1970

Getting closer to the 60's the albums just keep getting better. One thing I've noticed while writing this blog is that the 1960's is actually among the best decades of music. It's not just the Beatles and Bob Dylan, but there's a whole range of amazing bands and artists, that for some reason I had connected to 1970's in my mind. Also the 1960's is full of bands that have lived a really hectic lives. The Doors, for example, made six fantastic albums in four years, while touring at the same time. No wonder they needed something to ease their stress. The year 1970 has an amazing list of fabulous albums. There's folk, hard rock, blues rock, pop-rock and psychedelia. Every one of these albums is a classic and I cannot think of any albums that I could've included over these. What a great year once again! This was a golden time in music!

1971

1971 list of best albums is so full of classic and fantastic albums, that I couldn't have left any of these out. Most of these albums are widely acclaimed, but some of them are just important to me personally. The early 1970's can be considered a golden time for classic rock albums. These are the ones that show up in almost all the greatest albums of all times lists. More accurate genres include blues-rock, glam-rock, hard rock, pop-rock, heavy rock, progressive rock and folk. I kept changing the order of these albums quite a bit while making the list, but the albums on the list stayed the same all the time. Even though there are quite a lot of good albums that were left out, I always came to the conclusion that these ones should really be on the list. We'll soon approach the 1960's, which also has some amazing albums coming up. 1971, however is one of the best years in this blog!

1972

The year 1972 is again pretty awesome year in music. Most of the albums this year can be categorised in either glam-rock or folk genres. However, there's also some funk, psychedelia and pop-rock in there. Again, the vintage factor is quite high. It's weird to realise, how in 1972, almost all the best albums are considered mainstream, wheres today, very few mainstream albums are at all listenable. I guess this is due to the way record companies work these days. But back to 1972. This year did not wow me as much as the years around it, but that's no reason to say that this year wouldn't be as good. When I get closer to the 1960's I find that most of the albums I consider to be core albums of the 70's are actually really early 70's albums. This era has been one of the most influential eras in popular music since then.

1973

The year 1973 is one of the best year's in this blog. Many classic albums, some cult albums and impossibility to fit everything good in. The genres include psychedelic rock, glam-rock, singer-songwriter blues, jazzy pop-rock, hard rock, multi-instrumental alternative rock and Krautrock. This year is one of the epicentres of classic concept albums. There were many great albums I couldn't include, because there were these ten better ones. The toughest competition was made for the last place on the list, because all the others were sort of must-include cases. I'm glad I chose the one on the tenth place as well though. Enjoy!

2013

I've listened to more new music this year than I've probably ever listened to. As a consequence, I've found a staggering amount of great bands. That's why I find, that presenting only the ten best albums, would be way too restrictive. This is why I'm presenting top 15 albums for this year. I know the blog's name is Annual top 10, but hey, it's my blog and I can do what I want with it. The year is filled with interesting new artists and beautiful melodies and sounds. I was generally disappointed with many of my old favourite artists' new albums. They did not have that much new to offer and some bands or artists like Arcade Fire, The National and John Grant really disappointed me by making albums that were not interesting to me even though I've liked all their previous stuff. This is why this list consists of artists I have found this year. I really like each and everyone of these 15 albums.

First of all I must mention a few albums that are not on the list, even though they're in my opinion really good. The reason why they're not on the list is that I can't really rate them objectively. These albums are Vronsky's Throat Specific Mixture by Vronsky, Pimeä Saari by Risto Juhani and Trains by Johannes Laitila. Vronsky is my own band, so it's clear that even though I would like to shamelessly call it the best album of the year, it's hard to be objective. Risto Juhani on the other hand is one of my best friends, as is Johannes Laitila, who is also my flat mate. Even though these albums do not appear on my list, I recommend them warmly and truly think they are among the best albums of the year. Listen to Vronsky here, Risto Juhani here and Johannes Laitila here.

But after saying this, let's get on with the top 15 albums of 2013 (well-excluding those three mentioned above).

1974

Compared to many other years around 1974, this year is not particularly amazing. It was fairly difficult to find ten great albums for this list. but this kind of situation is, in a way, nice. It makes me search for new albums and lets me list some weird albums outside my usual favourites. In the end when I look at the list, it has quite many good albums, which I have listened to too little of. The genres are again rather varied. There's piano-blues, rock-opera, folk, glam-rock, rock n' roll, progressive rock, funk, jazz and synthesiser art music. Some of these albums may need a few listens to get into, but I think they're all pretty great once you get into them.