My top ten comfort listens - introduction

To misquote Venetian Snares, the world is a cavalcade of pain and Brexitist horrible hardcore pom poms. Jacob Rees-Mogg wants us all riding penny farthings and everyone's ruining milkshakes on fascists. I want to block it all out.

Sometimes, I need a comfort-listen. Music that will smother me in sonic cotton wool: beats to becalm my blood pressure. Music that I can whack on my computer speakers so I can, trance-like, get on with some interesting creative work without all the noise of the modern world.

So here goes a mini-series of my top ten comfort listens - the background music that sends me most easily to my happy place, like a snoozing cat.

It is, by its nature, a very personal list which I shall blog hourly throughout May 31st, starting at 9am with this introductory post and finishing with my number one choice at 7pm. The top ten is pretty arbitrary, so don't take each album's placement too seriously.

I'm also going to write it quickly, from my gut, without much thought - after all, that's blogging's USP, right? To do this, I need a framework. Each post will answer these questions.

Album name:
Artist:
Who they sound like according to Spotify's recommendations:
Most comforting musical element:
Least comforting musical element:
What it's like being smothered by (in a good way):
Comfort food it should be paired with:
Public figure I would recommend this album to so they can chill the heck out:
What the opposite of this album sounds like:

Click here to see the comfort listening series in full.