A short while ago, Adam Greenfield did a series of tweets (1,2,3)about "core texts". The stuff that he has read that he just keeps coming back to, somehow or other, and - this is the good part - the age at which it was first experienced. I really like that idea. A kind of cultural tree-ring dating of the mind.

I've been thinking about my own list of texts, but somehow it's easier for me to start with music. Greenfield mixes genres - but I never do, so I won't. Here goes:

Stakkels Jim - Gasolin (5)

Punch The Clock - Elvis Costello (13)

1999 - Prince (15)

Sign O' The Times - Prince (17)

Helpless - Neil Young (20)

2. Piano concerto - Johannes Brahms (23)

Live at Antibes - Charles Mingus (25)

Domaines - Pierre Boulez (26)

Blood on the tracks - Bob Dylan (27)

Drumming - Steve Reich (34)

6. Symphony - Gustav Mahler (40)

A lot of formative stuff I don't listen to anymore can't make the cut, a lot of these are representative of a much broader and deeper interest (Gasolin', Dylan, Young, Prince)