Mr Randall Poster – music supervisor on films by Messrs Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese and David Fincher – designs his essential record collection .

I have never been an “either/ or” type of person. Particularly when it comes to the music I want to listen to. While I love reading critics and artists detail the promise and allure of a single desert island disc, I would be hard-pressed to settle on one compilation of songs.

As no man is himself an island, the notion of being left alone with 12 tracks for one’s remaining days seems a cruel and unusual punishment. Which is why I am happy to say that I have mercifully been asked to list 20 albums that I think essential for any gentleman’s collection.

The criteria for an essential record collection is pretty clear: albums you cannot live without, or wouldn’t want to live without. Recordings that mainline emotion and stand the test of the temporal. For me, the records below mark a passage through time, and connect me with significant moments and sentiments. They connect me with people I may have shared these songs with. And yet there is a solitary impetus to most of these choices. I have spent many days and nights alone with these records and they have abided. They connect me with who I was and how I felt when I first heard them.

There are undoubtedly some big records and artists missing from this list. Mr Lou Reed, REM, Mr Marvin Gaye, Mr Steve Earle, Uncle Tupelo, Ms Donna Summer, Mr Bobby Womack, Hüsker Dü, Blondie, Hot Tuna, Mr Bo Diddley, The Jam, Mr Loudon Wainwright, Mr Ike and Ms Tina Turner, the Beastie Boys. Records that provide countless moments of joy, solace and companionship. I leave it to you to mark my glaring omissions, but trust that each of these selections are worth your time and will reward you for your investment and contemplation.

If you are in a hurry – and would like to savour the insightful commentary later – you may skip to MR PORTER’s classic playlist here.