10 best British bands of all time. Jesus Cripes. Where to begin? What to include? Like it or not Johnny Foreigner, these isles have produced THE most influential and important pop groups of all time: The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Slade, to name but three. This drug-crazed sun-starved mongrel nation has always produced music pioneers and experimentalists, just think of groups like like Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Liberty X. And can I also point out that two-thirds of The Jimi Hendrix Expereience were British? Beside the groups there's been so many important movements: Merseybeat, the poor white docker kids' echo of US rhythm and blues; punk, gawd rest it's soul; the dissaffected inner city ska of Cov; the poncey new romantics in their fancy dress and make-up; the trip hop of Poorlyshed and their Bristolian mates; jungle, fucking jungle!; grime and yamhop. Enter stage right-in-the-fucking-middle-in-a-ball-of-flame our greatest gift to the rest of the world (slime green sick wth envy): Heavy fuckling metal. Hell yeah! & if you're not digging it: wither and die, loser.

The list below all come in joint number one. Justice For All.

1. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)
Could have been any Sabbath LP featuring Ozzy really. Black Fucking Sabbath. What more explanation do you need? From West Midlands: check; heavy metal: check. Turgid boogie rock from yesteryear it may be, but these guys invented everything and you can all fuck off.

1. Diamond Head - Borrowed Time (1983)
From West Midlands: check; heavy metal: check. Oft derided by their rock peers for being a bunch of whining fluffy haired sissies, this is the band that inspired Metallica (along wth Motorhead). New Wave Of British Heavy Metal at it's rifforama-melodrama-tastic-est: "I have loved/I have lost/I have killed those who have loved me so/I have loved/At what cost/Lord I don't know" The intro to Am I Evil must go through about six riffs before the vocals begin. What were they thinking?

1. Led Zeppelin - I (1969)
Only one quarter West Midlands. Still, it's Led Zep: Pompous twats. Monster riffs. A'right!

1. Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden (1980)
Not actually from the West Midlands at all. Still good all the same. Figureheads of the NWOBHM (second only to The Lep). This album is so bad it's comical but totally skill at the same time. Paul Dianno was an awful singer and about one tenth the frontman of Bruce DICKenson, but I'd still take this first album or Killers over anything they've ever done since all added together.

1. UFO - Phenomenon (1974)
One of the most melodic of seventies (& they're still touring! yesss!) heavy metal groups, the great thing about UFO is the songs. That and Michael Shenker's totally mind blowing guitar work. (And yes that is Michael brother of Rudolf 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' Shenker of Scorpions fame, since you ask.) Though he wasn't much of a showman, Phil Mogg actually sang melodies distinct from the guitar, unlike Ozzy and later Dianno who just fitted some words about goblins and murder to the guitar riff. Like I said, great songs. Proper metal in the sense that it is really just the blues blown up a bit. Unlike my next LP...

1. Motorhead - Ace Of Spades (1980)
Combining the heavy guitars of metal with the speed and aggro of punk. I have a vinyl copy of their eponymous first single, when they were a fledgling Hawkwind (see below) spin off band. It's dreadful. Even the Hawkwind version's better. I'd say Corduroy's is probably the best version. Lemmy though; What an ambassador for rock. Hasn't aged a day since the sixties (he looked awful then as well) thanks to enormous quantities of drugs sex and rock'n'roll. Legend (and the man's biography) has it that Lemmy's blood is such a toxic chemical soup that a transfusion of pure blood would be instantly fatal to him. I'll have a Jack.

1. Hawkwind - Hall Of The Mountain Grill (1974)
Named after their local greasy spoon. Each member of the band wrote a song. Included in Fish's top 10 prog albums in some interview yonks ago. It was a toss-up between this record and the 'kwind's This Is Hawkwind Do Not Panic (live at Stonehenge Summer Solstice festival 1984). The first track of Do Not Panic.. is a totally mind blowing (geddit?) version of Psy Power. Unfortunately the rest of the album's shit. Which is a shame, as it stands a memorial of the Stonehenge Festival which was bloodily put paid to by Thatcher's storm troopers a year later, and the free festival movement in general. Actually, viewing it in that light it seems only right that the music is shit.

1. Senser - Stacked Up (1994)
This is like rock and rap. Rap and rock. Kinda like The Smythe & Run DMC's Walk This Way, if it was a whole album long. And really aggro. And all the lyrics were kind of ill-thought out whooly anarchist bollocks. Fuck The Man, man. Still, I dare you to listen to this album, even now, and not get excited. Born! Into! The! Age! Of ! Panic!

1. Angel Witch - Doctor Phibes (1986)
Strictly speaking, this isn't a legitimate album as such. It's sort of a compilation made of the original 1982 Angel Witch LP with three extra tracks: Loser, Suffer and Doctor Phibes. It's sort of like listing Bjork's Debut, and talking about that David Arnold collaboration she did that was only added to the later re-release. Anyway back to Angel Witch: this band really captures the spirit of punk-inspired home recorded British heavy metal. It sounds like the band your rocker mates made in the garage when you were 15 with loads of twelve-bar songs about pain, demons & betrayal & a vocalist stretched way past his abilities. Maybe if I list some of the song titles it'll give you a better picture: Gorgon; Atlantis; White Witch; Angel Of Death; Devil's Tower; Sorcerer. You couldn't be more generic without hailing from Canada. Okay I admit it, it's rubbish (apart from Loser, Suffer and Doctor Phibes). I just put this one in to bring my list up to ten. And this is still only number nine. Fuck it.

Dream City Film Club - 'Dream City Film Club'
Sleazy, perverted, dark tales from an obscenely overlooked bunch of deviants.

Joy Division - "Unknown Pleasures'
See above, although not so overlooked really.

Huggy Bear - 'Our Troubled Youth'
In an alternative reality (like in Red Dwarf, probably) people remember Huggy Bear as one of the most important bands of the early 90s. Angry and angsty but in such a beautiful way.

The Cure - 'Three imaginary Boys'
All sparse and jumpy and post punky, before they went all floaty and epic.

Daisy Chainsaw - 'Eleventeen'
Genuinely odd and original album of claustrophobic paranoia, which didn't get taken seriously because of Love Your Money.

Manics - 'The Holy Bible'
Shit band make good album.

X-Ray Spex - 'Germ Free Adolescents'
One of the few 'original' punk bands who actually meant anything.

Michael j Sheehy - 'Ill Gotton Gains'
Second album, full of pure poetry about amphetamine induced impregnations and boxers having their faces reduced to masses of blood and pulp, from ex Dream City Film Club frontman.

Bureau De Change - 'Global Village Idiots'
They may be white boys (apart from Brian) but they can sure get a party started.

PJ Harvey - 'Rid Of Me'
Missed is the best PJ song ever.

my List is going to be rubbish - i cant think of 10 british people i Like Let aLone aLbums. are we taLking the most important or the best?

the most important is something Like the smiths probabLy, who showed that being a bit engLish/yourseLf was better in the Long run than being american.

but the best is something Like...

somethimg by the smiths
for reasons above

gustav hoLst - the pLanets suite.
im not sure if this guy was engLish but i think he was some kind of immigrant so im going to count him, but onLy for mars, the rest sucked. Life is short but opera is Long.

something by the kinks in the earLy days
they had timeLess + rasping + beautifuL songs.

a singLes coLLection by the speciaLs
not onLy did these guys proove that mixed race reLationships couLd work in coventry, but they wrote some of the best dance music before dance music kiLLed dance music. and it aLL refLected a gritty time, which has not actuaLLy changed - peopLe think u seLL more records by singing about nothing, but it isnt true. its Like saying that aLL poLiticians are the same. no they arent. thats why u didnt vote bnp. i hope.

something by queen
earLy queen mind.

syd barrett - the madcap Laughs
this is number one, and it isnt even finsihed cos i reckon he went insane instead. but the record sounds so aLive becasue of it. aLL the songs are Like the musicaL equiviLent of starting a new sentance before u finish the oLd one. fantastic.

the buzzcocks - singLes going steady
its a singLes coLLection, but the i dont care, the buzzcocks made the best singLes.

bert jansch - his first aLbum, just caLLed bert jansch
is a reaL dream weaver. its just a man pLaying guitar and singing foLking bLues, but what guitar. i think u have to pLay guitar to appreciate the dexterity invoLved with the guitar pLaying, a fact improved upon by the fact bert never actuaLLy owned his own guitar tiLL he was about 67. he had his first one nicked and just went round other peopLes houses. but its not just guitar wank for the sake of it, the needLe of death song aLso makes u cry.

iron maiden's debut.
no, this is seriousLy wicked riffing going on and down and arround on this one. the singer isnt bruce dickinson, so therefore a bit shit, but it stiLL pisses on any bLack sabbath record - and without iron maiden i dont think there wouLd have been meLt banana.

is that ten?

Lamb
A dramatic mix of electronica and organic sounds - hammering, shattered, minimal beats and spidery, creeping bass, with the vocals glazed over it in a whisper... as good as anything by Bjork... midnight future-soul torch songs for the broken hearted.

Portishead - Dummy
'Dummy' crackles, pops and hisses even off a CD... ancient and classic, swimming back against musical history, like a ghost-signal radio transmission... timeless.

Joy Division - Heart & Soul
Hard to pick one album, so why not have their entire career...

Pulp - His 'n' Hers
I remember hearing this at high school (everyone was listening to grunge at the time) and being struck by the oddness of it compared to everything else. Unaffectedly English, it told stories of sordid affairs, saturday night joyriders, nervous first-time sex, days spend drinking cider in the park. Pulp was a glimpse into a world I could half-recognise. Musically and lyrically, this is a clever, honest record with tons of personality.

P.J. Harvey - Dry
Taut, tense, dark femme-rock - PJ's best album, more accessible than Rid Of Me, less patchy than her 90's albums.

Curve - Doppelganger
Heavy, heady, dark indie, swathes of reverb, orchestras of crashing guitar, and Toni Halliday's intense, gothy vocals singing noir fiction (with a great haircut. which, lets face it, always helps).

David Bowie - Singles
Oh, David. Some of the best songs ever written, but not a truly great album to show for it. So it has to be the one and only 'best of' on the list - you get all the early classics like Changes, Ziggy, Starman, Jean Genie and Rebel Rebel through the Bowie 80's and 90's - Ashes To Ashes, Let's Dance, Little Wonder. Even in his shit periods, Bowie produces exceptional pop singles. So singles it is. Even though it's an albums list. Whoops.

Radiohead - Kid A
Yeah, yeah, I picked a Radiohead album. But listen, there are lots of things I love about this album. After OK Computer the indie legions were loving all the big, sweeping, dramatic guitar anthems, but Radiohead (who were possibly the biggest band in the world at that time) came back with an album of icy, distant Warp Records style beats and bleeps. Thom Yorke's huge voice was turned to a whisper, destroyed by effects. Hypnotic.

Patrick Wolf - Lycanthropy
I've already written lots about this on Brainlove, so I won't retread it again. But it's still one of my all-time favourites.

Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk
Brilliant indie band, introspective lyrics with a sense of imagination, humour + realism, and some great creative instrumentation and melody. 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' might be even better, but it's new and I haven't made my mind properly up yet.

almost picked - 'Abbey Road' by The Beatles, 'Wish' by the Cure, 'The Future Of Boy Bands' by the Bureau De Change, 'Avant Hard' Add N to X, 'The Holy Bible' by the Manics (it's a classic, but Thom picked it too, so...)