Photo:Thomas Hawk

Music lovers in Tower Hamlets now have the opportunity to listen to any CDs missing from their music collections.

The new Core Collection of Music, an initiative by Tower Hamlet’s Idea Stores, will include 300 titles of the most influential albums recorded in the last 50 years.

The collection will be available at all Idea Stores and libraries across the borough and the titles will include classics by Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis as well as modern artists like Lily Allen and the Arctic Monkeys.

The CD hire costs only 70p for three weeks, and there is the option of an annual subscription of £20 for regular users.

The initiative has been supported by music journalist and aficionado, Paul Du Noyer, who has worked for NME and edited Q and Mojo magazines.  He will be attending the launch of the collection on Tuesday 19 October at the Idea Store, Whitechapel at 7pm.

Du Noyer will also be talking about his new book ‘In the City: A Celebration of London Music charting the musical history of the capital from Elizabethan traders to Bow boy,  Dizzee Rascal’

The 58-year-old said: “Though I’ve lived in North, South and West London I have never lived in the East, nor had any links with it. But the more I researched this book, the more I realized the area’s importance through the years.’’