When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? You default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours.
This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
Next up, Martin Luke Brown.
Corinne Bailey-Rae – Put Your Records On
I remember my sister playing this song to DEATH. So much so I couldn’t listen to it for about 5 years. What an absolute classic, though. I dunno if I was a teenager or like 8 years old or something, but this was the top song on the iTunes Library by about 20,000 plays. Simpler times for sure.
Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
Stevie was a staple in our house, pretty much all Motown stuff, really, along with the Beatles. I remember this was my favourite as a kid. I actually auditioned for The X Factor when I was 14 and sang this, lol. I got through the first round (there are like four rounds before you get on TV) and then freaked out before the second audition.
Daniel Merriweather – Change (feat. Wale)
This song had a chokehold on me for a while. Anything Mark Ronson did felt so timeless. Obviously, all the Amy Winehouse shit was on heavy rotation, but I was coming into my ‘rap is cool’ era, so this ticked all the boxes – soulful / hooky / cool enough my friends wouldn’t think I was lame.
Black Eyed Peas – Let’s Get It Started
Just a stone-cold stinker! Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Elephunk’ was the first record I ever bought. It’s still so fire I don’t even care. will.i.am was onto something, then just went wayyyyyward.
Sam Cooke – Bring It On Home To Me
I had a massive Sam Cooke phase for a whiiiile when I was about 15. I was obsessed with that era of music without really understanding why. It just felt so ALIVE – the musicianship, the CHARACTER. It was most probably all recorded with just one mic in a room back then. Sonically, nothing got close to that feeling.
Maroon 5 – She Will Be Loved
I fucking loved Maroon 5 before they got mega lame. I remember feeling SEEN when I heard old boy’s voice for the first time. He sounded kind of girly in a way I hadn’t heard much before, and that’s how I sounded when I sang. It was refreshing new information that I could sing all high and squeaky, and that be celebrated. CC: James Blunt.
Jack Johnson – Better Together
That yellow album with the tree silhouette had a chokehold on every white suburban family for a WHILE. Jack Johnson was one of the few things our family agreed on in a pretty turbulent few years when I was a teenager. It’s just classic music to eat dinner to, in the best way. CC: Nora Jones.
James Morrison – Better Man
James Morrison and Paolo Nutini were my entry points to deciding I wanted to make music. I’d always listened to a lot of Black music – Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Black Eyed Peas (loooool). I remember seeing James Morrison on This Morning or something, and his accent even sounded a bit like mine. It was the first time I could actually imagine myself doing it.
Also, WHAT a fuckin voice. One of my most potent early musical memories is sitting in the backseat of the car, sharing earphones with my sister and cranking up the volume to drown out our parents arguing in the front. Escapism in its earliest form. James Morrison has my heart forever for that.
Taken from the April 2025 issue of Dork. Martin Luke Brown’s album ‘man oh man !’ is out now.
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