Best of 2010 - Part One

This is not a real year end top list. This is just a small non-numbered list of 2010 releases that I have enjoyed a lot. I am really slow when it comes to new releases. Therefore it might actually be more useful for me to write a best of 2009 list but that would be obsolete now.. So, here we go:

The Posies: Blood/Candy

A beautiful album by one of my very favorite bands. Gosh, I wasn't sure at all that they actually hadn't broken up – again.. Even though there aren't that many distorted guitar sounds, there is plenty of rock on this album, I think. Yes, the overall sound is at its cleanest since Dear 23 (which is actually probably my #2 favorite album from the Posies!) but does it really matter if the songwriting is absolutely superb? Blood/Candy is an album that doesn't wear out even with intensive, repeated listening.

Lemonator: Shake, Shake, Shake

A WONDERFUL album by dear, dear Lemos! Also my favorite band from Finland had been causing me to worry a bit if it was still around at all.. Relief came in the form of Shake, Shake, Shake: a fresh addition to the absolute high-quality Lemonator discography, and a very well balanced album. Shake, Shake, Shake can be seen as the first clearly ”happy” album since the debut effort Yellow (1997) but anyone who has paid attention to the band's music as a whole knows that Lemonator's music always comes with a dash of wistfulness. Sometimes the very Brian Wilsonesque melancholy remains hidden but it is still there – creating a big part of the magic.

Teenage Fanclub: Shadows

An album that I ignored at first (even though I had puchased it..). Then I received the gospel of Teenage Fanclub alive in front of me and I was made a whole new TFC fan! I ended up becoming a worshipper of Songs from Northern Britain rather than the new one but Shadows is a real beauty, of course. It was actually the songs from the new album that appealed to me the most in the live situation. Just like with Blood/Candy, one of the things that especially make me happy, is that TFC is also still going strong and maintaining its identity as the most cosy and charming power pop-related band of the planet.

The Apples in Stereo: Travellers in Space and Time

Yippee! The Apples made it: a more compact album than the previous one (New Magnetic Wonder) with the same lovely futuristic pop elements. The number of songs could have been smaller but I don't mind the album being the way it is either. Travellers in Space and Time is a cheerful, exciting, and fresh album that weaves some electronic dance music into power pop as if it was the most everyday thing.. The songs are catchy, and Robert Schneider sounds like a candy bar. That's the way it's done, friends!