Eels – Eels With Strings: Live at Town Hall (2006)

I'm sure we have all had those discussions where we think about which concerts we would want to have seen live in the history. Most people choose a show by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Nirvana. Generally, people choose a show by a band that doesn't exist anymore and it's not possible to really ever see them again. I would most likely pick a concert like that as well in reality, but this Eels concert with strings is a high contender for a gig I really would've wanted to see. I've seen Eels live three times in my life and even now I would have a chance to buy tickets for their gig in London this August. So, in this case, it's not really about seeing the band live. It's about seeing this particular performance in New York City Town Hall in 2005. I really love the gentle acoustic sounds that have been spiced up with string arrangements and even a musical saw.

Feeder – Echo Park (2001)

Sometimes a single song can be a big enough incentive to buy the whole album. I was visiting London some time before I lived here and went to the Portobello Road market. There, in a CD stall, I found a compilation of 100 Indie rock hits and the Feeder song Buck Rogers was on that album. I really liked that song. It was kind of like the college rock bands of the US, but not tacky in the same way. Later on, I was rummaging through the CDs at a record store's end sale in Helsinki and I saw Echo Park with a very affordable price and I bought it. This is one of the few Welsh bands I know, but it doesn't sound what I expect Welsh bands to sound at all. It sounds very American by its sounds. Also, I only know Echo Park to mean the famous park in Los Angeles that has been mentioned in many other pop and rock songs by artists I like.

Blondie – Eat to the Beat (1979)

Blondie was one of those bands that I was completely unaware of when I was growing up. I first got introduced to the band in uni and pretty much immediately, I fell in love with the band. More precisely, I fell in love with their album Parallel Lines. It took me a while to start listening to the other albums and even though there are fantastic songs on other albums as well, Parallel Lines remains my favourite. Eat to the Beat followed Parallel Lines. It was probably quite impossible to improve after such a record, bu the band has really put their best effort in doing just that. The album has more disco influences than the previous albums which gives some of the songs amazing hit potential. Eat to the Beat comes as a good second in my review of Blondie albums. If I remember correctly, this was the first Blondie vinyl I bought.

Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger (2007)

Ryan Adams has made so many albums, especially in his early career that it's difficult to remember the strengths of all of them. At the time when Easy Tiger was released, Ryan Adams released most of his albums with the band The Cardinals. Easy Tiger is also played with The Cardinals, but they are not credited in the album cover. Perhaps this was the record label's wish. This was a time in Ryan Adams' career when he was moving slightly away from his country and folk sound towards a more straightforward rock style. Nevertheless, most of the songs still have that Americana country feel to them. This was also the time when I didn't get that excited about new Ryan Adams albums anymore. It's not that there was anything particularly wrong with the songs, it was more just that he released so many albums in a row that it was difficult to keep up the full interest.

Patti Smith Group – Easter (1978)

This is the first album in this blog that I don't technically have in my record collection. So, why am I writing about it here then? My wife has this album and effectively that means that it's in my household's record collection. I haven't written about all of her other albums, but I definitely would've bought this album myself if she didn't have it already, which is why I feel like I need to write about this one. There will be some others as well later on. I have known about Patti Smith for a really long time, but it wasn't until I got involved with my wife that I really got into her music. Easter is one of her best albums. It doesn't have the attitude of her debut album Horses, but in terms of songwriting, this is even better. There are still some sequences on this album that sound more like first wave punk, but overall sounds have shifted towards new wave already.

Charles Mingus – East Coasting (1957)

I have been recently quite bored with pop music. I don't know if it has to do with me getting older, or with the fact that I've been listening to so much music that it all starts to sound kind of the same. In any case, I have been tired of hearing electronic instruments and studio gimmicks that make the music sound completely different from what it would sound like live without many effects. As a result, I have been really drawn into jazz recently. Especially the records from the mid-50s to mid-60s. I usually buy my jazz on vinyl as it somehow makes it sound more authentic. The problem with that is that I can't take the music with me, because I don't have the mp3s. Just a few days ago, I was at a record store here in London and I spotted compilation boxes that have quite a few original jazz albums on CD and they don't cost that much, so I bought a few of them to get some jazz on my phone. This is one of the albums that came with the Charles Mingus box.

Mike Oldfield – Earth Moving (1989)

As my regular readers will already know, I've gotten loads and loads of Mike Oldfield records from my father. He had pretty much bought all the Oldfield albums on vinyl, until suddenly, he switched to CDs and when his record player broke down, he didn't buy a new one, so I took a hold of his record collection. I'm not a big fan of, especially the 80s, Mike Oldfield, but I guess it's interesting to get out of my comfort zone every once in a while. I feel like Oldfield has become more and more commercial with his every album and these late 80s albums are already just quite close to any stadium rock pop. What has remained from his 70s albums is the use of synthesisers. Mike Oldfield has made quite catchy pop tunes on these late 80s albums, but for some reason he never really had big hits around those days. Goes to show that you need to have something more personal to make it.

Donovan – Early Treasures (1973)

Donovan had at least two different parts to his career. He started by playing acoustic folk songs in the style of Bob Dylan and later he adopted more and more psychedelic influences, most likely as a result of The Beatles. Considering these influences, it's quite clear that I like Donovan. This compilation album focuses much more on the early songs and thus it is quite a pure folk album. Donovan is one of the few artists I first came to know through my mother. I've been talking about my dad's records a lot in this blog, but not much about my mum. That's probably because she wasn't listening to that much music at home. Nevertheless, I do remember her being really into Donovan. This is not her album though, I bought it myself, but the spark to listen to Donovan originally came from her. She was always into the hippy music of her childhood and early teenage years.

James Vincent McMorrow – Early In the Morning (2010)

A few years ago when I had moved to London, I got Barbican membership for one year as a birthday present from my wife. This included many benefits, such as free admission to the art gallery, cheaper movie tickets and a possibility to book tickets for gigs ahead of rest of the public. I love Barbican in any case because of the amazing space-age surroundings and the gigs in Barbican have amazing acoustics, but this membership made me book tickets for shows even more easily than normally. I had never heard of James Vincent McMorrow, but when his upcoming gig was introduced in my membership email, the description felt good and I checked him out. He was playing melancholic and airy folk music that I liked a lot, so I bought the tickets to go and see him. The gig was really good and it introduced me to yet another great new folk artist.

Kent – Du & Jag Döden (2005)

The Swedish alternative rock band Kent is probably the biggest Nordic band that hasn't become popular outside the Nordic Countries. The reason for this is simply that they sing in Swedish and there's hardly a market for that outside the Nordics. Kent attempted to make a couple of their albums in English as well, but the result was never as good as the original Swedish albums. I'm quite happy to just listen to them in Swedish. I already listened to Kent quite a lot in the 90s, but it was the couple of albums in the early 00s that made them super popular. Du & Jag Döden is the last album with the lead guitarist Harri Mänty and after this album Kent started adopting a lot more electronic sounds into their music. I don't particularly like any albums after this and that's why I often think of Du & Jag Döden as the final Kent album.

First Aid Kit – Drunken Trees (2008)

The Swedish duo First Aid Kit has become really popular in recent years and you might even say they're one of the most well-known folk bands in the world today. Drunken Trees is their debut release. It's just an EP, but there are still seven songs on it. I bought this on vinyl where there is also a First Aid Kit's version of the Fleet Foxes song Tiger Mountain Peasant Song as a bonus track. The sound on Drunken Trees is more stripped down and lo-fi than on any of their later albums. Also the album cover is very endearing and it makes it quite clear that this was released before any significant record deals. I didn't know about this EP until many years later. I found the band after their debut full album The Big Black and the Blue, but I didn't buy this EP until very recently when I found it in a London-based record shop with very reasonable price.

22-Pistepirkko – Drops & Kicks (2005)

22-Pistepirkko is one of the most legendary Finnish bands. This trio is from a small village of Utajärvi in northern Finland. Their sound is a unique blend of garage rock, psychedelia and alternative rock. The guys in the band are quite shy and very very strange. If you ever saw them live while they were active, you know what I'm talking about. It really does feel like they just came from their remote cottage in Utajärvi straight on stage, even though in reality they've lived in Helsinki for quite some time. The band is known for their energetic performances. Asko, the keyboard player has been known to stage dive every now and then. Drops & Kicks is one of the last studio albums from the band. It features more heavy garage sounds than it's couple of predecessors that were more electronically influenced.

Aerosmith – Draw the Line (1977)

Aerosmith was one of the first "adult" bands I was into. Back in the day, I liked their newer albums, such as Get a Grip, Pump and Permanent Vacation more than the old albums, but once I got over my Aerosmith phase, I have actually liked the old albums more when I have occasionally returned to listen to the band's albums. I bought pretty much all of their albums back in the day when they were one of my favourite bands. They were ruined for me when they made that awful cheesy song for the film Armageddon. After that I couldn't take them seriously for a long time. Quite recently I have listened to some of their 70s albums and I actually think they're pretty good. Draw the Line is not among the best of them, but there are a couple of really good songs on it nevertheless. It's fun to see how long the band has been around even if the hight of their career was in the 90s.

Delay Trees – Doze (2012)

Delay Trees' self-titled debut album was one of the best Finnish debut albums ever released. I already wrote about that one quite recently and I didn't spare praises. Doze is the second album that, at least for me, had high expectations. Unfortunately the expectations are not really met on this album. I'm not saying it's not a good album, because it is. I'm just saying that it doesn't fully capture the magic of the first album. I guess it's because on this second album, the main focus is on the sounds and experimentation, rather than on melodies. What I loved about the first album was how very simple melodies had been made to sound magical by the aid of lots of echo and delay. I like simple melodies. They give birth to something primitive inside our brain that makes us feel pleasure when we can predict what comes next.

Angus & Julia Stone – Down the Way (2010)

Angus & Julia Stone is a duo and one of the artists I found because my friend tipped me there was going to be a gig of them in Helsinki. I hadn't heard of the duo before, but I was convinced from the first songs I heard. Especially Julia Stone has a unique voice that you can recognise anywhere. First it sounds a bit childish, but once you get used to the honey-dripping dreamy voice, you can't but marvel in wonder. Her brother Angus has a great voice as well, even if it is slightly more conventional. What makes it truly special is how those voices work together. At the concert, it was clear that it's Julia who's running the show and Angus is mostly just a band-member, but then again, I would argue his importance is in song-writing, guitar-playing and in providing excellent vocal harmonies. In any case, the sibling duo really makes some magical music.