Zane Lowe is an unbearably smug son of a turd and if you disagree with that statement then you’ll probably disagree with most of this article. Ever since the days when he was sitting on a badly green-screened couch, chumming up to the Foo Fighters, Lowe has maintained the air of a man whose every musical opinion is based not on a love of music, but on a love of his own opinions on music.

The Smug-Meister-General of BBC Radio 1′s musical output has a long-running tradition of forcing his opinions down the throats of his listeners by choosing a series of “Masterpiece” albums to play, in their entirety, during his show. Thankfully this only happens once a year.

However, things are different this time.

If Zane Lowe thinks that he can force his idea of what makes a musical classic down our throats then we’re going to do the same thing to our readers, hopefully making you realise that this kind of behaviour isn’t okay. We might strap you all down and force the sounds of The Sugababes’ classic “Hole In The Head” into you, or we might just leave a link and some impassioned words from our writers.

We’ll see how we feel.

For those of you who still care about what the people who employ Chris Moyles think, the Radio 1 press person wrote these words to accompany the email:

Each show will include interviews with the artists and others involved in the making of the album, giving a fascinating insight into the stories behind the songs. Zane also takes a look at how each album since its release has influenced other artists with contributors including Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Blink 182 and Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner.

Chris Martin?! BLINK 182?! ALEX TURNER?! Why, Radio 1, with these leviathans of popular music, you are truly spoiling us but what does the Git-In-Chief have to say about his little collection?

“It gets harder every year to pick them, but this year’s four albums each hold a special place in the record collections of many, whilst at the at the same time influencing on many of today’s most successful and brilliant artists.”

It gets harder because you’re trying so hard to look like you know music Zane. The identity of the albums that Lowe has chosen (by committee) isn’t a secret but we genuinely couldn’t care less what they are so you’ll have to look elsewhere for them. Sorry chumps.

Anyway, taking a leaf out of Lowe’s Big Book of Self-Importance, we’ve come up with a list of our ‘masterpiece’ albums. No committee, no real thought. Everybody in the hecklerspray bedsit got the chance to pick one. It’s only fair.

Dare – The Human League

Mof Gimmers: Synthpop was always a ludicrous (gloriously so) genre, which showcased a retrofuturism hatched up in bedsits and motorway cafes by young men with dreadful haircuts and worse clothes. Then, Phil Oakey & Co. realised that they were sitting on something that was plain futuristic and went about making one of the finest, weirdest pop albums ever made. While ‘Don’t You Want Me’ is standard wedding fodder, it’s still a bona fide masterpiece. Backed by the catchier-than-mumps ‘Love Action’, the fierce ‘Sound Of The Crowd’ and the thunderous ‘Do Or Die’, ‘Dare’ is just about the most perfect pop-art LP ever made.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Check Your Head – Beastie Boys

Si Sharp: ‘Paul’s Boutique’ may have seen them at their lyrical peak, but 1992′s Check Your Head is the grooviest hip-hop album of all time.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Lungs – Florence & The Machine

Joanna Bolouri: Original, beautiful, quirky and downright genius. An album that could bring back longing and joy to an otherwise dead heart.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Beat Me – Electric Eel Shock

Kris Silver: An album that perfectly sums up this band of Japanese outsiders, fusing pop, punk, metal and comedy to make a collection of riotous, yet still catchy, and often funny songs about everything from politics to fishing.

Listen to it on Spotify.

We Are The Pipettes – The Pipettes

Robin Darke: Failing to invigorate the market with a reinvention of the traditional 60s girl group, this album breathes a modern interpretation into a staple of Motown history; catchy, feminism-infused and highly underrated. Get them before they turn eurodance and shi…oh.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Mr Beast – Mogwai

Michael Park: Mogwai have been producing exceptional album after exceptional album right back to 1997′s ‘Young Team’ but this attempt from 2006 is one of their most accessible. Rolling crescendoes and haunting lulls, what’s not to like?

Listen to it on Spotify.

Actually – The Pet Shop Boys

Sophie Hall: It’s the one with ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This?’ on it – a song which would upgrade ‘Disappointing second Hear’say Album’ to ‘Best contribution to sound in the universe’ in a mere moment.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Hootenanny – The Replacements

Lauren Mullineaux: It might not be their finest album, but it captures a band on the brink of unappreciated greatness and showed the self-deprecating maturity of Westerberg’s lyrics.  Besides the man is a genius.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Second Toughest In The Infants – Underworld

Matthew Laidlow: Comprising multiple styles from lounge to drum & bass, progressive electro to full-on acid, Second Toughest In The Infants is an album that sounds as fresh today as when it first came out, especially when coupled with the rambling, confusing lyrics of Karl Hyde.

Listen to it on Spotify.

Get them all on one, big Spotify playlist so that you can impress people at parties.

So there you have it, readers. Nine classic albums from the furthest reaches of musical taste (and decency), all delivered to you without the need for a three hour retrospective starring Chris Martin and Alex Turner.

You might not like all of the albums on our list but do feel free to tell us your ‘masterpiece’ albums in the comments. Or slag off Zane Lowe. It’s really up to you.

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Directors don’t always limit themselves to making stupid films. Sometimes, they like nothing more than making a nice, 3 minute short while some band’s new record plays over the top. You might know this as a ‘promotional music video’. There’s a lot of them knocking about.

And some seriously famous movie directors have tried their hand at making pop videos. John Landis made one for Michael Jackson dontchaknow?

And so, we’ve decided to have a look at some of the best (and worst) in the name of remembering things.

See, what got us thinking about all this is the new promo slot for Ketel One. The vodka brand (very nice it is too, glug glug, etc etc) have got themselves a rock group and a movie director to make a moving image which you can watch with your eyes and listen to with your ears.

Ketel One have got Brooklyn-based Alberta Cross (who Rolling Stone magazine think are ‘unstoppable’) and teamed them up with David O. Russell who directed The Fighter and I ? Huckabees.

So you have a little watch of a band playing their rock music and wearing black clothes.

So who else is there, who has tried their hand at working with musicians? Shall we have a look? Shall we? Yes, lets do that.

Martin Scorsese

Of course, Scorses worked with The Rolling Stones recently on a film, but his best pop work is with The Band for their magnificent The Last Waltz back in ’78. He followed The Band around as they made a final bow, in a sumptuous setting and ably supported by Dylan, Van The Man, The Staple Singers and a whole bunch more.

Spike Jonze

With Being John Malkovich and Where The Wild Things Are to his name, you’d think Jonze would be considered to be a proper director… however, so good are his pop credentials that he may always be thought of as the man who made really good music promos. There are many, many vids to choose from and this is just one of them.

Michel Gondry

You may know him as the man behind the genuinely fantastic Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but Gondry is another director who has an astonishing back catalogue of music promos. You’ll probably know this marvellous slice of pop that he aided with a sublime video….

Sophia Coppola

Francis Ford’s daughter has turned her hand to music promos in her time, making videos for The Flaming Lips and that infamous White Stripes/Kate Moss video (here, if you must). However, we thought we’d show her gymnastic skills off in the Chemical Brother’s ‘Elektrobank’ video. (Yes, we know it was directed by Spike Jonze).

Michael Bay

Unbelievably, the ‘epic’ promo for Meat Loaf’s ‘I Would Do Anything For Love’ was made by the same guy who brought us the Transformers movie and Armageddon. Okay. Now you mention it, it isn’t that unbelievable.

David Fincher

From the man who directed Fight Club comes a rather gloomy office based pop video with those naily things that dads got bought for Christmas all those years ago.

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