Badly Drawn Boy – About a Boy (2002)

I had seen the film around the time when it was released, but I can't remember Badly Drawn Boy as a band from that time. It was only later after their album Born in the UK that I started listening to the band. One of my best friends was playing it in car when we were driving around Finland. I really liked their laid back attitude and funny lyrics. Although, it's maybe wrong to say 'their' as Badly Drawn Boy is really just a person. Anyway, later on I started listening to Badly Drawn Boy's other albums and to my surprise they had done music for the film About a Boy, based on Nick Hornby's novel. This album is not by far his best album, but it does have some great songs on it and the melodic piano sequences are quite enjoyable. Badly Drawn Boy is just the kind of folk rock I listened to quite a lot at the turn of the decade.

The Beatles – Abbey Road (1969)

What a pleasure it is to return to this blog after a small pause with such a glorious album. Abbey Road is, without a doubt, one of the best albums ever made. I bought it on vinyl from my trip to Japan almost ten years ago. For some reason, these kinds of records were cheaper and more readily available in Japan than in Europe at the time. I also bought a couple of other Beatles albums. This is the only one of those albums that's not a Japan pressing. Abbey Road is the last album The Beatles ever made. Let It Be was released later on, but those songs had already been made before. Abbey Road shows the Beatles that had already decided to split up, but that came together for one last masterpiece. This album appears at the top of many lists of best albums of all times. It's quite high on my personal list as well. It includes some of the best songs The Beatles ever wrote.

Abba – Abba (1975)

Back when I was still listening to children's music, there were two artists I listened to that weren't classified as children's music per se. Those bands were Abba and Roxette. Apparently there was something in those simple melodies and cheerfulness in Swedish pop music that worked for me in my early years. I ended up owning this album a lot later though. Probably about seven years ago to be exact. I went through the record collection at my grandmothers house. She said I could take anything I wanted. There were probably some albums that were previously owned by my uncles. One of these albums was this Abba's self-titled album. I haven't really listened to this album that much but I was keen on owning it, since, let's face it, Abba is one of the most popular bands of all times. I like owning classic records even if the music itself is not something I regularly listen to.

Wilco – A.M. (1995)

Back in 1995 when this album came out I had no idea that a band like Wilco existed. In fact, this was the case for almost ten years after 1995. Wilco had just been founded on the ruins of alternative country band Uncle Tupelo. A.M. is probably the most country-influenced album by Wilco. There are some steel guitars and even the rockier songs have strong Americana influences. You could say that this album is also the most boring album by Wilco, but I'm not sure it's true. I like it a lot more than some of the more recent albums even if the newer albums have more experimental sounds. A.M. has great melodies and good songwriting. In addition to country songs, there are some songs that could even be described as power pop of the mid-90's. Also, Jeff Weedy's vocals are a bit more raw than on the later albums which gives a nice edge to this album.

Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City (2007)

Mid-00's was a time for post-punk revival. Interpol, Editors, White Lies, Franz Ferdinand and countless other bands gained fame around the world. My personal favourite from that era is Bloc Party founded in London. The first two albums are amazing. There's something very urban about the sounds on these albums. Also, the sounds are a lot more complex than those of other bands that I mentioned. Kyle Okereke's London accent is one of the reasons I really like this band. I'm also enjoying the lyrics that refer to familiar places in London. I guess I partly enjoyed this album so much is that it came out right at the right moment. I owned the first album and I listened to it a lot. I only have this album on a jewel case CD, which is a bit of a shame, because I really like the dark and urban photo of a freeway in the cover and it would look so much better on a vinyl record.

The Levellers – A Weapon Called the Word (1990)

Apparently The Levellers was quite a big deal here in UK at some point, but I only heard of this band a couple of years ago. I listened to a couple of their songs on Spotify and liked what I heard, so I did the thing I usually do with any 90's bands that I discover and like. I went to see how cheap their CDs would be online. This time, it was even cheaper than I could have imagined. I bought the band's two first albums with a combined price of about three pounds. I have been more into the second album, Levelling the Land, but now that I'm listening to this debut album of theirs, it actually sounds pretty good. The Levellers' first albums are quite political in their lyrics and the sound is like the celtic version of the band James. I do enjoy especially the fiddle playing on these albums a lot. There's also kind of a punk rock attitude on these albums which fits well together with the political lyrics.

M. Ward – A Wasteland Companion (2012)

For a long time now, I've been a fan of modern folk music, usually played by singer-songwriters. M. Ward only made it into my record collection a while ago, when I found this CD of his with just one or two pounds at Fopp in Covent Garden. It's a nice looking cardboard covered CD as well. I was mostly familiar with M. Ward through his role in She & Him and in Monsters of Folk. I had not really listened to his solo stuff that much, but as the price was more than okay, I thought I'd buy this CD. I'm glad I did. This album is a great example of the kind of singer-songwriter folk that I started listening to a lot after having moved to London. I had obviously listened to this kind of music even before, but especially after joining my band Vronsky, modern alt-folk music became my most listened to musical style. M. Ward mixes more traditional acoustic folk songs to more ambitiously produced songs with all the band instruments.

Pink Floyd – A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)

It's sometimes easy to forget that one of the most successful bands in the world, Pink Floyd, was once a super non-commercial alternative band. Although, not in a sense that they wouldn't have been successful even back then. They were the pioneers of 60's art rock and psychedelia scene. Where The Beatles just spiced their songs with slight psychedelia sounds, Pink Floyd really made music out of that psychedelia. This second album still had a visionary songwriter Syd Barrett who was forced to leave the band in the middle of recording this album because of extensive drug use. Pink Floyd hired a new guitar player because of this and so David Gilmour joined the band. This is the only album where they both played. I would say that this album is the least commercial of all the Pink Floyd albums, but I personally like it a lot.

Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

I was introduced to Coldplay earlier in the same year as this album came out by my back then girlfriend. Coldplay's first album had already been quite successful in UK, but it was really this second album that made them famous in Finland. So, when I first started listening to Coldplay, they were this small indie band from UK. I liked the first albums dreamy acoustic folk sound and when this second album came out I was fairly excited about it. I even liked this album quite a lot. The sound was a lot bigger and more produced than on the first album, but there was similar kind of melancholic mood to this album. Now of course, Coldplay is known throughout the world and they keep making albums each one worse than their predecessor. I've long since lost track of the band, because they lost everything that was even slightly good about them. This has made the band a bit embarrassing.

The Moody Blues – A Question of Balance (1970)

Before starting this blog, I think I underestimated my father's influence on my record collection. Here's a yet another band that my father used to listen to back in the day that I started listening to as well. I mainly got into The Moody Blues when I was around 13 years old. I borrowed their box set from my local library with four CDs of their greatest hits and rarities and it really impressed me back in the day. The combination of classical instruments and progressive rock was just what I wanted at that age. I can't remember how I ended up owning this album on a CD, but I remember this being one of the first proper albums I listened to by them. Perhaps it had something to do with the album cover picture that I thought was really cool at a time when I was also reading through fantasy literature classics.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives – A Present from the Past (2005)

My first experience of the Swedish band The Soundtrack of Our Lives is from the year 2001 when I saw them perform live at Ankkarock, a music festival in Vantaa, Finland. I was blown away by the band's energy on stage. They performed a couple of songs with The Flaming Sideburns, a band that I already liked quite a lot. The air was filled with soap bubbles on a hot sunny day and the energy was just amazing. After this gig I started listening to TSOOL quite a lot and ever since I've seen them numerous times live. Their concerts are among the best ones I've ever seen. It's maybe quite strange to have this B-side and rarities collection as the first album in this blog, but actually this album is so good that it works as a proper album. At the time of its release I was still a really huge TSOOL fan and I was very excited when it came out because it allowed me to hear a bunch of songs from the band that I hadn't heard before.

Queen – A Night at the Opera (1975)

This must be one of the best albums ever created. It's also a very successful album in terms of sales. Over 6 million copies of this album have been sold world wide. I feel like this kind of thing doesn't happen as much anymore that a record would be successful according to sales, hailed by the critics and loved for many years to come. Of course no records sell as much anymore. I bought this album on vinyl reasonably late. I found it at Notting Hill street market with £10 when I had just moved to London. I didn't even have a vinyl player here at the time, but I just felt like I had to own such a classic on vinyl. I always try to find these kinds of classics with quite affordable prices on used vinyl, as I think they have more feel to them than brand new LPs do. I'm not too fussed about them being originals, but there's still something about buying used records.

Electric Light Orchestra – A New World Record (1976)

My father was a big fan of Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. As a child, I heard a lot of their music and I really liked their melodic and energetic sound. A bit later on I felt like this band was a bit embarrassing, but now as I've grown up and look back to this music, they actually have some great stuff on their albums. As you might have guessed, this is again one of the vinyl albums I've gotten from my father. At some point I actually had two copies of this album. One came from my grandmother's house where I suspect one of my uncles had left it there. This second copy has now found a good home with one of my friends. I very rarely listen to ELO at home, but whenever I do, there's something I really like about it, even if it's not the most exciting band out there. Their vocal harmonies and melodic and catchy songs work every time.

Pink Floyd – A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)

It's kind of a shame that the first Pink Floyd albums in this blog are the worst ones. Like I said in my previous post, I used to get Pink Floyd albums from my dad whenever he went abroad and this was one of them. A Momentary Lapse of Reason, in my mind, is not even a proper Pink Floyd Album as Roger Waters had left the band and the sound had changed significantly. Back in the day I never really even truly listened to this album, because I couldn't stand the strong 80's sounds. Now that I listen to this album as a part of this blog project and I have familiarised myself more with some of the 80's music that I didn't appreciate before, I actually enjoyed some bits. I feel like this album would be quite good in its own standing, but the fact that all the prior Pink Floyd albums are so much better kind of decreases its value.