Bryter Layter by Nick Drake.
This was the first album I got after I bought my first CD player (although it wasn't the first CD I had owned).
Someone once said "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture", which sounds clever, but sounds like a quote from a bitter musician who perhaps couldn't take the criticism of their latest album. It also made no sense given that most music is accompanied by lyrics and the two often become inseparable. Anyway, I'd never heard anything by Nick Drake before, but I bought this after reading a glowing review somewhere. The reviewer's writing was spot on - Bryter Layter sounded and felt exactly as they described it and it quickly became and remains one of my favourite albums. Beautiful and yet utterly devastating, I don't think I'd ever heard heartbreak being so poetic before and rarely since.
Most people choose Northern Sky as the highlight, but for me I'd have to go for Fly, with its beautiful harpsichord playing by John Cale. I thought it was the saddest song ever until I hear the whole of his following album, Pink Moon.
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