Mr November is the climactic final track on The National’s 2005 breakthrough third album Alligator and a highlight of every live show.

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Is this classic late-period disco? Or is it prototype ’80s dance-pop? Frankly, who cares when it sounds like this?!

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I didn’t always buy Johnny Cash’s American Recordings though there were wonderful exceptions like Hurt. The same is true here.

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In their heyday in the early 1980s, it was impossible to ignore pop-soul trio Imagination with their infectious dance hits and flamboyant front man Leee John.

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I vaguely remember Revolting Cocks appearing in the mid-Eighties but I’d forgotten all about this magnificent piece of provocation called Beers, Steers & Queers in 1992.

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The New Romantics didn’t do much for me but like everyone else, some of the songs did. Especially Culture Club’s first hit in 1982.

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Bob Dylan’s delivery drips with sarcasm on the opaque lyric of Idiot Wind, from my favourite album Blood On The Tracks, but the meaning remains elusive.

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There are a handful of musical moments in my life where I’ve heard a song for the first time and felt: This changes everything. Never Understand is one.

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ABC fused the attitude of punk with the sophistication of disco – and great tunes – to create hits like Poison Arrow on The Lexicon Of Love.

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Diana Ross will always enjoy a special place in my affections – the Queen of Motown sang the first song on the first album I ever bought.

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