Kojo – Bomb Out (1982)

This post will no doubt be very amusing to all of my Finnish readers. Why do I have this album? To be honest, I have no idea. I've probably just gotten it from my grandmother's house where probably one of my uncles has left it years ago. In Finland, everyone will know the singer Kojo as "Nolla-Kojo", which translates to "zero-Kojo". He's thus named, because he was Finland's entry in the Eurovision song contest back in the early 80's and he got zero points for his performance. Eurovision wasn't used to rock music back then. That might be one of the reasons why Kojo didn't get any points. Also, the song, Nuku Pommiin, a Finnish translation of the song Bomb Out, isn't that good of a song. This attendance at Eurovision is the only reason why many younger generations know Kojo in Finland at all.

Blur – Blur (1997)

Blur's self-titled album is a peculiar recording. Their style changed quite significantly from the previous album Great Escape. On this album, Blur was more experimental than they had ever been before, but at the same time, they had their biggest international mainstream hit on this same album. Great Escape had been really successful album in the UK, but it had still stayed in the shadow of Oasis' massive hit album (What's the Story) Morning Glory. So far, Blur had sounded very British and they hadn't taken so many influences from US music. This changed when Graham Coxon, the band's guitarist wanted to take influences from US bands such as Pavement for this album. The overall sound moved away from mainstream, but there were a couple of hit songs on the album that finally gave a small breakthrough for Blur in the US.

Tom Waits – Blue Valentine (1978)

For a long time, while I was growing up, Tom Waits was one of those names that I had heard many times, but I didn't really know what his music was like. I had maybe heard a song or two from his 80's and 90's albums and I had not been that impressed. It wasn't until I borrowed some of his early albums from the library that I fell in love with his music. The early albums, roughly made in the 70's, are amazing. They have some blues, some jazz and some rock. Waits' voice is more or less clear only on the first two albums. After that, his vocals became super raspy. It works alright when you've gotten used to it, but it took a bit of getting used to in the beginning. Blue Valentine, in my opinion, is the best Tom Waits album with the raspy voice. It's filled with dark blues songs that you want to listen to in the dark corner of a bar while sipping smokey whisky.

John Coltrane – Blue Train (1957)

I've listened to some jazz in my life, but it was only a couple of years ago that I got very excited about jazz again and started buying classic jazz albums. I didn't really have that many of them and I felt like owning a nice collection of classic jazz vinyl records was something I should have. John Coltrane's Blue Train is one of those albums I bought. My vinyl is a new version with slightly modified album cover and probably the songs have slightly different sounds as well, but I'm not too fussy about things like that. I just think it's great to be well educated with stuff like this and I genuinely enjoy placing the needle on a record. That little scratching sound makes jazz sound much more authentic. That's why I want to go for vinyl even though CDs would be much cheaper. This album is John Coltrane's only Blue Note album where he's the band leader.

Massive Attack – Blue Lines (1991)

Massive Attack's debut album Blue Lines is widely thought of as the first ever trip hop album. The term trip hop wasn't really used back when this album came out, but it changed the style of electronic music as we had known it before. Massive Attack's songs were slower than most of the electronic music so far and they had a more hypnotic and meditational sound. Looking back in history now, makes it very clear that with this album, something new was born. Nowadays, trip hop is a clear genre with similar rhythm and aesthetic that was mostly born in Bristol in the early 90's. There aren't that many other albums that could be labelled as the first defining album of a certain genre as easily as this one. Personally, I think many albums that came after this are better, but there's no denying the genius of this album on the grounds that it was the fist one of its kind.

Michael Parks – Blue (1970)

This is again one of those albums that I have no idea how it ended up in my record collection. I probably got it from my grandmother's house where there was a bunch of vinyl records previously owned by my grandmother or one of my uncles. The album cover looked sort of promising, so I decided to take this album along with many others when they were offered to me as a fairly fresh vinyl collector. Michael Parks' music is quite traditional sounding country music. It's all very calm and relaxing but not particularly exciting. What was interesting though, was that when I started preparing for this blog post, I learned that Michael Parks was foremostly an actor and he has appeared in a few Quentin Tarantino films, including both Kill Bills. I had no idea of this when I originally got this album, even though, back then, I was already a fan of those films.

Beach House – Bloom (2012)

Back in 2010 I was browsing through the bands that were about to perform at the Flow Festival that year and that's how I found Beach House. Their new album Teen Dream had just been released. Back then, I didn't really listen to that much music that sounded like Beach House. The sound was much more electronic compared to singer-songwriter folk and guitar indie that I was listening to at the time. However, Beach House's dreamlike and beautiful pop music made an impression on me and when pretty much everyone else was watching M.I.A., whose music I do not like one bit, I saw Beach House live and that gig was an amazing experience that really opened my eyes towards dreamy synth pop. Bloom was the following album to Teen Dream, which I bought having just moved to London. It was quite similar to its predecessor.

Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968)

For a long time, I only knew Blood, Sweat & Tears from their song Spinning Wheel that appeared on numerous hippie-era compilation albums. Later on I realised that the band actually has a lot to offer. They were one of the first bands to mix jazzy big band sounds to soulful rock music. This mixture of different styles and instruments gave them quite an identifiable sound. This self-titled album is their second one. It was more pop-oriented than their debut album and it has some songs written by pop and rock artists of the time. The album became a massive hit. It sold millions of copies and has even won a Grammy. The album is also featured on many lists about the greatest albums of all times. To me personally, the album isn't that important, but it's still a great classic record that any music collector should have in their collection.

Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks (1975)

I only just went to a record shop to buy this album on vinyl right before writing this post. I felt like this is an album I can't miss in this blog and I've been thinking of buying it for a long time anyway. Whenever Dylan has released a good album after this one, everyone refers to them as "his best work since Blood on the Tracks. And fair enough, Blood on the Tracks is probably the last of the amazing masterpieces he ever released. In my books it goes right up there with Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde as the best ever Dylan album. This album sounds more personal than many other Dylan albums. There are topics of love and heartbreak. Some people, such as Dylan's son, have claimed that this album is about Dylan's relationship with his first wife, with whom Dylan was just separating at the time, but Dylan has always denied that this is the case. Nevertheless, these topics sound personal and thus it makes this album one of the most identifiable ones Dylan has ever made.

Wooden Wand – Blood Oaths of the New Blues (2013)

Wooden Wand isn't even that familiar artist to me. Basically, it is a pseudonym of James Jackson Toth, who has also performed under the stage name WAND. I remember hearing his music the first time on a Spotify folk playlist. I liked the music enough that I remembered the name and when I was browsing the sale vinyl records at Flash Back in Islington here in London, I decided to buy this album with £5. I haven't really listened to this album as much as I probably should've, but I blame the fact that my record player in London isn't that good and I didn't get the mp3 download with the album. This isn't the only reason though. Even if I like the calm folk stylings with some country influences, I'm having difficult time actually remembering any songs from this album. The songs are a bit too generic to leave a mark.

Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde (1966)

It took me quite some time to really understand the brilliance of Bob Dylan. When I was growing up, I mostly just heard either the very early songs like Blowing in the Wind or songs that other artists had made versions of. There's nothing particularly wrong with either of these. Blowing in the Wind and other early songs are great in their own way and I like many things that happened with the folk movement of the early 60's. The hits that other artists have made popular, such as All Along the Watchtower or Knocking on Heaven's Door do indeed sound quite good by other artists, but then again, they're not by far the best songs by Dylan. I got really interested in Blonde on Blonde as an album when I saw that sequence in High Fidelity the film where Jack Black says "You don't have it? That is perverse. Don't tell anybody you don't own fucking Blonde on Blonde". After that, I just had to get the album.

Eels – Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (2005)

As I've already said when I wrote about the Eels debut album, they're one of my all time favourite bands. Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is a double album that I view belonging to the so-called later phase of the Eels. Back when it was released, I was really excited, because I felt like it was the best thing released by them since their first three albums. I might still think that this is among the best albums, but it's also clear that it's not as good as the first three albums. This album sounds more like a band effort than some of the earlier albums. The songs are as personal as ever, but the instrumentation gives a sense of a band much more than the very intimate first albums. I feel like this is probably the first Eels album that works as a sort of autobiography of E's life. There are lots of historical topics about his life in the songs.

Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards – Blindspot (2013)

Some singers just have a voice that you'll listen to, hypnotised, no matter what they're singing. English singer-songwriter Dan Michaelson definitely has one of these voices. He has a deep baritone that has some warm and raspy comfort in it. I think I first heard this album when I was going through the best albums lists of 2013 by Rough Trade or Piccadilly Records. The first dark and melancholic notes already hit me hard and by the time his voice creeped in, I was sold. That was probably one of those moments when I just walked straight into the nearest record shop to buy this album. Ever since, this has been one of my go-to albums for those moments after work when I just want to lay down on the sofa really tired and just want to hear something calming and comforting. Getting older, I find myself needing albums like this more and more.

David Bowie – Blackstar

Not many other albums have made such a deep impression on me in the last ten years as this one. Of course, it wasn't necessarily just the album, but also the sentiment of one of my absolute musical heroes dying, that caused such a huge emotion in me. To be honest, I didn't even really notice that Bowie had released a new album until the news of his death reached me. I've never been as emotional about a celebrity dying as I was with Bowie. It was partly because it was so unexpected, but more importantly, it was because everyone seemed to care so deeply about this man. Especially, living in London made the event of his death extra special. There were people on the streets playing his songs, every single pub and restaurant was playing his albums, all of his albums were suddenly sold out from record shops and everyone seemed to talk about what this man had meant to them. Also, my social media was just full of Bowie.

Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)

Black Sabbath's debut album is widely considered to be the first heavy metal album ever made. Of course there are some other albums out there that could claim this honour, such as the first Led Zeppelin album or one of the early Deep Purple albums. However, Black Sabbath goes beyond hard rock. The songs are heavier in their tone. Also, Black Sabbath had a clear goal, to make scary music. This has stayed as the aesthetic of heavy metal music to this day. The Birmingham-based band was inspired by horror movies of the day. They wanted to make music that would have a similar kind of effect on people as the movies. The album cover alone is enough to enhance this image. I'm also certain that these kinds of sounds back in 1970 were enough to make Christian circles worried. When you also listen to the lyrics, you can be sure that this album was prepared to cause an uproar.