Amanda Lear ‘Sweet Revenge’ (Ariola, 1978)

Thick as thieves Beastie Boys’ compatriot Money Mark is perhaps best known for his eclectic 1998 album ‘Push The Button’, but his earlier debut, ‘Mark’s Keyboard Repair’, was really where it’s at

For some reason, at the tail end of last year, the song ‘So Alive’ got lodged in my head.

It was overlooked when it came out in 1997. It remains overlooked now. But Sluts’n’Strings & 909’s ‘Carrera’ album is the musical equivalent of an enormous chest brimming with sparkly and glittery things

It’s 1996, Britpop is all-seeing and Rough Trade couldn’t give a hoot.

An album can be revelatory in any number of ways. Perhaps it arrives at the right time in your life to be particularly resonant, or it might reveal a whole area of music you didn’t realise existed.

Since the huge commercial success of Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ movies, it’s been easy to forget the significance of the JRR Tolkien novel to the 1960s counterculture hippies.