You've seen my favourite movies...now here's my top 10 favourite albums!

1. Oasis – (WHAT’S THE STORY) MORNING GLORY? (1995)

This was the first album I ever owned (but please don’t ask me what the first album I ever BOUGHT was…lol, that one I’m taking to my grave), and over the years my love for it has only gotten greater as I've grown up. Noel, Liam and the boys crafted an album that’s one glorifying anthem after another – “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Champagne Supernova,” the single that should have been but never was, “She’s Electric.” If I went on, I’d end up mentioning every track on the album. And you can throw “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Under the Bridge” or “November Rain” at me, but for me “Wonderwall” was THE song of the nineties. With this masterpiece, the Gallaghers proved they deserve to be as arrogant as they are. Perfection. The best album of all time.

2. KISS – GREATEST KISS (1996)

KISS have to be one of the top five bands in music history, in my opinion. They’re so enigmatic, yet so in your face (if that makes a bit of sense) and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are the most underrated songwriting duo in music history, Peter Criss is one of rock’s most robust and talented drummers and very, very few can make a guitar talk quite as well as Ace Frehley can (his probable Nazi sympathies aside). There’s not one song here that’s less than awesome. All in all, the perfect example of how enjoyable glam-rock can be.

3. The Beatles – THE BEATLES 1 (2000)

Look, I know by rights I should cite one of the studio albums (of which I have three – "Revolver," "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "The White Album" – in my collection, in my defence) but for me this album represents the mythology of the Fab Four. And indeed together they were incapable of writing a bad song. This is a whole “Greatest Hits of the ’60s” album in itself, and the youth of today can discover "The Beatles 1" and go away knowing exactly why they remain the biggest-selling act in the history of recorded music.

4. AC/DC – BACK IN BLACK (1980)

Arguably the biggest comeback in rock history, with this knockout AC/DC did what so many other successful groups (like Nirvana, T-Rex and The Doors) could not: they picked themselves up after the death of their lead singer and only improved. "Back in Black" is everything a rock album should be: short, loud, brimming with attitude and featuring riffs that every guitarist wishes they wrote themselves. And it was the album Kurt Cobain used to teach himself how to play the guitar.

5. Bon Jovi – SLIPPERY WHEN WET (1986)

The big hair aside, "Slippery When Wet" is like a recorded museum of pop-metal and power ballad classics. There’s probably only one album that can make one raise their fists in the air more, and that's Back in Black. But "Slippery" is still a fine example of a truly great rock album. “You Give Love a Bad Name” is the song almost every guy plays to his ex-lover after they’ve dumped or cheated on him, “Livin’ on a Prayer” is my second-favourite song of all time (after “Hey Jude”) and “Wanted Dead or Alive,” a country rock anthem the Eagles would be proud of, features a lyric that fully sums up the incredible frontman who is Jon Bon Jovi: “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all.” You certainly have, Jon.

6. Michael Jackson – THRILLER (1982)

Has anybody ever given something else the crown of “Best Pop Album of All Time” over "Thriller"? This album’s brilliance is such that it continues to override MJ’s other erratic endeavours. If this was the eighties, I’d contemplate not even bothering listening to side two of the vinyl version because (as wonderful as “Human Nature,” “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” and “The Lady in My Life”all are) everything between “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and “Billie Jean” makes tracks seven through nine seem superfluous. This won eight Grammys and has outsold every other music album ever released for a reason. And even for the ’80s that lit-up sidewalk is just so cool.

7 (TIE.) Good Charlotte – THE CHRONICLES OF LIFE AND DEATH (2004)

This is no doubt going to stop many people reading further (laughs) but they’re entitled to dislike GC if they choose to. While "The Young and the Hopeless" was the one album that really spoke to me and got me through a very hard time in my early life i.e. the negatives of puberty (and I know how pathetic that sounds, by the way (laughs)), "The Chronicles of Life and Death" tops their previous effort with its much darker tone and songs with more painfully honest subject matter. Plus, it reminds me of a lot happy times and defining moments in my life. But Joel, Benji, Paul or Billy (if any of you are actually reading this – fat chance), why didn’t you guys release “The Truth” as a single?

7 (TIE.) Green Day – AMERICAN IDIOT (2004)

Possibly the biggest rock comeback since "Back in Black," "American Idiot" helped Billie Joe, Mike and Tré gather a whole new army of young fans (like myself, to a certain extent) and with it they pulled the rug out from underneath the feet of practically every new band that burst onto the scene since Green Day's 2000 release "Warning:." With genius tracks like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Holiday,” “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” (Billie Joe’s finest hour, period) “Jesus of Suburbia” and the title track Green Day nailed the inner feelings of 21st century youth and made political statements that helped to prove that protest music is more potent than ever. Sid Vicious would be proud. And does it not feature one of the coolest album covers ever?

9. Nirvana – NEVERMIND (1991)

I feel so predictable citing this because almost every person born between 1968 and 1993 would put it on their lists. Just as "(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?" defined the Britpop movement in the UK in the nineties, "Nevermind" of course defined the Seattle Sound. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”…has there ever been an album with a better opening track? And for the first time in decades, with "Nevermind" arrived a musician who was just messianistic. In death, wherever his music is played Kurt Cobain continues to touch disenfranchised young people who are saved by his music and a lot of them have subsequently been inspired to pick up guitars themselves. Believe the hype.

10. James Blunt – BACK TO BEDLAM (2005)

This is probably going to alarm a few people (laughs). Again this inclusion has much to do with nostalgia (indeed the first time I heard “You’re Beautiful” it struck a very deep chord with me) but that nostalgia aside, I think this is the perfect album to listen to just before one goes to bed (I very rarely actually play it then, mind you, but it’s brilliant any time of day). It’s not boring, but it just puts you in a really calm, sedate mood. James has such a childlike but nonetheless powerful falsetto that it makes his singing about such dark adult themes to be really trippy. Lovely.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Eminem – THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP (2000)
Various Artists – FORREST GUMP: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE (1994)
Elton John - GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD (1973)
The Beatles – SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1967)
AC/DC – HIGHWAY TO HELL (1979)
Nickelback – SILVER SIDE UP (2001)
Good Charlotte – THE YOUNG AND THE HOPELESS (2002)
U2 – THE JOSHUA TREE (1987)
Guns n’ Roses – APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION (1987)
Bruce Springsteen – BORN IN THE U.S.A. (1984)
Alanis Morissette – JAGGED LITTLE PILL (1995)