’ on the radio. The a capella one, ‘Behind The Wall’, blew my mind. There’s not many records that are that concise as a piece of work, and it often happens when it’s a new artist because they’re not having to try so hard and they just come out with what they want. That record was a real moment, whatever that moment was.