The XX – Coexist (2012)

I was really excited about The XX when they had just released their first album in 2009. Their minimalist, echoey sounds were super cool and so was the album cover with just a white X on black background. Fairly soon after the release of the debut album I learned that The XX was coming to Helsinki to play at the Flow festival. First I thought the band wouldn't really fit into a festival, because it was so intimate and quiet that I didn't think they could manage to create similar mood at a huge festival. Turns out I was wrong. The gig was incredible and the mood was even further improved by dramatic clouds and starry sky. This is why I had high hopes for the band's second album. I should've known that it was difficult to repeat something so unique and fair enough, the second album doesn't manage to be as intimate as the first album.

Led Zeppelin – Coda (1982)

Coda is Led Zeppelin's last album, which was released a couple of years after the death of their drummer John Bonham. Coda is a collection of outtakes from their previous albums. As a result, the album is more of a compilation than an actual album, which makes it a bit less interesting than any other Led Zeppelin album. The sounds are also very different since it includes tracks from the very early sessions played for the very first albums as well as songs from their last album In Through the Out Door's sessions. Apparently the band didn't really ever think of releasing this album, but since so many bootleg albums were being sold, they thought that there would be enough interest in this kind of a back-catalogue album. There are some great sounding songs on the album, and therefore I think it was a right decision to publish it.

The Flaming Lips – Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)

The Flaming Lips didn't get much fame until their ninth album The Soft Bulletin and it wasn't until the tenth album Yoshimi Battles Pink Robots before they became well-known for wider audiences. First it seems a bit strange why a band like them had to go through so many albums before their big break, but if you listen to these early albums, it's not actually that difficult to see why. Clouds Taste Metallic is the band's seventh album and this was expected to be the one that would get some wider recognition. Then again, the sounds on this album are still very lo-fi. I'm quite surprised that this is even released by Warner Brothers, who are a huge record company. Then again, what came after is even stranger. 4 CD Zaireeka was meant to be played on four separate stereos and each CD has different tracks for the same songs, so they need to be clicked on play simultaneously.

Tom Waits – Closing Time (1973)

Most people know Tom Waits from the era when his voice was already pretty much gone. His original raspy, yet melodic and airy vocals can only be heard on his first two albums. Closing time is an incredibly strong debut album, which is just incredibly cozy and heartwarming. Waits himself wanted to include lots of jazz elements on it, whereas his produced really wanted it to be more of a folk album. The end result is a delicious mix of the two genres with some blues on the side. I only bought the album very recently, but I have been listening to it for years. I was trying to find a decent vinyl version without spending too much money, but that proofed to be really difficult, so I settled in buying this on a new remastered cardboard-covered CD. The main thing is that I have it. Closing Time is one of those albums that you just need to have as a record collector.

Joy Division – Closer (1980)

Closer, the second and the last album of Joy Division, is one of the darkest albums the world has ever seen. It was released posthumously only a couple of months after the death of the band's frontman Ian Curtis. The album can be seen as something of a suicide note of the lead-singer. The lyrics are morbidly depressing and the sounds and melodies are not that much cheerier either. The final touch is the album cover that features a tomb in black and white. Ian Curtis was dangerously depressed while making this album because of his personal life and he felt real anxiety following their huge success based on the first album. The band was just about to go on their first North American tour when Curtis hung himself. This album features some of Joy Division's greatest songs and in some ways it's a lot darker than the debut album Unknown Pleasures.

Various Artists – Clockwork Orange Sountrack (1972)

Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange made a huge impression on me when I first saw it years ago. The film was full of extreme violence that I'm really not a fan of, but at the same time, the film had been made in such an absurd way that I could only adore the audiovisual aesthetics of the film. The film is based on Anthony Burgess' book with the same name. I read the book for a school project when I was about 16 years old and the book even intensified my fascination with the story. The story takes place in a slightly dystopian future where violent street gangs are conducting their bad deeds around town after which the main character Alex is arrested and conditioned to feel sick every time he tries to be involved in any violent activities. The unfortunate side-effect is that he's also conditioned to feel sick when he hears his favourite artist, Ludwig van Beethoven's music.

CMX – Cloaca Maxima (1997)

When I was growing up in the 90's, CMX was one of the most important bands to people around me. I also listened to their music quite a lot. In Finland, not knowing them was pretty much impossible. They were huge. It's funny to think that a band that started their career with gritty punk music became one of the biggest bands in Finland. CMX comes from the album title Cloaca Maxima, which means the great sewer of the Roman empire. This album is a 3 CD collection of hits, B-sides and live-recordings. The first album concentrates on the band's early songs which are a bit heavier and have fairly rough themes while the second album is mostly haunting and beautiful ballads from more recent albums. The third album is mostly B-sides and rarities. Even though I liked individual albums by CMX back in the day, I never felt like I needed any other albums besides this.

The Lumineers – Cleopatra (2016)

I was introduced to The Lumineers by Spotify. Spotify suggests songs based on the songs you have listened recently and my list got some songs by The Lumineers pretty much every week a couple of years ago. I found myself often listening to a song and nodding along to it and when I checked what it was, it was often The Lumineers. I then decided to buy their debut album when I found it with an affordable price at a record store in London. To be honest, I haven't listened to that album that much since I bought it. I really like it, but for some reason it didn't really spark enough interest that I would've selected that album out of all of my albums. This second album I decided to buy purely because it was on sale with £3. However, I have really enjoyed listening to this album especially now that I was about to write this blog post.

Jimmy Eat World – Clarity (1999)

In my early 20s I kind of identified with emo kids, even though I wasn't really listening to proper emo music at that time. I just liked the black hair aesthetic I guess. Had I known this album back then, I'm sure I would've actually also listened to proper emo music. I was only introduced to this album more than five years after its release. Jimmy Eat World's Clarity is pretty much the greatest emo albums of all times. There's a fantastic sense of drama in the songs ranging from beautiful and melodic post-rock sequences to fast punk-style rhythms and screaming. The sounds are very American, which sometimes is a put-off for me, but on this album I don't really care, because the result is so gorgeous. The instrumentation on this album sounds like it could've been the spark that led to bands like Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky to play their style of post-rock.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)

I think it's become a floating joke that all the indie bands of mid-00's have ridiculous names and for the most part it is true. It is especially true about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. You can't find a more stereotypical mid-noughties hipster band than them. The name is ridiculous, the album cover is badly drawn strange picture with awful clashing colours and the music itself is quite lo-fi and full of unclean vocals. Despite of all of this, there's something very likable about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I remember hearing it for the first time at least ten years ago and I definitely wasn't very convinced back then. Later on, especially after moving to London, I feel like my musical horizons have grown significantly and I can appreciate strange sounds a lot more. At the same time, my appreciation towards this album has grown and grown.

Kelley Stoltz – Circular Sounds (2008)

One thing I kind of miss from Finland are the amazing libraries, where you can, not only, find most of the books you'd ever be interested in reading, but also find pretty much any album on a CD or vinyl. Ten years ago I used to visit Helsinki libraries frequently to find interesting CDs that I could then copy to my laptop. It was still very much a time of CDs and mp3s. I had a habit of borrowing any albums that were released by the SubPop label, since pretty much everything they released around that time was quite brilliant. Circular Sounds was one of those albums I borrowed, having never before heard Stoltz's music. I remember being intrigued by some songs back then, but I didn't much care for the whole album. Later on, I happened to hear a song here and there on my i-Pod when it was on shuffle and suddenly I really felt like I had been missing out not listening to this album more.

Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex (2017)

Cigarettes After Sex is a fairly new acquaintance to me. Of course it's quite a new band to begin with. I think I heard a couple of first songs from them about a couple of years ago, but it wasn't until at teh end of last year that I really got into them. Their music is amazingly mellow ambient pop with great echoey dream pop vibes. The whole album is really mellow and quiet, so it's great for relaxing at home. There are similarities to bands like The XX or Beach House, or if we go more back in time, Mazzy Star and Slowdive. I bought this CD after I had done my top 10 list for the best albums of 2017. If I had bought it earlier, this would've probably been on my list. I really like the simple black album cover. You can't really describe this sound with illustrations. It will be interesting to see how this band's career evolves after this debut album.

The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow (2003)

There are some albums that never lose their magic. I fell in love with The Shins after hearing my friend play this album to me when it was brand new, but whenever I return to this album it still has that same magical sound. The Shins already became quite well-known in the indie circles after the first album, but it took another album and the film Garden State to make them really break. This was the first album to me personally and thus it's also the most important one. There are some excellent songs on other Shins albums as well, but none of the other albums are as perfect from start to finish. I also really like the album cover. It reminds me of computer games of my childhood, such as The Day of the Tentacle. This cartoonish psychedelia fits in with the music perfectly. When I saw this album later on on vinyl, I was a bit jealous, because it really does look glorious.

Jean-Michel Jarre – Chronologie (1993)

Jean-Michel Jarre's music belongs to my childhood, because my father was really into synthesiser music when I was growing up. At the same time, it always sounded like the future. Even now when I listen to his albums, there's something extraordinarily futuristic about his music. Many older people than me have said that what was amazing about 80's music was that it all sounded like the music of the future. I can really see what they mean when we're talking about synthesiser music. This album is more recent and in my opinion, not quite as good as Jarre's late 70's albums or 80's albums, but this is still quite nostalgic for me as my father had this album when I was young and I remember listening to it quite a lot while playing Hero Quest, a fantasy board game, with my friends, because we wanted something instrumental.