It's a Total Eclipse. I miss Klaus Nomi.

Who remembers Wicked Game by Chris Isaak? It has this misogynistic edge that makes me feel uncomfortable to this day.

20-odd years ago, everybody loved a loser. I won't be lonely long.

"Hounds of Love" is the perfect album. Fight me: I still dream of Organon.

There are many reasons to love the movie the Fifth Element. This song is one of them.

20 years ago now, before tech got fully evil, I was in a record store in San Francisco, and someone pushed a CD into my hand: "my partner recorded this".

When they drop you into the timeline, they don't tell you the toilet seats are half a centimetre lower and Arrival wasn't ABBA's first dark album.

Philip Glass again. My friend Michael always took a dim view of him - and I get it. There's a brash cheapness to Glass that even a skilled violinist like Gidon Kremer can't entirely disguise. But if you asked me what was the music of the great American city before the Fall, I'd say maybe because of its brash cheapness: Glass's Violin Concerto 1. You just have to listen to it to know the fascists will hate it.

Can you hear them talking about us? "Our lips are sealed" turned up in my iTunes. I had completely forgotten about this song despite its immediate familiarity.

Fancy re-adjusting your musical aesthetic? Here's Mabrouk el hanna from Cheba Maria 15 years ago. It's always time for Raï.