The White Stripes – Elephant (2003)

Elephant was the album that made The White Stripes a superstar. They were already well-known in the indie circles before this fourth album of theirs, but this album pushed them to the mainstream and things like Grammy awards. To me personally, Elephant was a bit of a disappointment compared to the previous album White Blood Cells that I still consider the best album by The White Stripes. On this album, the band kind of lost the rawest edge that had made their music so incredibly unique on the earlier albums. I'm not saying it's not there on Elephant as well, but the sound is much more carefully fine tuned that it doesn't sound as fresh and improvised as the previous albums. I don't want to badmouth Elephant, because I still think it's a fantastic album. I'm just saying that it took the White Stripes closer to commercial sound.

Eels – Electro-Shock Blues (1998)

People who have read my blog know that I'm a big fan of Eels. Eels is not really a band in a conventional sense. It's really the outlet of Mark Oliver "E" Everett's musical talent. Electro-Shock Blues is my absolute favourite Eels album and one of the greatest albums ever made by anyone. It's a high praise, I know, but I really do feel like that. Before the album was recorded, E's sister committed suicide and his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Also, E's father had died when he was still just a kid, so the album deals with many thoughts of him being left on his own as the last person alive of his immediate family. The topics of the album are really dark and sad, but the way E performs them brings some humour and lightness to the topics. Many of the songs also weigh on the reasons why despite of crushingly bad news, it's important to remember to keep on living.

Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland (1968)

When I was about 14 years old, me and many of my friends started discovering 60s and 70s bands and for quite a few years, I almost exclusively listened to those classics. Jimi Hendrix was among one of the coolest artists around that time. It was widely considered that his guitar playing was the best in the world. I'm not entirely sure if I can agree to take this as a fact because there are so many amazing guitar players in the world, but he definitely changed the game back in the day. I can only imagine how strange his music must've sounded back when people had mostly just heard quite straightforward pop and rock music. Hendrix took influences from old blues music, from the new psychedelia of the 60s and created this unique sound you can hear on the album. The sounds on the album are quite fantastic, because they sound like they were just being played right in front of you.

Elastica – Elastica (1995)

Elastica is one of the heaviest sounding Britpop bands. Their music has strong influences from late 70s post-punk bands such as Wire. Elastica was quite popular in the UK in the 90s, but unlike many other Britpop bands of the time, they didn't become that popular elsewhere. Perhaps I'm a bit too young to know it for sure, but at least I only found out about the band after the biggest Britpop craze was already over. Their debut album became the fastest selling debut album in UK since Definitely Maybe by Oasis and it kept that record for 10 years. Not bad for a band that not many people actively remember these days. I only bought this CD here in London a few years ago when I found it second hand in a record shop. This was around the time when I reintroduced myself to many other Britpop bands that I had not really listened to at the hight of their success.

The Black Keys – El Camino (2011)

I discovered The Black Keys in 2010 when the band had just released their album Brothers. There was something very special about that album. Generally, it was very close to other guitar-driven indie bands I listened to at the time, but it also had amazing groove and powerful rhythms that were often absent from 00s indie rock. I didn't get inside the album quickly. It took me some time to start fully appreciating it. When this album was released a year later, I didn't even pay much attention to it. It was only a little bit later when I saw the music video for the hit song Lonely Boy that I got excited about this new album. The song was different to the songs on the previous album. It's somehow a bit ironic that this new style has later on become the less interesting part of this band and I appreciate the more soulful songs I didn't fully get into in the first place.

Tabula Rasa – Ekkedien Tanssi (1976)

I know Tabula Rasa mainly because of my parents. Tabula Rasa was a progressive rock band in Tampere, Finland in the 70s. Some of the band members went to high school with my parents, including Heikki Silvennoinen, the guitar player, who later became a known comedian after being one of the main actors in a sketch show Kummeli. My father bought the debut album of Tabula Rasa when it was released on a CD. Around this time I was really getting into 70s prog rock and this seemed like a nice band. It was one of the very few bands in this genre that sung in Finnish. The debut album is a lot better than this second album in my opinion, but there are some good moments on this one as well. This album has more straightforward pop rock songs than the debut album and they're not as melancholic, which is never a good thing for me.

Elliott Smith – Either/Or (1997)

I don't think there's any other musician that has had as big of an impact on me than Elliott Smith. I found his music in the early 00s and ever since then, his albums have been among my most treasured ones. I have even on many occasion called his XO the greatest album ever released. Either/Or precedes the XO era and the songs are rawer. For many people, this is the ultimate Elliott Smith album. I personally really like the added piano sounds on XO and Figure 8, but I still have to admit there's something beautifully haunting in Either/Or's acoustic guitars and Smith's whispering vocals. This album also includes a couple of my favourite Elliott Smith tunes. It was only later on when I realised that Elliott Smith's music had been played in the film Good Will Hunting. He had become quite well known in the US as a result, but to me it took a friend's recommendation to get to know his music.

Egotrippi – Egotrippi (1995)

Egotrippi is a long-standing Finnish pop rock band that became one of the country's most popular bands after releasing six albums. In my personal opinion, that's when their music started going downhill, but as often is the case, the masses like different type of music than me. Egotrippi started their career making quite catchy pop rock tunes, in mid-career they took influences from the alternative rock bands of the time and wrote a bunch of power pop songs and they finally became mega-popular when they started playing sentimental adult oriented rock. On their self-titled debut album they were still trying to find their sound and many of the songs on this album have different styles.As you can see from the album cover, the budget for their debut album wasn't that high and many of the songs do sound a bit raw.