1. Michael JacksonDangerous

Michael Jackson was the first cassette that I took into my room and made mine. The reason I put side B down was because I didn’t know how a tape player worked, so I just thought the album was side B. I was five at this point. I haven’t listened to this for 20 years but I remember it really clearly more than anything as my first musical experience. Having only heard half the album, until my sister told me how to flip it over, always made it more of an interesting experience because not only is all music when you’re that age just the most mental thing but also that there’s some sort of physical aspect to interacting with it; and one that seemingly was elusive to me at the time.

One thing that made me want to put this in was the track ‘Give Into Me’. It’s quite dark and melancholic and Slash plays a guitar solo on it, which was kind of mind-blowing. There’s also guitar feedback right at the end and that sound scared the living shit out of me. It was the first non-musical musical sound I’d ever heard. That must have put something in my brain in terms of thinking about those sorts of sounds. It just shot through me. You can’t really trade those formative experiences, can you? They’re totally by accident but they really set you on a path.