Yusuf / Cat Stevens lists his favourite albums of all time
Yusuf, born Steven Demetre Georgiou, is best known by his original stage name, Cat Stevens. Under this moniker, he released his most impactful music, contributing to the singer-songwriter boom of the late 1960s and ’70s. Yusuf’s breakthrough came in 1967 with the release of his debut album Matthew and Son, which broke into the UK top ten buoyed by its hit eponymous single.
Yusuf’s career reached its climax in the early 1970s following the release of his fourth and fifth albums, Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat, which were certified triple platinum in the US. These two records were home to Yusuf’s most immortal tracks, including ‘Father and Son’, ‘Wild World’, ‘Moonshadow’, ‘Peace Train’, and ‘Morning Has Broken’.
The most pivotal moment in Yusuf’s personal life and career, however, came in 1977, the moment when he converted to Islam, adopting the name Yusuf Islam. Two years later, he auctioned off his collection of guitars for charity and left his musical career to devote himself full-time to the Islamic faith. Naturally, this decision was divisive among Yusuf’s fans and caused a notable change in his listening habits.
“I was very selective over what records I bought in terms of what I allowed to enter my audio domain,” Yusuf recalled in a 2017 interview with Yousif Nur. “So I would be listening generally on the airwaves or other people’s collections. When it came to embracing Islam, Elvis had just died, which probably symbolically meant it was the death of rock ‘n’ roll! I was more interested in studying my faith and the records I was interested in at that time were Quran cassettes and that took all my listening time up. I used to play my own music from the very beginning. I hardly sang anybody else’s songs. I’d be focused on my music and I more or less stopped writing. I didn’t have the inspiration anymore. Things changed.”
Later in the conversation, Yusuf was asked why his conversion to Islam had such an inhibitory impact on his musical side. “That’s a big question,” He replied. “But essentially the first song I wrote when my daughter was born was called ‘A For Allah’. I wanted my child to grow up learning that ‘A’ is not only for apples. And then the big change happened when the Bosnian war happened. When I visited Bosnia, I found that there was an overwhelming connection between the struggle there and music. There was still singing, even though they were being bombed out of existence. It gave them spirit, and I realised that that was a turning point in my life.”
Yusuf continued, explaining how the power of music in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s helped bring him back to music. “I was listening to very conservative voices in Islam about being careful with music, frivolity and time-wasting,” he said. “But this was not time wasting, this was survival! It opened up a whole new understanding for me about the role of music in Islamic civilisation. Then I discovered later that the guitar was probably introduced to Europe via the lute, which came from the Arabic Oud. The Oud came from Baghdad to Andalucía and from there it entered Europe. In fact, the word troubadour means ‘to entertain’ in Arabic. So when you see all these pictures of medieval England with lute players, they were actually getting these from Islamic civilisation”.
Adding: “But with regards to the decision to pick up the guitar again, my son one day brought one home and that was the beginning of my coming together with music again. Music for me evokes so many emotions but I would hear how artists stretch the boundaries, particularly in the seventies. Today, there’s so much repetition, cut and paste and sample sounds that it just makes you appreciate the days of analogue and how inspired many of those groups and artists were, including me of course.”
In 2006, Yusuf returned to pop music with the release of his first new studio album in 28 years, An Other Cup. At this point, he also dropped “Islam” from his name and has continued to release a further four studio albums up to 2020s reimagined album, Tea for the Tillerman 2. Stevens remains musically active today and is scheduled to perform in Glastonbury’s Legend’s slot on the Pyramid Stage this summer.
Discussing the lasting impact of his music with Nur, Yusuf added: “I was told by one of the originators of the mp3 who was working with Apple at the time, that the first mp3 experiment was with the song ‘Father And Son’. And if you look at Steve Jobs’ top ten songs on his iPhone, three of my songs were on it. Without being too boastful, I’m sure I would feature on many other people’s all-time lists too!”
As part of his 2017 feature with Yousif Nur, Stevens picked out his 13 favourite albums of all time. The albums range from classical to rock and include releases by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Beach Boys. See the full list below.
Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ favourite albums of all time:
- Todd Matshikaza and Pat Williams – King Kong, The Musical
- Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim – West Side Story
- The Band – The Band
- Wendy Carlos – Switched-On Bach
- Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan
- Gustav Holst – The Planets
- The Beatles – Please, Please Me
- Stevie Wonder – Talking Book
- Yusef Lateef – Eastern Sounds
- Ray Charles – The Ultimate Collection
- Ludwig Van Beethoven – 9th Symphony
- The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
- Procol Harum – A Salty Dog