Albums:

1. V/A: D.i.Y. Come Out And Play – American Power Pop I
This is a great series of compilations. Unfortunately I found them so late that they were already out of print. Still I found American Power pop II and UK Power pop I & II quite easily, but it took a few years to find a reasonably priced copy of this. Even now I paid something like 17€ which is quite a lot for a used cd, but this one is definitely worth it.

2. Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers: Songs In The Night
This one got most air time in this household during the week. It’s not the best thing ever, but it does have a lot of really good songs and I like it a lot. A good start is to watch this minidocumentary at youtube, if you want to get to know her.

3. Gene Clark & Carla Olson: So Rebellious A Lover
I’m a huge Gene Clark fan but it took me a long time to buy this one. It’s not his finest work, but it’s still pretty damn good. Oh and someone please release Two Sides To Every Story. It would be about time. I would love to buy it, but it’s been out of print for a long time.

4. King Khan & The Shrines: The Supreme Genius Of..
A bit of rock’n’roll is sometimes okay.

5. A Camp: Colonia
Also started listening to this beauty. No final verdicts, because I’ve only just begun…

Songs:

1. Janne Laurila: Tauti ilman hoitoo
2. Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers: Devils In Boston
3. Nopat: Yksi joukossa
4. Scott H. Biram: Still Drunk, Still Crazy, Still Blue
5. King Khan & The Shrines: Welfare Bread

The most useless lists for the week 22 aka the things I’ve loved during the week.

Top 5 Albums:

1. Iron & Wine: Around The Well
– I just bought it friday and started listening to it today, but I instantly fell in love with it. I’m a long time fan, but I didn’t rate his latest studio album Shepherd’s Dog as highly as the earlier ones. This rarities collection on the other hand is right up my alley. I would have bought it just because of The Trapeze Singer (eventhough I love the song, I never bothered to buy In Good Company soundtrack just because of it), but there’s a lot of treasures in here. This is the kind of Iron & Wine I love. All you need Sam is an acoustic guitar and your voice. Don’t let it grow too big. It’s this down-to-earth beauty and warmness that makes these carefully crafted songs reach our hearts. A bigger sound can destroy part of that magic.

2. Blue: S/T
– A stunning pop album from the seventies. I love it to bits and last.fm reveals that I listened to 197 Blue songs during the week.

3. Puumaja: Meriselityksiä
– Finally out and available and sounds excellent. Great to have those great songs like Täydelliset kasvot finally on an album.

4. Leevi & The Leavings: Suuteleminen Kielletty
– I picked up a few old albums from Anttila (shame on me that I bought from Anttila). I loved them when I was something like 10-15 years old. Had most of the albums on cassettes and I took songs like Sopivasti Lihava and Unelmia ja Toimistohommia to these levyraati things we had at ala-aste. Well actually the teacher didn’t let me play the latter one, because she remembered that the first one had some inappropriate lyrics. Anyway, nowadays I only had one collection on vinyl, so I thought I fill some holes and bought some of their early albums. Great stuff obviously.

5. Steve Earle: Townes
– I’m not into tribute albums, but this was too interesting to miss completely. Steve Earle covering his friend the late great Townes Van Zandt. I do think it’s a rather good album. Mostly because it contains some of the best songs ever written. The problem just is that Townes was so extraordinady talent and one of the greatest artists that ever lived that no-one can come even close to his original versions and therefore I really can’t see why I would pick this album from the shelf instead of those Townes Van Zandt masterpieces after the first few weeks. Still this is by no means a bad album and I hope it will forward people to the real things. By this I mean not just Townes Van Zandt’s albums, but also Steve Earle’s own music which is mostly great as well.

Top 5 Songs:

1. Blue: Look Around
2. Iron & Wine: The Trapeze Swinger
3. Blue: Timi’s Black Arrow
4. Puumaja: Täydelliset Kasvot
5. First Aid Kit: You’re Not Coming Home Tonight

Top 5 albums:

1. Cheap Star: Speaking Like An Elephant
2. The Broken Family Band: Please and Thank You
3. Tinted Windows: S/T
4. Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career
5. The Decemberists: Hazards Of Love

Top 5 songs:

1. Olento: Jill Nissinen (youtube video)
2. Cheap Star: You Got It All
3. Heartjet: All these 5 songs on their myspace
4. Koria Kitten Riot: Every Time We Had To Say Goodbye
5. Paleface: Traveling From North Carolina
– This is obviously not the finnish Paleface. Not that I have anything against him, but just thought I point it out that this is the american folk artist Paleface.

Top 1 most useless lists:

1. Those two above

Don’t take these too seriously. It’s just albums and songs I’ve enjoeyd during the given week. They are not necessarily in the order I would rate them as a whole. It’s just this weeks best of in my heart. And all the albums that feature on these lists might not be my biggest favourites all things considered. For example I still have major doubts concerning that The Decemberists album. Some of it is absolutely stunning, but some of it is just way too ambitious and simply boring to me. But because I’ve listened to it a lot during the week and adore the finest moments of it, it deserves the spot on this weeks list instead of several much better albums which I have only spinned a few times during the week.