ARTISTS INDEX

Below you will find the primary reviews library for my music collection, sorted artist by artist into their respective discography breakdowns. The below catalogue only considers artists for whom I've collected the complete discography, or enough of one to deem myself suitably knowledged of their works. Where appropriate, various solo/side projects and other related releases are also included within the respective artist pages. If you're wondering where all the various other random music or more truncated collections I own go, head down to the Miscellaneous Reviews section instead.

For ease of browsing/listing, the artists have been categorised into rough categories based on sound, scene, style or region - not always genre as such. There isn't any kind of scientific measurement to which artist gets lumped into what class, it's largely based on vibes and how I group many of these artists in my head. Therefore I would say don't take the classifications too seriously - it is primarily there for ease of browsing. New categories will also be created over time as I feature more artists, or I might shuffle things around. Chaos, I know!

Artists specifically marked with an emblem are those I consider among my all-time favourite artists, i.e. the ones that mean the most to me. Expect a lot of superlative stanning on those pages.

The individual albums have been rated on a scale from 1 to 10. A summary of the ratings can be found on Ratings page.

This list as it stands represents but a ripple of the music I own (you can find links to my full collection on the About page) but this page will be constantly updated as and when enough reviews are amassed per artist.

There was an explosion of indie music (both actual independent music and the vague "indie" genre tag) all over the world as the new millennium turned, courtesy of the internet suddenly giving musicians the ability to spread their work with no middlemen and the audiences and fans found new ways to share the music they discovered and fell in love with. This 2000s ripple is going to be heavily present in many of the categories below (guess who's a millennial!): this section is specifically devoted to the influx of artists who appeared across the US and Canada, immediately leaving an impact on music at large in a myriad of ways. From decidedly scruffy grassroots talent to the bombastic kitchen sink sounds that appeared when some bands realised that the hurdy-gurdy is a totally valid rock instrument, the below artists represent the fertile talent who first made their impact in the Wild West of the 2000s blogosphere days.

Arcade Fire	The band that defined indie rock for the new millenium.
Bright Eyes	One of the iconic, genre-setting indie singer/songwriters. Includes all of Oberst's various side projects, too.
Death Cab for Cutie	Emotive indie rock greats.
The National	Intricately detailed and intensely introspective melancholy. Includes sections for side projects.
The Shins	Indie pop melodic mastercraft.

Over on the other side of the big Atlantic pond, the UK was having its own explosion of brand new sounds and styles. In retrospect this has been somewhat muddled by the now infamous so-called "landfill indie" which has unfairly become synonymous with the period, and that's a shame because it hides just how vibrantly colourful, varied and creative these years were as seemingly everything got to have a chance in the spotlight: from stylish post-punk flair to exciting art pop and genre-blending acrobatics of those who wanted to dip their toes in everything around them and before them.

Guillemots	Lushly arranged, vividly composed art pop full of magic and imagination.
Noah and the Whale	Tragic and romantic folk pop songs from a band who could never catch a break.

From 1990s alternative rock and grunge, to the artists who inspired that very same movement and some who took those ideas further forward later down the line - some who found themselves becoming icons and mainstream stars, others who fell through the cracks. Mostly another US-centric category.

R.E.M.

From college rock heroes to the definitive US alternative rock stars. Includes a CD singles section.

Characterised by both the suave and quirky Britpop and the pre-millennium anxiety and dread, and complemented by so many bands who fell somewhere in between and found themselves grazing the zeitgeist for a few fleeting moments during an otherwise altogether unrelated path.

Manic Street Preachers	The iconic Welsh masters of rock anthems, literary references and deep wistfulness. Includes solo album pages and a CD singles section.
Radiohead	They revolutionised modern rock as we know it - and are a pretty good band in general!

Moving the focus away from bands (and pseudo-bands with one key lead figure) to musicians who felt the only real way they could express themselves was to go at it alone, usually with their trusty guitar or piano in tow as they belt out their personal songs straight from the heart.

Sometimes artists want to go at it by themselves because their vision cannot be contained in a stable band. Sometimes these artists aren't satisfied to simply stick to a single lead instrument - why should one constrain themselves so much, if there's no one to stop them from doing absolutely anything they want, after all? So we enter in this category full of musicians who dream big and then take bold steps to make those dreams a reality.

The "modern" is going to date itself horribly if this site (or the internet) ever stands any kind of test of time, but in summary: musicians and bands who entered prominence throughout the mid-late 2010s, 2020s (and beyond?), who weave through the streaming-era waters with the knowledge of everything that came before and a brand new view on how to translate that into something they can proudly call their own.

When you're decked out in keyboards, synthesizers and laptops but not to such an extent you'd be called an "electronic" act; when you're pop, but approach it from a different angle than those we would call pop stars; when you're working around the same themes and angles as other contemporary acts, but everyone feels it's a bit weird to lump you in with them because of your lack of guitars. That's when you're proudly synth pop.

Pet Shop Boys

The British synth pop legends.

And here's the all-out POP music. Big hooks, giant choruses, grand emotions - all served with radio-friendly catchiness. And often hiding depths that some more snobbish types wouldn't dare to even consider.

I'm Finnish, and I listen to a fair bit of Finnish music. This section is a neatly closed-off section for most of the domestic riches I foster in my collection, from genre to genre. This way, you can either avoid all these weird names you've never heard of and the cultural context you might not be aware of (though I do my best to explain) - or alternatively, you can find all these brand new discographies to explore neatly in one place.

And here's where the rest of the Finnish exports can be found. Just like in the UK and North America, Finland had its own music explosion in the 2000s, particularly around the late 90s and early 2000s. This was courtesy of several factors that contributed to a genuine flood of brand new talent from a number of key independent labels, forming a community of collaboration and exchange of musical ideas as the same musicians helped each other out in a number of projects in various ways - often resulting in short but bright discography runs as bands and projects got turned into others. I only experienced some of this "live" and later down the line made it a special project to dig in deeper to check out all the names I had come to know but not listened as much back in the day, and so over time this section will populate quite significantly.

Another regional section with no clear style or genre focus, this time focusing on all the Scandinavian countries. A lot of this bled to Finland too thanks to our close geographical proximity, and while some of these names broke through to the Anglosphere countries (at least for a flash), others are there waiting to be discovered by the wider world.

Some projects don't last for more than one or two albums. In such cases we are technically talking about complete discographies, but from a nerdy writer's perspective it means there's little that I can say about the artist overall that isn't already covered by the usual contextual parts of the reviews - there's little room for a deeper, summarising analysis when there's only a few items to consider. I've therefore split these artists into their own section, giving them their own artist pages but without introductionary speeches etc on the proviso that anything I'd say in the opening paragraphs will be included in the main reviews anyway.