Season 1

"Bob Dylan was a chameleon. He would go wherever that fertile, wildly imaginative mind took him. And it took him on some interesting, unexpected and, at times, controversial detours. But that’s what made him Dylan."

"Prince was always going to respond to Thriller with something just as good, if not better — and if you use Rolling Stone as your guide he topped it. In its list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time, Thriller comes in at No.12 — but Purple Rain, Prince’s next album, comes in at No.8."

"Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy was written from start to finish in chronological order while John was sailing from France to New York — a journey last lasted just four days. Captain Fantastic doesn’t sound cobbled together, however. It lives up to its name — and John regards it arguably ...

"David Bowie took a while to become David Bowie — that is the David Bowie we think of today. Before he was David Bowie he was David Jones with a name change."

“Dig Lazarus Dig may have been a critical triumph, but it didn’t represent a reset for the band — in fact it is their last album with this much energy. Part of that is probably due to the fact Mick Harvey left and the other critical factor is the influence of Warren Ellis.”

"The Smiths not only made normal special, they made sure it came with a duty to think and examine. You didn’t get to be 'ordinary cool' mindlessly in the world of The Smiths. It took effort. But you felt part of a collective and that felt special. It felt special then and still feels special today."...

"Interestingly, McCartney [the album] was hammered by the critics for the very thing that made it so unique — most reviews calling it under-produced and unfinished. But that was the whole point of it. McCartney was simply being McCartney — ahead of the game."

"When the band played OK Computer to the American label, Capitol, they were told it was 'commercial suicide'. The band knew it wasn’t commercial, but they didn’t care. It was art and they were artists."

"Sinead O’Connor lived a life like few others — a life she would have probably wished on few others. And that life was played out in song. Like John Lennon, she almost found it impossible to write about anything but herself. And then there’s that voice. How would you describe it? Truth is, you don’t...

"Yeezus was universally fawned over by just about every critic who heard it. Even Lou Reed loved it. In 2013, shortly before his death, he described it as majestic and inspiring, saying: 'He's really trying to raise the bar. No one's near doing what he's doing, it's not even on the same planet.'"