Jean-Michel Jarre – Équinoxe (1978)

Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygène is one of the most well-known synthesiser albums. Équinoxe was released only one year after Oxygène and it is very similar in style. It's not quite as groundbreaking because there already was a very similar album before and also, the themes and melodies are not as interesting on this album. Nevertheless, this is a great example of a synthesiser album from the 70s that seems to predict the cold and industrial synth sounds of the 80s pop music. There is something beautifully futuristic in these kinds of sounds even today, over 40 years later. I can only imagine how futuristic it must've sounded at the time of its release. This is the kind of music people could've expected the music of the future to sound like. It's the music of 1950s sci-fi. The imagery of these albums is very appropriate for this futuristic aesthetic.

Spector – Enjoy It While It Lasts (2012)

Approximately five years ago I went to see Suede at Alexandra Palace here in London. I was excited to see them as I hadn't seen them live before. Opening for Suede was Spector. I had never heard about this band before, but it seemed that they had quite a few fans in the audience. The two guys in front of us were singing all the lyrics along. I had to admit that they had really catchy songs and I really enjoyed their set. Some time after I saw their debut album Enjoy It While It Lasts with a cheap price at a record store so I decided to buy it. Stylistically, Spector is more similar to bands I used to listen to some years earlier, but I'm still happy I bought this album, because it has some excellent hit songs. This is the kind of music I would've been really excited to see live a few years earlier when I still felt like really getting wild on the dance floor.

Weeping Willows – Endless Night (1999)

There seems to be something deeply melancholic in the Nordic state of mind. At least there are lots and lots of bands in the Nordic countries that channel mostly sad emotions in their songs. As even the name of the band might suggests, Weeping Willows is one of these bands. At the turn of the millennium, they were one of the most interesting Swedish bands out there. Endless Night is their second album and in my opinion it's one of their best overall. The album is very skilfully produced and there's quite big orchestration in the songs that remind me of some other indie rock artists of the same time such as Mercury Rev or Kent. There are also some slight influences from the guitar band Shadows in the guitar sounds. The album is overall quite melancholic and there are, above all, huge emotions in the performance on the album.

Eels – End Times (2010)

End Times is a classic break-up album. It features many different sides of a painful break-up. Different songs on the album are about sadness, loneliness, anger, remorse or about starting to feel better and living life again. The album seems to have a storyline from problems in the relationship, through the actual break-up to sadness and finally to getting over it. In addition to the themes of break-up, this album also deals with getting older quite a lot. When I first listened to the album, I wasn't too excited about it. It wasn't as good as most of the earlier Eels albums. But then, I broke up with my girlfriend shortly after I had bought this album and it gained much more meaning as a result. Many of the lyrics resonated with my situation and it definitely didn't help that this was playing when we were discussing the break-up in the first place.

Kaiser Chiefs – Employment (2005)

Around 2005 I started discovering lots of new indie rock bands. Post-punk revival had become the most successful indie genre with the help of such bands as Franz Ferdinand and Interpol. Kaiser Chiefs tapped into this success by their debut album Employment. Their songs have excellent melodies and there's some excellent punk rock attitude in their sounds. I also love the strong Yorkshire accent in their vocals. Kaiser Chiefs was one of the few bands I was into even before they had released any of their albums. I had already heard their songs I Predict a Riot and Oh My God before the album was released. The expectations were really high as a result. These songs had similarities to The Clash's classic album London Calling in style. Even though not all of the songs are as amazing as those two hits, this was a really strong debut album in its entirety.

The Cardigans – Emmerdale (1994)

The Cardigans was one of the most internationally well-known Swedish bands in the 90s. I'm sure there were quite a few people out there who never even realised they were from Sweden. Emmerdale, however, doesn't include that many internationally well-known hits. This is the band's debut album and in a way, they're still searching for their sound. There are some fantastic songs already on this album, but as a whole, it's a bit uneven. The title of the album is indeed taken from the British soap opera with the same name. This show was really popular in the Nordic Countries for some reason. At least in Finland it was on when I returned home from school, which meant that I got a glimpse of it quite often even though I never actually intentionally watched the show.

Jamiroquai – Emergency on Planet Earth (1993)

I really liked Jamiroquai as a teenager. I guess one of the main reasons was that at the time I was enthusiastically learning to play the bass and Jamiroquai delivered some of the best bass lines I had heard. At the time I wasn't really familiar with the original funk movement of the 70s, so Jamiroquai and Red Hot Chili Peppers were the two bands that introduced me to funk bass. Jamiroquai was the band out of these options that lasted time better and I still enjoy listening to them unlike RHCP. At the time, Jamiroquai was quite different from the other bands I listened to. That was the time when I was discovering 60s and 70s classic rock bands. In hindsight, I have to say that even though Jamiroquai's early albums still sound quite good, they're not a match for actual 70s funk classics, which I have only really discovered in the last few years.

The Pigeon Detectives – Emergency (2008)

I've written about a certain Indie rock compilation album that I bought almost 10 years ago in Notting Hill Portobello Road market a few times already. It features 100 indie hits, of which, many were already known to me, but it also introduced me to many new bands, The Pigeon Detectives being one of them. I wasn't massively excited about their music, but the couple of songs they had on that compilation made me interested enough to buy this album when I found it shortly after in a record shop in Helsinki with a cheap price. The Pigeon Detectives play quite typical mid-00s indie rock with fast-tempo disco beats and chiming electric guitars. Like Maxïmo Park, The Pigeon Detectives also sing in a strong Northern accent, which makes these two bands sound very similar. Although, Pigeon Detectives sing in Yorkshire. I really like it when you can hear the accent clearly in music.

Elliott Smith – Elliott Smith (1995)

Elliott Smith's self-titled album is his second one. On the debut solo album Roman Candle Smith was still trying to find his sound after his much more rock oriented band Heatmiser. This album already sounds like we've come to know Elliott Smith at his best. There are numerous very strong moments on this album. Songwriting is already fantastic. The sounds are very low-key, with most songs just having acoustic guitars and Smith's trembling vocals, which are already doubled on most of the album, creating a haunted mood to this album. I guess it's because this album was before Smith's breakthrough that came with the film Good Will Hunting that not many people talk about this album when talking about Elliott Smith. It does, however, have some of the best songs of his career. The overall mood of the album is very melancholic, even by Elliott Smith's standards.

22-Pistepirkko – Eleven (1998)

I've already written about a couple of albums by the Finnish alternative rock band 22-Pistepirkko. I'm sure this is quite a mouthful of a band name for non-Finns. The good news, though, is that the lyrics are in English. Although, I do need to point out that they don't make that much sense either sometimes. But that's only in a good obscure way. Eleven is not actually the band's eleventh album, it's seventh. So, I don't really know why it was titled that. Perhaps it has something to do with being half of 22. In my opinion, Eleven is the band's best album. It includes some proper garage rock songs that the band is known for, but it's also the first album by them to feature lots of fantastic electronic sounds as well. The album sounds wonderfully weird and there are various different types of genres on the album, while it still manages to sound like a coherent whole.

Hot Hot Heat – Elevator (2005)

The Canadian indie rock band Hot Hot Heat was one of the best guitar-driven fast-tempo indie rock bands in mid-00s. Their songs have great melodies, a thing that cannot be said of many other similar bands of that period. I was really into bands like this around the time when this album was released. Elevator is the band's second album and in my opinion it's their greatest album to date. It has the youthful attitude of the debut album, but the compositions are a lot more well thought of. In the following albums, Hot Hot Heat lost some of its edge as their sounds became more commercial. I bought the album on a vinyl and I remember thinking that this gatefold sleeve was really cool. This was the time when I started buying more and more albums on vinyl and I was extremely fond of all of my newly bought vinyl albums.