My favourite album / Songs of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen

My favourite album: Songs of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen

Our writers are picking their favourite albums. Here, Andrew Pulver explains how he fell for the dark charms of a figure who used to be a joke to him

Andrew Pulver
Thursday 6 October 2011 15.59 BST

I

'd be lying if I said Leonard Cohen's records soundtracked my adolescence, or comforted me during student awkwardness. The sad truth is, as I suspect it was for most gormless teenagers growing up in 80s suburban Britain on a steady diet of post-punk, Berlin-era Bowie, and the Velvet Underground, Cohen was a joke.

Blame, if you will, The Young Ones. Looking back, I don't quite understand how, but the show was an early-80s religion, and their running gags at Cohen's expense. Consequently, Cohen's actual music was a sealed book to me; if I ever thought about it, I suppose I assumed he was a hippy, like Neil. File under lame.

My favourite album: Back in Black by AC/DC

Kitty Empire
Friday 5 August 2011 16.23 BST

E

very year, this gets harder to explain. AC/DC's Back in Black is a preposterous, drongoid record. It's built on casual sexism, eye-rolling double entendres, a highly questionable attitude to sexual consent ("Don't you struggle/ Don't you fight/ Don't you worry/ Cos it's your turn tonight") a penchant for firearms, and a crass celebration of the unthinking macho hedonism that killed the band's original singer. The guitarist, Angus Young, still dresses like a 50s schoolboy, underlining the inveterate puerility of AC/DC's oeuvre. The guitar solos are like endless streams of ejaculate; the vocals suggest a man whose piles are exploding. It really is appalling.

My favourite album: the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack

Alexis Petridis
Tuesday 2 August 2011 19.03 BST

In the latter part of their career, the Bee Gees became known for walking out of interviews at the slightest provocation, but one sure-fire way to get rid of them was to mention the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, with particular comic reference to medallions, chest hair etc. It's perhaps incumbent upon multi-millionaire superstars to laugh at themselves occasionally: nevertheless, if people kept mocking you for releasing an era-defining, implausibly successful album packed with consummate pop songwriting, you might be inclined to get a bit chippy as well.