This little music blog / website is now 19 years old. How did that happen? Time is a weird concept. Thank you to all dear readers who have followed this long and strange journey through music and I hope you stay with me at least for another year. After getting this close, I surely want to reach the 20 year mark as well.

I don’t have any big blog birthday celebration plans this year. This blog post is pretty much it. Perhaps next year when this thing hits that 20. If you want to revisit last year’s online anniversary festival, you will still find most of the action by clicking that OCTA18 link in the top bar. I think I will do my own celebration by just watching live streams from blog favorites after I get through this work week. J.E. Sunde for example will have one this Friday, so I’m going to tune into that. As for this post, I think I’ll just do what I’ve done for these past 19 years. Share some songs that mean the world to me. That’s all there has ever been. I’m not much of a writer nor do I have a wide knowledge about music in general. All I have is love for the music and the passion to find new artists and songwriters. But maybe that’s enough.

It’s close to midnight and the alarm goes off 6am, so this is just a quick round up of beautiful songs and music videos. First stop, Toronto, Canada. Long time favourite Luka Kuplowsky is getting ready to release his new album Stardust on the 2nd of October. It will be out on Mama Bird Recording Co (US/World) and Next Door Records (Canada). The third single Crazy Love was accompanied with a beautiful animated video by Sonia Beckwith-Cole. Here comes the tidal wave of loving you.

Luka Kuplowsky at Facebook

Staying on Toronto for something brand new. The big announcement of the day is that we will get a new Jennifer Castle album Monarch Season on the 20th of November (LP/CD) and October 16th (digital). This beauty will be co-released by Paradise of Bachelors (US/World) and Idee Fixe Records (Canada). Here’s the first single Justice with an animated music video by Jesi Jordan.

Jennifer Castle Website
Jennifer Castle at Facebook

Across the border over to Minneapolis, USA. J.E. Sunde is one of my favorite songwriters and his new album 9 Songs About Love is one of my most anticipated albums of the year. It will come out on Vietnam Records on the 20th of November. Here’s the wonderful new single Love Gone to Seed in form a music video along with my favorite song of 2020 I Don’t Care to Dance.

J.E. Sunde Website
J.E. Sunde at Facebook

And last stop is Tampere, Finland and the self-titled debut album from Amuri. It was instant love when I heard their debut single Halla back in 2019 and it ended being my Finnish song of that particular year. I’ve been really eager to hear their debut album ever since and now this beauty is finally here in my arms. Halla might remain as the brightest diamond, but it’s an album full of treasures and I love it to bits. Here’s one of them called Masa. Music video by Kalevi Suopursu & Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Amuri at Facebook

Hurray for One Chord to Another. This little thing is now 17 years old. Of course this so-called blog birthday is hardly a reason for a big celebration, because it’s pretty much just showcasing my insanity, resilience, passion and stubborness. It would be easy to argue that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend 17 years and hundreds and hundreds of hours in something that pays absolutely nothing and doesn’t really have a whole lot of significance either. Especially because it’s been a continuous struggle to keep this labour of love project alive in the midst of the realities of the everyday life. In some ways things like these are definitely more suitable for the studying days when the dayjobs aren’t hanging over one’s shoulder draining away all the time and energy. I seriously thought about quitting for years, but fuck all that. I love this. This matters to me, this is a significant part of who I am and I’m somewhat proud of doing this for such a ridiculously long time and at the moment I don’t have any desire to quit. This has given me way more than I could ever had hoped for. I’ve met so many lovely warm-hearted people from all over the world both online and in person and many of them have become dear friends.

All this might change and I don’t give any definite promises. I’m sure there will be times when the everyday life throws more curve balls than what I can hit and I just don’t have what it takes to update frequently. The introduction of the weekly playlist seems like a good thing at the moment, because even though they are hardly viral, making it every week adds some much needed rhythm and structure to the blog. During the years I’ve come to realize that it’s so easy to let things slide and so hard to start again. A writing break so easily just carries on and on, because after a while there’s dozens of new songs and thousands of unread emails and you don’t even know where to start again and therefore things just slide and the situation only gets worse. So even though, it may sound rather strange, for me writing this continuosly seems to be far easier than taking some weeks off and then be completely overflowed with the amount of new music. This way I will do at least one post every week and it also encourages me to do other posts, because I don’t want this to become just a playlist thing.

A couple of things I’ve considered are trying to give interviews a go and dropping or changing the subtitle ”A Finnish Pop Site”. Nothing might come out off either. Maybe some kind of Q&A type of thing might not be that hard, but it’s difficult to find a unique or even remotely interesting angle. So self-doubt might be too strong for that. The problem with the Finnish Pop Site subtitle is just that it gives a bit wrong impression and therefore might not be a good thing. After all, this is closer to an americana blog these days. But sure, I’ve gotten a bit too attached to it during the years (even though it was a little different for a little while), so I might not have the heart to change it.

I think that’s enough of pointless yearly ramblings. I think I owe a beer to anyone who read all of this. But hey, I have to share some music with the seven people who read this far. After all, this blog has nothing to do with music critique, but it has everything to do with loving music passionately. So here’s a couple of songs from the album that I’ve loved the most during this current year. This is The Lonesomest Sound That Can Sound by Clay Parker and Jodi James. Such a brilliant record from this folk duo from Louisiana. They also have musical role on Blaze, the new 2018 movie about the legendary songwriter Blaze Foley.

Clay Parker and Jodi James Website