The idea of a concrete top 5 favourite bands/artists is a difficult concept for me to grasp, it will change from day to day, after having read slipknoob's top 10 favourite bands I have decided to write my list of the favourite artists (and generally a specific album if possible) that have changed my outlook on life, music and how art can affect everyday life.It was impossible to narrow the list down to five and I struggled to make a list of ten, so I've decided on a list of 20. That my seem excessive, but I love music and there was no way that I could exclude certain acts from my list. If you have heard and enjoy the majority of the acts on the list then I raise my hat to you and applaud your good taste, If any of the artists that are listed are unknown to you then I urge you to track them down and listen to the tracks that I've recommended, I promise you that you will find it to be rewarding.

So without further ado her is my list (in no particular order)...

Elbow: Elbow's latest album, The Seldom Seen Kid, recently won the Mercury Music Prize which is a relatively prestigious award in the UK given to the artist(s) that create the greatest album of the year. The MMP is very often rewarded to over hyped bands or artists that the critics believe to 'deserve' the award instead of actually deserving it. This time around the judges managed to get the award completely spot on. Elbow beat Radiohead, Robert Plant (of Led Zep fame) and The Last Shadow Puppets (Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkey's side project) to the award and very few journalists and fans would disagree with the result. Elbow have spent many years plying their trade as indie also rans being unfairly described as Radiohead rip offs and as general underachievers. Guy Garvey, the lead singer, is one of the most charismatic front men of the current generation of Indie bands from the UK since Jarvis Cocker started to swing his androgynous hips on top of the pops and is the primary writer of a collection of songs that perfectly encapsulate the angst of growing up in northern England. Garvey writes his songs packed with literary verve and places his songs in the most mundane of situations and manages to place a spotlight on general everyday events and gives them a significance that James Joyce was able to pertain a hundred years prior.

Songs to listen to: Grounds for Divorce, Great Expectations, Scattered Black And Whites

Radiohead: Every generation offers a band that acts as a watermark for other bands, 15 years ago it was Nirvana and 15 years before that it was down to bands like Joy Division, The Clash and the Sex Pistols; acts that managed to change the way that 'rock' music was perceived, performed and accepted by fans. It is not hyperbolic to state that Radiohead are the next band to fall into this illustrious category. Thom Yorke crafts songs of delicate heartbreak and paranoia that often prove difficult to translate on a basic level but are carried through by the layers of sound that his band create. Like any great band, Radiohead aspire to challenge their listeners with every step that they take as a band and each album is different in it's style and overall message. Radiohead started off as a very ordinary grunge band (post nirvana) and managed to achieve notoriety and fame through their single 'creep', the song followed the basic grungy blueprint of embedding angsty lyrics with a quiet, loud, quiet format that rarely even hints at the depths that they would eventually plumb with their later albums. Yorke credits his trademark vocals to Jeff Buckley and the similarity between the two artists' voices are notable, Radiohead however have continued evolving and have produced a back catalogue of albums that would each individually warrant a place in many fans and critics top ten favourite albums; from the progressive post rock of 'OK Computer' to the sparse ambient electronic jazz of 'Kid A' to the bleak pop of 'In Rainbows' Radiohead have always challenged their fans to run with the band, never allowing them to rest and stagnate in a set genre.

Songs to listen to: Just, Paranoid Android, Reckoner, Creep, there there.

Modest Mouse: I first listened to Modest Mouse many years ago (the album Moon & Antarctica) after finding a promo for £4 and being intrigued by the song titles on the album. Modest Mouse wrote odd songs that shouldn't be accessible to fans, they wrote about the universe and God, the lead singer (isaac brock) was an ex heroin addict with an odd voice, what tied Modest Mouse together though was their ear for a good chorus and a catchy hook. Modest Mouse are able to make anything sound like philosophy and to make even the most ardent indie fan break into a dance. They have recently joined forces with Johnny Marr, the ex guitarist from the Smiths and whilst they're music recently has lacked the odd funky individuality offered by their earlier bombastic albums Modest Mouse will always be able to offer a punchy alternative to the three minute pop song that will always pull me back in.

Songs to listen to: Float On, Dirty Fingernails, Bankrupt on selling, 3rd planet

The Decemberists: The decemberists are a strange band, they either attract unadulterated love from fans or bemusement. Colin Meloy, the lead singer, has an extremely distinctive vocal style and his lyrics evoke the old folk tradition that fuse together old english tweeness with the post capitalist views of the United States of America. The decemberists songs' can be seen as little vignettes, small stories and snap shots of characters and events that are distinctive in their idiosyncrasies. Meloy sings of angry mariners that await their revenge on sworn enemies (whilst providing entire tales behind their lust for vengeance) and of Romeo and Juliet-esque romances between lovers that are destined to end in tragedy. Despite the often clumsy subject matters the decemberists (named after an uprising in 19th century russia) craft songs tinged with a tongue in cheek humour that are always reinforced by a supreme literary knowledge of the periods described.

Songs to listen to: O Valencia!, The Perfect Crime No. 2, My Mother Was A Chinese Trapez Artist, The Mariner's Revenge Song.

Neil Young: A few years ago I found myself driving from one end of England to the other with my dad to pick up a hell of a lot of junk that my sister wanted to move with her following her return from her younger ventures in the south of the country. We hired an old van that had a faulty radio and a tape deck, the only tapes that we had for the journey were both Neil Young albums 'After the Goldrush' and 'Tonight's the night'. The journey was about 9 hours there and back and we listened to these albums non stop for the duration. My dad had never heard of Neil Young and for the first listen (or two) of the albums he was quite critical, Neil Young has a very distinct and shaky (his nickname by the way) voice, as the journey went on he began to understand what Neil Young was all about and has since developed a love for the crazy canadian. Neil Young sings songs about America and from his outsiders point of view he picks apart the country that he adopted with his critiques of the deep south (Lynard Skynard's 'sweet home alabama' was a response to Young's song 'Southern Man') and the American Dream. Young was famed for his advocation of marijuana as a creative inspiration yet wrote many songs about the dangers of other harder drugs ('the needle and the damage done' is a song about heroin addiction whilst 'tonight's the night' is about a former band member that died of an overdose). He famously spent his early years in the US driving to gigs in his car, a hearse, called mort and seemed to love the abuse directed towards him and channelled this into his music. Young's ramshackle take on folk-country is completely unlike anything else that I've ever listened to and whilst his music takes a while to sink in and his voice is an acquired taste it can not be denied that his musical back catalogue will stand the test of time alongside Dylan, Cash and Springsteen. To illustrate the impact that Neil Young has had on the musical heritage of our generation, the last line of Kurt Cobain's suicide note was a direct reference to a Neil Young lyric 'It's better to burn out than to fade away'...

Songs to listen to: Don't let it bring you down, heart of gold, after the gold rush, cinnamon girl, Tonight's the night