Maybe at At 3:33pm on 13th October, stop what you’re doing, sit back, relax and play an album of choice in full from start to finish. It could be rejoicing in your favourite album of all-time or selecting an album you’ve never heard before.
We want to see what your ultimate National Album Day album of choice is – let us know by using the hashtag #NationalAlbumDay and handle @AlbumDayUK and @rockshotmaga #rockshotmag
The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Cant We?
There are too many life defining albums to choose from, I could be here all week. For National Album Day I have chosen to share on The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Cant We? (1993) and the 1993 version, not the remastered one that came later with a...
National Album Day: Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins; the album that gave me the power to get through my teenage chaos years and forever find other ‘Pumpkin heads’ in life, making life long friends out of them. Back from the times when you actually listened to an entire album, from...
National Album Day: Bad by Michael Jackson
Bad was the very first album that I have a conscious memory of wanting to absorb in its entirety in the way that seems trivial these days; pouring over the fold out album booklet from my father’s cassette tape and consuming the videos on television over and over...
National Album Day: Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morrisette
An influential album that means so much to me, even after twenty-three years, is Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill. Morrisette’s trailblazing third studio album, and international debut, spoke to me. It was angry, urgent and directive, supplying a poetic...
National Album Day: Live Through This by Hole
For National Album Day we’ve chosen Live Through This by Hole. Maybe an obvious choice, but we’d rather be honest than cool. Iconic female rock stars were (and still are) sadly under represented in music. Courtney Love is the embodiment of a rock star, yet fiercely...
National Album Day: Solid Air by John Martin
Solid Air is an album that had me hooked from the opening few seconds on first listen. For me, John Martyn is (was) one of the finest songwriters out there. The way he captures raw emotion is staggering and songs like May You Never, Over The Hill and the title track...
National Album Day: Achtung Baby by U2
Yes, The Joshua Tree has the bigger hits, but U2's seventh studio album is a far more interesting prospect. Dark, tortured, experimental, it's the sound of a band who were trying to find their way, just a few years after Time magazine had called them "Rock's hottest...
National Album Day: Moving Pictures by Rush
In 1987, I was nineteen years old (please don’t work it out). On a warm summer’s night and after an extremely alcoholic trip out, my friend Stuart James put on Moving Pictures by Rush. I didn’t know what it was and I’d not really heard much Rush to that point. I had...
National Album Day: Low Slung Town by Beef
I have never met another person who owns this album, which is a terrible shame because it is one of the few albums from 1990 I still play from start to finish without cherry picking tracks. Beef, (not to be confused with a different band with the same name who started...
National Album Day: Amused To Death by Roger Waters
I remember sifting through my father's album collection as a teenager and the cover of Roger Waters' Amused to Death immediately caught my attention. A decade ago, album covers had so much importance and careful attention was placed on providing listeners with a...
National Album Day: Let It Bleed by Rolling Stones
The one album that I could not live without is Let It Bleed by Rolling Stones. When I first became interested in music Glam Rock was at it's height. I was surrounded by Ballroom Blitz-es and New York Groove's. I was being urged to Bang A Gong and even try a Glass Of...
National Album Day: Nevermind by Nirvana
When someone asks me about my musical inspirations first to mind comes The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, AC/DC, Janis Joplin, and Nirvana to name just a few. But if anybody wants to know the album that changed my entire life and made me who I am now, that has to be...
National Album Day: Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan
Blood On The Tracks is an album for every season. I first heard it as a teenager and it seems as deeply intriguing, as powerfully emotional and as satisfyingly comforting to me today as it did back then. Hilarious and tragic, soothing and bitter, lonely and redeemed,...
National Album Day: Violent Femmes
I first caught wind of the Violent Femmes six years after the release of their debut album, at the tender age of 14. Followed in quick succession by Hallowed Ground and 3, the Violent Femmes’ self titled album speaks to a younger audience, with the consequent albums...