The Beatles have a lot to answer for.

Without The Beatles, we'd never have had Sowing the Seeds of Love, The Frog Chorus or the entire Oasis songbook.

We'd also never have had this gem. Lyrically it's not the most complex truffle in the box, but musically it's a big production number with hints of musical theatre but a huge dollop of the bits of Sergeant Pepper that were written when McCartney was in danger of being able to focus on the real world. That's a compliment.

Like most homosexualists of my age, I appreciated Take That in their early days mainly for their dancing, for speculation about their sexuality and for their unashamed pandering to their gay audience. As such I watched their reinvention as besuited respectable faces of Marks and Spencer with interest, wondering if it would be a spectacularly misjudged effort, degenerating into a whiny bitchfest. Instead we're presented with four respectable figures not making tits of themselves by prannying around like teenagers, still sharing the vocals so they're not Gary Barlow plus a backing group.

In the olden days of The That, my undoubted favourite single was Never Forget, which is mainly sung by Howard. These days, it's Shine - mainly sung by Mark.

The reason is not just the sheer exuberance, not just the production, not just the quirkiness of having such an upbeat song that's basically about trying to cheer someone up, but it's the line in the break in the middle of the song. It's a simple enough line - "You're all that matters to me", but it always brings a lump to my jaded cynical throat. Because it's such a simple declaration of love, and always makes me think of Mr Twinky (my evil sidekick cat) and it's teamed with cunningly manipulative music.

It's also because although it's simple, it's almost more powerful than "I love you", After all, lots of other things matter to most people. Their health, their family, cake. That line is effectively saying that none of these matter at all - which is bordering on psychotic, really.

Fortunately, it's not overplayed, and it's coupled with an upbeat song. And it gives me goosebumps. Every time.

I've got you under my skin where the rain can't get in.

I discovered The The, ruined by google way back in 1986. I think it was down to Thatcher, actually. In the midst of miner's strikes, I went off to University and met a generation of mullets, jackets with sleeves rolled up, cheap Bulgarian wine and 80p pints in the late night bar that closed earlier than the bars did back home. It was the era of the mix tape, of Enya recording Orinoco Flow for the very first time, of discovering the social value of owning a record player, and of Sainsbury's Bramley Apple Swiss Rolls.

Soul Mining came out in 1983, although I didn't come across it until late 1986. It was the music that was listened to by the guy with the beard who was quiet and understood politics and had deep thoughts.

We were 18.

So, I thought he had deep thoughts and understood politics. In practice that would usually mean knowing a few sound bites and latching on to nursery rhymes that claim to be political comment.

Uncertain Smile is my favourite track on the album - possibly my favourite track of all time - a good place to start, I think.

What makes it for me isn't the lyrics, which were undoubtedly deep when I was 15, but the lengthy piano solo at the end. At the time, I hadn't heard of Jools Holland, but this was the point where I fell in love with his music.