Simon Schama: Tea and ... what? Toast? Sympathy? No, oranges. From the start Leonard Cohen was out to surprise by cunning

Make no mistake, even in terms of the tunes they write and the clothes they wear and the poses they strike, Arctic Monkeys are a really good band

You can't write about the lyrics of Patti Smith in ordinary language. To do so is to apply the wrong tool. To do so is to fail to understand her revolution

Kwame Kwei-Armah: It's impossible for me to overestimate the profound effect on my life of the music of Public Enemy and the lyrics of the band's leader, Chuck D

Lynne Truss: Joni Mitchell is a supremely driven artist - whether in restless pursuit of herself, or in running away from herself, it hardly seems to matter, because the journey is the point

Tim Lott: When the Smiths emerged in the early 1980s I took to them with the enthusiasm of Christ for his cross

Greil Marcus: "Seems like a freeze-out," he'd say, before stepping into Visions of Johanna's languid account of a night of bohemian gloom