Rough Trade Essential

Put simply, the title awarded to a core selection of diverse and brilliant albums that every record collection should be proud to house.
18 posts
Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Women in Music

This International Women's Day, we join our community in celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women by highlighting favourite Rough Trade…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Funk and Soul

"It’s albums like this which gave artists a cornerstone with which to hone their talents and produce some of the most engaging and beautifully…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Greatest Guitar Albums

"Replace the generic cliches with genuinely raw lyrics, the pristine, over-the-top production, with grit and power, and the trite, self-indulgent guitar solos, with a style…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Shoegaze

One of indie-rock's finest subgenres. With warm waves of distortion, limitless guitar texture and the most ethereal vocals - shoegaze is music for dreamers.…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Goth Before Goth

The likes of Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy and The Cure summoned the darkness inside all of us through cold industrial sounds, gruesome imagery and lots…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Folk

"Whatever it is you define as folk, one thing is universally agreed – Simply put, folk music is music for the people by the people."…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Hip Hop

"Biggie's raps play out before your eyes in wide-screen. He embodies characters and relays stories with a flow that bounces over the beat…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Soundtracks

"Music is the true accompaniment to film, so salt your popcorn, perch on the edge of the seat, and prepare to be encapsulated in all…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Post-Punk

"We were not aware that punk was going to happen. We were aware that what we wanted to do was commit some act of violence…

Rough Trade Essential

Rough Trade Essential: Electronic

“…it might rely heavily on electronics, tapes. I can kind of envision one person with a lot of machines, tapes and electronics set up singing or…