Andrew Gilhooley's Blog

I’m starting off 2026 with a re-post of a series of albums I picked for a Facebook challenge a few years ago. The challenge was to choose 20 albums that had made an impact on me. The original challenge was to post an album a day for 20 days; here I am going to present them five at a time. For each album I mention, I’m including a YouTube link to a track from that album so you can get a taste of the music.

Day 1/20 – First off is “Pipedream” by Alan Hull, his first and arguably best solo album. This was released in 1973, during a time when Lindisfarne had disbanded following a disappointing response to their third album “Dingly Dell”.

I first heard this album when I was about 19 or 20; I was probably back home from college, and I borrowed a cassette of it from Newcastle Central Library. What impressed me about it was how emotionally raw the songs sounded, and the range of emotions in the songs. This is truly an album that will make you both laugh and cry. It is also one of those rare “perfect albums” where there isn’t a single song that you could point out as filler or “the weakest one on the album”. 

“Pipedream” would be one of my Desert Island Discs if the BBC ever invited me on the programme,  and would be a contender for my favourite album of all time. It was re-released on CD in 2005 with bonus tracks, so may still be available for the curious who still like to own physical copies of music.

Here’s “Song For a Windmill” from “Pipedream”.

Day 2/20 – Today I’m choosing “The Guitar and Other Machines” by the Durutti Column. I was introduced to this one by a friend at college 30+ years back, and at the time I had never heard anything quite like it before. 

One of the musical divides of the 1980s was whether you were a guitar band or a synth band, and the juxtaposition of real instruments and voices with sequenced elements was pretty novel for its day and still holds up magnificently today. 

Vini Reilly ended up being a big influence on me musically and, while his health is not so good these days so he has retired from recording and performing, the Durutti Column has an impressive back catalogue to explore.

Here’s “Bordeaux Sequence” from “The Guitar and Other Machines”.

Day 3/20 – Today’s choice is “Remote Control” by The Tubes from 1979. I either bought this one or got it as a Christmas or birthday present after buying the single “Prime Time”, which sniffed around the bottom of the UK Top 40 when it was released.

“Remote Control” introduced me to the joys of the concept album, where all the songs told, or at the very least hinted at, a story. In this case, the story is about a man addicted to television who slowly loses the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. I suppose today they would have written their album about the internet and social media. As someone once said, history may not always repeat itself but it often rhymes.

Here’s “TV is King” from “Remote Control”.

4/20 – For today’s choice in the 20-albums-20-days list I am going to go for “Music from ‘The Elder’” by Kiss from 1981, as it was the album that made me a Kiss fan. A friend brought this one round to my house back when it was their latest album, and it hooked me because, wait for it, it’s a concept album!

Wait, Kiss doing a concept album? Really? Actually yes. There was even supposed to be a film adaptation in the works. You see, as the 1980s dawned, Kiss was a band in transition. Original drummer Peter Criss did not play on their 1980 album “Unmasked”, left the band and was replaced by Eric Carr. Facing declining popularity, Kiss needed to try something different in an effort to regain relevance. Inspired by the huge popularity of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, they thought a concept album was the way to go, hence “The Elder”.

The album tells the story of… umm… an epic battle between good and evil, or something, but that didn’t matter because young me thought it was bloody great! Unfortunately the critics didn’t agree, nor did a lot of fans, as the sound and overall vibe was just too different from previous Kiss albums. Unsurprisingly, the proposed film adaptation of the story sunk without a trace. The band also largely disowned the album until recent years, when fans began to see it in a more kindly light. 

Original guitarist Ace Frehley’s was disillusioned with the band’s choice to do a concept album, and his contributions to “The Elder” are minimal. He left Kiss in 1982.

An independent film of “The Elder”, unaffiliated with the band, was started in 2011 by author and film maker Seb Hunter, but once again the project fizzled out.

“The Elder” is quite unlike anything Kiss ever did before or since, so it’s an interesting glimpse of a unique moment in the band’s history and definitely worth a listen!

Here’s the music video for “A World Without Heroes” from “The Elder”.

5/20 – For day 5, I am going to choose Suzanne Vega’s eponymous debut album from 1985.

What struck me most about this album when I first heard it (having previously seen Vega give a mesmerizing solo performance on a TV show, I forget which one) was the simple, crystal clarity of her voice and guitar and the unobtrusive arrangements that allowed the stories in her songs to come through.

I saw her perform two years later on the tour for her second album “Solitude Standing” and once more about ten years after that, and she was a warm and engaging performer on both occasions.

I didn’t buy any more of her albums after the second, no particular reason why, but she has continued to tour and record to this day. One of the most distinctive voices of music in the 1980s, to listen to her debut album is to take an instant trip back in time to that era.

Here is “The Queen and the Soldier” from “Suzanne Vega”.