Keaton Henson – Birthdays (2013)

This is one of the most special albums I own. The big masses, especially outside of UK, have probably never even heard of Keaton Henson. He used to be a visual artist who just recorded songs for himself at his home. He only started publishing anything after his friend had recommended it after persuading Henson to send him some of his music. The first album was already an intimate and beautiful album, but the second album Birthdays goes beyond, being simultaneously a very tender and endearing album and an album full of anxiety and grief. Henson's high and trembling voice is filled with emotions. He may not be technically a good singer, but at least for me, his voice shows his soul a lot more than anyone who sings "correctly". Birthdays is a fantastic album that can shut the outside world away and take you to your own little bubble filled just with your own thoughts.

Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool (1957)

In the recent few years, I've found jazz again. I used to be quite into jazz when I took bass lessons in a jazz school in my native town Espoo in Finland. I even played in a few jazz bands organised by the school. Then again, I never really got into jazz that much back then and until very recently, I only owned a handful of jazz albums. After moving to London, I feel like my interest in jazz has rekindled. I've seen quite a few great jazz gigs in London and I've started buying jazz albums again. If I have to choose my favourite jazz artist of all times, I have to go with Miles Davis. His 50's and 60's albums are quite amazing. Birth of the Cool is a compilation album of some early recordings from 1949 and 1950. The style is quite different from Davis' later work, but that's only natural considering he wasn't really the clear leader of the band during that time.

Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies (1973)

Alice Cooper has a reputation of being the number one rocker that Christian circles have attacked against because of his alleged satanic performances. From today's perspective, Cooper's music, especially the 1970's music, is quite mild rock music. The music is really theatrical and there are strong similarities to glam rock. However, the lyrics are probably what made Alice Cooper the least favourite musician of the Christian circles. This album includes topics ranging from horror to sexual harassment and even necrophilia. Also, I don't think it helped that on stage, Alice Cooper was decapitated with a guillotine, he had fake blood all over the place and the stage prop included whips, surgical table and hatchets. Also, just being a bit glam and wearing make-up probably wasn't to the liking of the Christians back in the 70's.

22-Pistepirkko – Big Lupu (1992)

22-Pistepirkko had a really long career. They started their career in 1980 and only stopped playing very recently. In their career they have made some amazing albums, but also some albums that don't really impress me that much. This one belongs to the latter group. What makes this interesting, is that this album includes probably the most well known song of theirs and even I think it's one of the best ones they ever wrote. The problem is that this is pretty much the only amazing song on the album. There are some other rather interesting ones, but they don't really stand out from band's other work. 22-Pistepirkko has been quite ambitious in their career and they have made fame for themselves even outside of Finland, especially in Germany and Denmark. Band's name, meaning a ladybug with 22 dots, may not, however, be the best title for a band that aspires to break outside of Finland.

Matthew E. White – Big Inner (2012)

Matthew E. White is an American singer-songwriter, whose music is really difficult to place in any particular genre. The general sound is quite similar to many indie pop bands of the 2010's, but there are some psychedelic elements and some soul elements as well. Also, the extensive use of horns mixes things up even further. White's debut album is named with an appropriate pun, Big Inner, beginner. I first found Matthew E. White from Rough Trade's listings and I remember being impressed by his song Big Love. I didn't, however, really get into rest of his music. Then, a couple of years later, I saw this album in a sale with just a few pounds and went for it. I still think that some of the songs are fantastic, but the whole albums don't really impress me that much. I don't know exactly why, because on paper, this music should work really well for me.

The Rolling Stones – Big Hits, Vol. 2 (Through the Past Darkly) (1969)

Even though I've created this system where I go through my albums in alphabetical order according to the album name, trying to avoid bands from the same band appearing right next to each other, sometimes it's unavoidable, when the albums have similar names. This, second compilation album of The Rolling Stones was released three years after the previous one and there's a clear change in sounds. Where the first compilation album was full of rock songs with influences from soul and RnB, this second album shows that The Rolling Stones were also influenced by the late 60's psychedelic movement. Many of the songs on this album have psychedelic elements, but there are also some more straightforward rock songs on this album. Out of these two compilation albums, this one is my favourite.

The Rolling Stones – Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) (1966)

In my previous posts about The Rolling Stones, I have mentioned that the first years of the band saw many of the band's most popular and best songs, but the albums in the early years were not that compact wholes and thus not that interesting as albums. That's why this first compilation by The Rolling Stones actually provides a great way to enjoy their best songs from the early years. In 1966 when this compilation album came out, The Rolling Stones was just about to grow up big time in their sound and the fact that this album is a compilation of the best songs before that period makes the time period meaningful. This is the pre golden-age compilation. From a historical perspective, this album along with vol. 2, Through the Past Darkly, which was released a few years later, form the important core of the early years of the Rolling Stones.

Lee Ranaldo – Between the Times & the Tides (2012)

It took me a while to understand the brilliance of Sonic Youth. A couple of first times I was listening to their music, I was too distracted by off-key notes and noise elements to really enjoy their music, but I did always really like their guitar sounds and the general idea of their experimental approach to music. I only truly got interested in the band after listening to some of those later albums that had a more melodic approach, such as Rather Ripped and The Eternal. Those albums led me back to their earlier albums and now I can't even see how I couldn't see the brilliance of Daydream Nation or Goo before. Many of my friends have said the same thing about Sonic Youth as well. If you're one of these people I'm talking about, you should really check out this solo album by one of the founders of Sonic Youth. It's much more straight forward than the Sonic Youth albums, but has similarities in sound. It works as a gateway drug to full-on Sonic Youth.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong (2011)

The Pains of being Pure at Heart was one of those new indie bands at the end of the naughties that I got quite excited about. They basically didn't invent anything new in music, but they did what they did extremely well. I feel like today it's completely impossible to create anything unique and new in music, because pretty much everything has already been done. This has created an era that consists of just different types of retro. There is no shared youth culture and shared experience anymore, because all the music is easily available and each musical genre has their own fans, but people outside of that bubble usually know very little about that genre. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is channeling early 90's shoegazing sounds and combines them with catchy and danceable indie pop that has echoes of 80's mainstream pop.

Wilco – Being There (1996)

Most people who listen to Wilco these days, only focus on the band that it became after yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I agree that it was a significant change in their sound and started a new era, but I also want to emphasise that the band had some amazing songs before that, and Being There is definitely the greatest pre-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Wilco album. Like most double albums, this too, is probably a bit too long and it would've been an amazing album, had they just picked the best songs for one album. Nevertheless, I'm kind of glad this album was released as a double album, because even the songs that are not that particularly interesting are still very much worth listening to. Already on this album, Wilco started experimenting with sounds and some of these songs would definitely work on the later albums as well.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives – Behind the Music (2001)

For some bands that were around for many years and released many albums in their career, there's that one album that just beats everything else they ever released. Behind the Music is this album for Sweden's greatest rock band The Soundtrack of Our Lives. I would even go on to say that Behind the Music is one of the greatest rock albums ever made by anyone. Emphasis on the word 'rock'. From the first riffs it's clear that this album offers amazing tunes for rock fans. The riffs and drumming are simple, but the sounds are amazing and when has rock ever been about complicated tunes anyway. The Soundtrack of Our Lives (TSOOL) really knows how to make catchy rock songs that make you jump and sing along. They're also amazing live performers. This is one of the bands that I've seen live the most times, because they're always amazing on stage.

The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet (1968)

The Rolling Stones is a curious band, because their most popular songs are not on their most popular albums. The majority of their most popular songs are on the early albums, but those albums are not very exciting as albums. On the other hand, the end of the 60's and early 70's era saw many fantastic albums from Rolling Stones, but very few of these songs are so well known that people who haven't really listened to the Stones would know. Beggars Banquet is the first one of the so called golden age of the Rolling Stones where they released excellent roots rock albums. The influences on these albums are very much in the American blues, soul and folk traditions. It took me a while to get into the Rolling Stones at all. I had to learn to like soul music first before I understood the importance of these records.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti – Before Today (2010)

Back in 2010 when this album came out, Helsinki-based music festival Flow was still mainly about providing a stage for promising new acts. Since then, it has just gotten bigger and bigger and now it's just a big festival with globally popular names. Back in the day, I used to listen through the mostly unknown listings of Flow Festival and make new discoveries. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti was one of these bands. There was quite a lot of buzz around this band back then and a couple of years later. I listened to a few songs from this album and was sold, so I decided to buy the album as well to prepare myself for the gig. I wasn't really that impressed by the whole album, however. There are some really good songs on this album, but there are also songs that are so full of strange sounds that the original purpose of the album gets a bit lost.

Guided by Voices – Bee Thousand (1994)

Guided by Voices has a very long career. They're still making music having started in early 1980's and they have released more than 25 albums and a number of EPs and unofficial albums. The frontman Robert Pollard also has tens of solo albums. It may be difficult to know where to start if you want to familiarise yourself on what Guided by Voices is really about. I'd say, start from Bee Thousand and after that you can make a decision whether it's worth to explore any further. On Bee Thousand, Guided by Voices has made art of crappy studio techniques and of leaving outright mistakes in the finished album. I can't think of another album that would so perfectly fit the musical genre lo-fi. The sounds on different GBV albums are very different, but Bee Thousand is probably one of the most lo-fi ones and if you're a purist with sounds, it's probably difficult to look past this.

The Go-Go's – Beauty and the Beat (1981)

The Go-Go's was a groundbreaking all-female new wave rock band. There had not been that many popular all-female bands before the Go-Go's who would've made all of their songs and played all of their instruments themselves. Whether it's because other groups couldn't get record deals, or because women weren't encouraged to do rock in the same way back then, I don't know, but I can't think of many examples of bands like this before them. Many female rockers and other celebrities have mentioned The Go-Go's as major role models for them growing up. The Go-Go's were really popular back when this debut album of theirs came out. It was one of the biggest selling debut albums back then. It's strange how this band is now almost unknown for larger audiences. It's kind of a mystery which bands can sustain their popularity throughout the years even if they are not active.

Eels – Beautiful Freak (1996)

Eels is one of my all time favourite bands. Well, it's not technically a band. It's mainly the man called Mark Oliver Everett, or E. He makes amazing melancholic songs with fantastic, very personal, lyrics related to his own life. Beautiful Freak was the first album that was released with the band name Eels. Before then, he had released a couple of albums under the name E. He thought that by naming the band with a name that starts with E, he would get his albums quite close together in record stores, but then he realised that there are so many bands between E and Eels that it didn't really serve the purpose. Eagles, Echo & the Bunnymen etc. I simply love E's raspy voice. He can really sing almost anything and I'm happy. I don't think there's any another existing band or artist in the world that I would appreciate as much as Eels.

The Beatles – Beatles for Sale (1964)

I don't know if the name of this album is just a joke on how albums were advertised back in the day, or if it's actually an ironic statement about the rough life The Beatles were living through at the time to make money for themselves and the record company. When this fourth album of theirs was released, they were at the peak of the so-called Beatlemania. They were touring around the world and this was their fourth album in less than two years. No band today goes through this kind of work anymore, but I guess back in the day they wanted to squeeze every penny out of the band. Maybe they thought that The Beatles was only going to be a short-lived fad and wanted to get everything out of it. To me, it sounds more like this kind of approach was the reason they started touring altogether a couple of years later and eventually split up.

Oasis – Be Here Now (1997)

According to some people, this album marked the official death of Britpop. In a way, I agree with them. This was definitely where the downhill of Oasis started. Then again, they faced an impossible task with their third album. Their debut album Definitely Maybe had been the fastest selling debut album of all times and (What's the Story) Morning Glory was one insanely successful. Their success could also be seen from the massive concerts they sold out after Morning Glory. So, I think it's fair to say that the expectations were ridiculously high and it was nearly impossible to improve from where they were. Despite all of this, I think Oasis could've pulled their difficult third album off a lot better. Some of the songs on this album are still quite good, but the production is way too bloated with a result that sounds really messy and overly produced.