My CD collection

Only the greatest compilation album ever made. This was a Christmas gift from my SIL, who clearly knows me very well. I love it!!

A gateway electronica album for teenage me. Also probably the most French thing I own. This is still pretty great imo. I think the kids need to rediscover Air.

Bought this one entirely because I had a week where I was absolutely obsessed with "Pure Shores", which is an all-time great pop song. "I Know Where It's At" is good too too, but honestly some of the other stuff on here is a bit ropey (I had somehow memory-holed that cover of "Under the Bridge").

An all-timer. It's hard not to feel sad about what happened to Amy every time I listen to this – definitely one of a kind.

Album art goes crazy hard

Arguably my favourite B-52s album! So many great songs on this.

One of my favourite albums of all time. I will never shut up about how good this is.

Considering how popular they are, it is weirdly hard to find Beatles albums at charity shops, and they go for more than expected on eBay. But I loved this film as a kid so this was an easy grab.

Foundational album of my youth. Beck's run from this to Guero should be studied.

Sometimes my favourite Beck album. I love sleaze!!!

Sometimes my favourite Beck album, and still a go-to for sadgirl hours.

I'd fallen off listening to Beck by the time this album came out, so it's kind of funny this is the one that won all the Grammys. The record store provideth.

My second favourite live album. I love Bill's monologue about his grandma. Also the version of "Use Me" on this is just incredible.

Better than Oasis. Not as good as Pulp. I was never a massive Blur fan but I think every song on this compilation is a good song and I would emotionally sing along to several of them with a crowd.

It turns out the UK version of this has some differences to the US one, which is what I previously listened to. So I was a bit confused (and disappointed) to get "Madame Zzaj" instead of "Mizz Bed-Stuy", but even with that it's still a great album.

A modern classic. There is no way this wouldn't end up in my collection.

My favourite album of 2025! I love it so muchhhh. There is a 75% chance of me crying every time I listen to "Lord, Let That Tesla Crash".

Case got smashed to fuck in shipping 😭 Lost a few auctions for this one as it's definitely in demand. Probably because it's fucking great

Foundational album of my youth and (imo) criminally underrated beyond the hit single. Still love this.

Impulse buy before I had even bought a CD player (and look where I am now, uh oh). Arguably the best album of 2024 for me. "Sicko" in particular really gives me that transcending-my-body feeling. Also holy shit check out that cover art

Major nostalgia album. My parents used to have this on all the time.

Hadn't listened to this for almost two decades so it was fun to revisit. Some swings, some misses.

Not actually the best of Carly Simon. But certainly some of the best of Carly Simon.

So gutting that this ended up being D'Angelo's final album. But holy hell, what an album.

How fucking good was Rachel Nagy's voice????

Gets stuck in my head every time I take the National Express.

One of the more expensive used CDs in my collection but 100% worth it. This Latin mix is so good - incredibly smooth and groovy with a focus on the drums. I've listened to this an untold number of times and never gotten bored.

Foundational album of my youth. Crazy how good this is – not a single skippable track in the whole bunch. Also remains the perfect album for Monday mornings. I think my copy is the original US CD release from the 80s, manufactured in Japan (have I begun caring about such things?? oh no) so due to the age there is a slight skip on "I'm Not Angry", which is a shame.

Heard this playing in a bagel shop and was reminded of how incredible an album it was. 1997 was a great year for music, huh?

This album was huge for me as a teenager. I used to walk around listening to it on repeat and obsessing over the first season of Battlestar Galactica and now the two things are inextricably linked in my head.

I mean, it's Rumours. I have nothing new to say about this lol

One of my favourite albums of 2025. Love the album art too!

Getdown Services really excel at combining a groove with lyrics so stupid that they become genius. How else am I supposed to get "It smells like poo in here, everyone's dressed like Doctor fucking Who in here" stuck in my head? Also "Biscuit Tin" is the best song about landlords since the Dead Kennedys. "All your weird kids lined up behind like you've been shoplifting down the haunted crèche". Fucking get 'em lads!!!

Two EPs, one CD. "Dog Dribble" is the song that got me into this band and still the first song I'll recommend to anyone interested in them. But both EPs are good! "I form a perfect chrysalis..... and then I fill it with piss"

Honestly one of the albums I see most in charity shops for some reason. Apparently everyone and their mum bought this album in 2006 and then got rid of it.

Basically perfect. A foundational album of my youth and still one I love deeply. Desert island disc contender.

First off: incredible name for an album (extra lol for following it up with Son of Schmilsson too). I kept thinking I needed to get into more Harry Nilsson, and then I found this and listened to it, and now I really need to get into more Nilsson. Great album. I love Louis Jordan so I was delighted to find a really good cover of "Early in the Morning" on here. My copy was a weird re-issue from 2000, so it has a bunch of bonus demos but also all the printing looks incredibly low rent. (Honestly I never really want bonus tracks on my CDs. I kinda just want the album as it originally was.)

Question that applies to basically every song on this album: is it a bop, or is it a personal attack? Both, usually. I never really got into Paramore but I really like this, so maybe I should.

One of my favourite albums of 2025. Came with a little photo signed by JADE herself, ooh fancy

I remember listening to The ArchAndroid for the first time when it came out and just being like... holy fucking shit, who is this??? Janelle Monaé is a true original and still incredibly cool, but I think this album remains my favourite. (I was also lucky enough to see them live for this tour and it was incredible!)

The incredible Prince collab on this album being unavailable on streaming for years is a perfect argument for physical media tbh

Love this album. Also, great cover art. Have to admit the classic Kate Beaton "Nasty" comic put me onto this, lmao

BE SWEET TO ME BABY~

Not as good as Jubilee for me, but the one-two punch of "Honey Water" and "Mega Circuit" is perfection and makes me go ouuaghghhghahgha every time.

When I was a teenager Jenny Lewis seemed like the coolest woman alive. And honestly she still kinda does. I accidentally bought two copies of this lol

Such a fun album. I will sing along to "Dime Store Cowgirl" every time.

Just gorgeous. "Slow Burn" is a perfect album opener.

None of Kali Uchis's other albums have quite clicked for me, but I absolutely love this one. Just banger after banger. "After the Storm" is my favourite.

I don't look back fondly on much 00s UK indie but this album is an exception. Some really good hooks. Also Ricky Wilson put in a solid effort on Catchphrase and I respect that

I mostly know Keely Smith for her collaborations with Louis Prima (which I love) so was excited to get my hands on some of her solo stuff. Love her voice.

Incredibly basic opinion but: this is probably the best rap album of all time.

Hot take: I don't like "Mr Brightside" and there are much better songs elsewhere on this album.

Peak Gaga tbh. There are a few songs on here I'd cut (I do not want "How Bad Do U Want Me") but man are the rest bops.

Synth-pop banger. Given the popularity of sapphic pop at the moment, I think this album is way overdue for some reappreciation.

A foundational album of my childhood, although the copy we had was a burnt gift from someone else, and they inexplicably left the first two tracks off. So for years I thought this opened with "Ex-Factor" and it still feels kinda wrong hearing "Lost Ones" instead (even though that's also good).

This album is an instant time warp to summer 2006 (for better or for worse).

10/10 perfection, a genuine contender for my favourite hip-hop album. Criminally underappreciated imo.

Mostly bought this for "On & On" (which I adore).

Honestly had not listened to this before buying it but picked it up on reputation alone (and also from having "Perfect Day" stuck in my head after watching the film Perfect Days). Glad I did as it's pretty great.

I love Mag Bay so much!!! Honestly impossible for me to pick a winner between this and Imaginal Disk. Both are great. Also all the music videos for this album are great and I highly recommend checking them out.

Obviously had to have this on CD. I mean, it's in the title. For all the pop hype going on in 2024, this was still the best of the lot. Just so fucking cool. I fell in love the first time I heard "Killing Time" and have never fallen out of it.

Seller informed me this was an original pressing, oooOOoooOooooh. I have no idea if that's impressive or not.

omg BANGER CENTRAL 🔥🔥🔥

I was OBSESSED with this album when I was fifteen. "Third Planet" still goes pretty hard!

Another one that my mum used to have on all the time. This isn't commonly available on streaming so it's nice to have a physical copy. I think it's lovely.

I'd never heard of Nancy White but this has great packaging (the song listing on the back is made of individual fruit stickers!) and it was 50p. Am I on to a hidden gem? I guess I'll find out when I get around to listening to it.

I definitely owned this as a teenager but I have no idea what happened to that copy. Not as good as Whoa Nelly unfortunately!

One of my favourite albums of 2025.

All due respect to André 3000 but I totally bought this for Speakerboxxx. This album lived in my mum"s kitchen all throughout my teenage years because my mum has cooler taste in music than I do.

Just a fun-ass album. Saw them live in 2025 as well and they rocked.

Honestly I have never watched this movie. But this CD was in the British Heart Foundation shop, which generally has nothing beyond Take That's entire discography, and the Philip Glass soundtrack for a Paul Shrader biopic about an unhinged Japanese fascist just seemed like a hilarious thing for them to have in the middle of all that. Peak impulse buy but whatever, it was £1.

Somewhere there is a video of me as a toddler going absolutely nuts to "Fiesta".

looool you know this was my shit as a teenager. Sadgirl music with Jenny Lewis features, obviously I am there.

I felt incredibly cool listening to this back when I was in school. And I still do

Still my favourite Pulp album. As noted elsewhere, I love sleaze.

My favourite Rilo Kiley album. So many songs on this still blow me away every time I listen, especially "Does He Love You?", "The Absence of God" and "A Man/Me/Then Jim". "And I say there's trouble when everything is fine/The need to destroy things creeps up on me every time" has been rolling around in my head for more than two decades now.

"Gone Gone Gone" kept getting stuck in my head, and then this showed up on sale for a pound. Fate!!!

As a teenager I owned an alarm clock CD player and this was in heavy rotation, so I regularly woke up to "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk". There are worse starts to the day.

A better album than Short 'n' Sweet imo, even if the singles aren't as good. One of my favourites from 2025. I am obsessed with the whipcrack sounds on "Nobody"s Son".

Picked this up because Nelson sings on several songs on Massive Attack's Blue Lines, which I love. I hadn't listened to her solo stuff before but I enjoyed this. Amazing voice.

Discovered this band through a compilation CD I randomly purchased from a charity shop, loved the song I heard, then picked this up a few weeks later. Finding new music entirely through CDs, woohoo! Anyway it turns out this album is actually rather different to the song I'd heard previously - at this point Sidestepper was mostly just one producer rather than a full band, so Southern Star is an interesting mix of salsa and dub. But I really enjoyed this album and I think I'll come back to it a lot.

A gift from a family member. Actually one of my first exposures to The Simpsons as we didn't have TV at home. However I did love comedy songs so I loved this.

Some of us were into "Murder on the Dancefloor" the first time it was popular. Some of us.... are old

Got into this guy because of The Wire, lol. Still hard not to go HELL YEAH every time I listen to "Copperhead Road".

Purchased because I saw a play that used "Golden Brown" heavily and it was stuck in my head for months after.

This was still brand new and fully wrapped when I found it. Lucky pull!

Sufjan has been my boy for twenty years now (I should really have more of his albums tbh) but this is my favourite work of his. Just rip my heart out and feed it through a paper shredder!!!

Love love love this.

One of the best albums of the 2010s imo. SZA's voice and songwriting are both stunning.

I currently have two copies of this because I bought one off eBay and then I received another copy as a gift less than a month later. This is fine with me because it's a great album. I don't mind some slight disorder!

Clearly the greatest live album ever recorded. Arguably just one of the greatest albums full stop. An easy desert island disc for me.

Just fuckin rules

I discovered this album years ago after hearing "Cocktails for Three" and fell in love with it. This is such a unique collection of songs, and I love both the more typical country head-nodders ("Amarillo Highway") and the ones that are far more off-beat and unexpected. Allen's writing is wry and poignant, and it's hard not to fall for the flawed characters his music creates. Even if you don't like country, you should check this one out. It's an all-timer.

Probably the best album about loving anime, jacking off and wishing you were your cat.

My mum had a Tom Jones compilation when I was growing up. It wasn't this one but it was very similar. Mr Jones's music is the purest of cheese and I really enjoy it, even "The Young New Mexican Puppeteer", which is an abomination.

Honestly I had never listened to this before buying it but I had heard it was a famously good album. And it is pretty good.

Maaaybe my favourite Viagra Boys album?? It's this or Street Worms. Anyway this album goes unbelievably hard and it's phsyically impossible for me to put it on and not end up dancing around my kitchen whisper-screaming about shrimp, so shoutout to Henrik Höckert on that bass (or is there some sort of connection to my ADD?). I have to admit I sometimes skip "Creepy Crawlers" because it stresses me out. Also, spiritually, I feel that this is part of the Conner O'Malley cinematic universe... the vibes are in alignment. LEAVE SOCIETY. BE A MONKEY.

Another amazing Christmas gift from my SIL, and one of my favourite albums of 2025! "Years ago, on the plains of North America, there weren't no rules about nothing and you could pay a guy to get his horse to stomp you on the head" is my favourite lyric of the year and I am not sure what that says about me.

I will be honest and say I absolutely hate this band's name lmao. But I like their music a lot. Had a phase where I listened to "Piece of Shit" like 50 times in a week, not sure what was going on with me there but I'm sure it was fine. This CD came in a tiny case for some reason, basically just a little card sleeve.

Put your mouth to miIne, give me CPR! Aphex Twin-ass cover (complimentary)

Another foundational album of my youth. However the copy we used to have was a burnt CD and the track order was completely reversed, so the regular order now sounds weird to me.

My excuses: it was £1, and "Miami" is a stone-cold banger.

I'd forgotten just how much I ran this album into the ground back when I was a student. A lot of the songwriting here is pretty salty. I used to sit around listening to this when I was feeling bitter about something and then I would feel less alone in my bitterness. I like the sax!

Bless my parents for putting up with my nonsense. I still love at least half of these songs though.

An outrageously stacked compilation. Peel had taste. Does seem kind of wild to put together a tribute to him and not include "Teenage Kicks", but "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It)" is an acceptable Undertones substitute.

Literally went "yesssss!" out loud when I found this.

My success with Volume got me to take a chance on another random new releases compilation. This one didn't even have a case, just a thin card sleeve. I hadn't heard of most of these artists before, nor of Sputnik 7 (although googling it led me to a Variety article from 2000 that referred to it as "the cool teen-friendly site", which sounded promising). This turned out to be a very eclectic mix – rock, country, cumbia, electronica, hip-hop and more. They're not all winners but there's some good stuff on here, with Sidestepper's "Hoy Tenemos" being the standout for me. (The tracklist does get several of the artist names wrong though lol)

I have an entire page about Volume with more thoughts on these.

I have an entire page about Volume with more thoughts on these.

I have an entire page about Volume with more thoughts on these.

I have an entire page about Volume with more thoughts on these.

I have an entire page about Volume with more thoughts on these.

This is another one my mum had. A lot of these tracks are hard to find on streaming now, which is a shame as this compilation absolutely rips.