Mark Elliott
When John Lennon was murdered in December 1980, it accelerated my obsession with music. True, I’d already been seduced by the soundtrack to Grease and had started buying the odd 7" single, but the avalanche of Beatles books and magazines launched off the back of the tragedy offered something different. this was a band – the band – with a backstory and a back catalogue like no other. I had their discography memorised in weeks. When it came to a birthday-gift choice between K-Tel’s Chart Explosion or a re-press of Sgt. Pepper’s…, pop’s greatest LP was the one I picked (despite the temptation of Madness and Kelly Marie).