Lisa Stansfield: My best six albums

Published in the Daily Express

Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
(Ruffhouse/Columbia)

As with all the albums I’ve chosen you just feel gorgeous when listening to these songs. Her use of words is incredible. She’s a very emotionally intelligent woman.

Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On?
(Commercial)

This is probably in most people’s top six. I grew up on stuff such as Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye and when I heard this it was incredible. He seemed to live on the edge, in his own emotional reality.

Kristina Train: Dark Black
(Mercury)

Sort of a relatively new artist who’s just becoming well-known. She is very talented and has a heartfelt loneliness to her music that is very emotive.

Amy Winehouse: Back To Black
(Island)

Another one that’s probably on most people’s lists. I’ve chosen this but I still can’t listen to it. If it comes on in a bar or restaurant I want to leave the room it’s so sad. That woman had so much inside her. She probably didn’t know how much, though everybody else did. I wish I’d met her.

Earth, Wind & Fire: I Am
(Sony)

One of those albums that defines the time it was in. I remember when I got together with my husband Ian. We were in a band with a guy called Andy and we used to listen to this over and over. We knew every line of every song.

Diana Ross: Diana
(Island)

Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers revolutionised her career in a way. This was one of the coolest albums I’d ever heard. It’s just fantastic. She was one of the first people I ever heard on record. It was lovely to see her reach that stage and that I lived right through it.