Arcade Fire - Funeral
2004 | Indie Rock | Chamber Pop

If the children don't grow up,
Our bodies get bigger, but our hearts get torn up
We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust
I guess we'll just have to adjust.

Frontman Win Butler and Regine Chassagne (who has a beautiful voice btw) appear out of nowhere, drop this fat sack of 'is-it-just-me-or-are-things-getting-bleaker' pith, and become indie darlings overnight. Then release Everything Now and die worthlessly but that's all something else.

Weird post-apocalyptic atmosphere except the apocalypse still hasn't hit, like you're seeing the distant flash of a nuclear bomb going off but the shockwave hasn't yet reached you. That inevitability. and it's violins-pianos not gggrrrooooar metal

Spawned like 1000 clones across the 2000s-2014 and I like a fool consumed all of them

Sample: Tunnels
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
2003 | Progressive Rock | Post-Hardcore | Concept Album

Specter will lurk, radar has gathered
Midnight neuces from boxcar cadavers
Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed.

Insane album with insane lyrics and insane instrumentals. Would probably be fun to analyse now that I think of it. Follows the story of a man, Cerpin Taxt, who falls into a coma from an overdose of morphine and rat poison, then his struggle with waking and death. Not that you can tell without a guidebook because of how dense everything is, but this grim thing hits that perfect point of 'mind-bendingly evocative' in its poetry without quite jumping over the line into 'just pretentious'. You just let it take you.

The father of all modern prog. Basically all english-language prog rock since 2003 is influenced by this album in one way or another, for good reason.

Sample: Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
Full: Youtube | Spotify

of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks
2012 | Progressive Pop | Chamber Pop

The sacrifice must be for some unknown deity, babe
I just can't get hard for reality,
at least not mine.

Kevin Barnes goes 'I'M LEGIT CRAZY I'M LEGIT CRAZY I'M LEGIT CRAZY I'M LEGIT CRAZY' for an hour full because he couldn't just tell a therapist about it and instead puked it all maniacally out into song. Good thing he did though because the result is spectacular! Pitch-black confessionals that hit because of how frankly honest they are.

I'm less emo than I was when I first got into this album so it doesn't gel with me anymore, but the actual music/songwriting is still superb so I can't ditch it.

Sample: We Will Commit Wolf Murder
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Los Campesinos! - We Are Miserable, We Are Doomed
2008 | Emo | Noise Pop | Twee

Shout at the world, because the world doesn't love you.
Lower yourself, because you know that you'll have to.

Top-notch angsty just-entering-college first-'real'-failed-relationship core: for when adulthood presents the world opening to you like an oyster, but you know you're too stupid to work it out properly, so really it hasn't. Doesn't mean you can't have fun while you mess up!

Frontman Gareth Campesinos has a great cadence and some wild use of metaphor that still butts into my writing years later, complimented here by the lovely vocals of Aleksandra Campesinos for a punchy and memorable duet that sells the awkward relationship focus.

Sample: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Full: Youtube | Spotify

mewithoutYou - Ten Stories
2012 | Indie Rock | Post-Hardcore | Concept Album

While all year round potter wasp has buzzed her unhinged song
You can hear its creaking in our floorboards,
Megalomania's only mania if you're wrong!

Aaron Weiss's tamest and most clear-cut work conceptually, and so the easiest one for a younger me to get into. Astounding lyrics and delivery all through this thing and through all Weiss's works, to the point that I'd point to mewithoutYou as compulsory listening for anyone serious about the English language.

It's also profoundly Christian, and ironically of such a high degree that it's listenable to people who don't like Christianity, because the concepts involved are universal and the explicitly Christian elements require decent familiarity with Christian writing to 'get'. The core themes of Christianity nonetheless steep this work, of searching for meaning in life, the nature of reality, the providence of God, belief, integrity, love, struggles therein, so on, paired with Weiss' obvious personal seriousness about his faith. In that way, it's really intimate.

Anyway, the album itself follows the stories of several circus animals who escape their captivity when the train transporting them derails, and then what they do with their freedom — often to fatal ends.

Sample: Fox's Dream of the Log Flume
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
1998 | Indie Folk | Singer-Songwriter

I love you, Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ, I love you, yes I do
I love you, Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ, I love you, yes I do.

*sigh*

Sample: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Mr. Bungle - California
1998 | Art Rock | Baroque Pop | Surf Rock

Mendel's machines replicate in the night
In the black iron prison of St. Augustine's light
He's paying the bills and they're doing him proud
They can float their burnt offerings on assembler clouds

Sensual and above all weird, unapologetically. Do you know what's going to happen next? No but it's going to be nuts.

If you know your demonology, this album is pretty messed up!

Sample: Pink Cigarette
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Kevin Gilbert - Thud
1994 | Pop Rock | Acoustic Rock | Art Rock

Goodness Gracious we came in at the end
No sex that isn't dangerous, no money left to spend
We're the cleanup crew for parties
We were too young to attend

Lovely collection of songs with a rather strong political focus, but without being over-the-top stupid about it. Alongside it, heartbreaking topics of loss and longing. You can sense that Kevin can see the world is getting worse and more corrupt, and is asking for some kind of reversal—30 years ago. In that light, they're very sad songs, though with an underlying hope things can get better.

Sample: Goodness Gracious
Full: Youtube | Spotify

坂本慎太郎 - ナマで踊ろう
2014 | Soft Rock | Lounge | Jazz Funk

昔の人間はきっと
音楽のかかる場所で
いきなり恋とかしてた　真剣に

Very smooth, sensual, and for lack of a better word sexy album from Sakamoto Shintaro. You'd think this was straight out some smoky 80s jazz club but nope its the 2010s and Japan is still doing this, thankfully.

Sample: ナマで踊ろう
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
2006 | Indie Rock | Garage Rock | Post-Punk

Yeah, but his bird said it's amazing though, so all that's left
Is the proof that love's not only blind, but deaf.

Bunch of massive, youthfully energetic bangers out of Sheffield focused on the local nightlife and club culture, often being quite critical of it and the scum surrounding it while still distinctly enjoying the fun of it. Alex has an incredible voice too, which needs mentioning.

Sample: When The Sun Goes Down
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Anathallo - Floating World
2006 | Indie Rock | Baroque Pop | Post Rock

We couldn't rest, with this sense of duty hanging off of our chests
Peeled away, we had to get back
From where the grip of our own hands could lift us

Beautiful, delicately arranged album that grips you in early and proceeds to take you on an adventure for the rest of its length. Wonderful songwriting that always starts in one place, skips through like five genres in five minutes, then deposits you somewhere completely different without any confusion at all.

Sample: By Number
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Antlers - Burst Apart
2011 | Indie Rock | Dream Pop | Slowcore

I’m a bad absentee
You know when I want to leave
So close up your knees
And I'll close your parentheses

Not the most notorious Antlers album, but honestly the more banger one. Beautifully sad (and yet full and lush) songs steeped in the pain of a relationship so abusive and awful you start wondering if love itself is worth it — but of course it is, since the longing for it's still there. depressocore.

Sample: Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
2007 | Indie Rock | Chamber Pop | Art Rock

Stop now before it's too late
Been eating in the ghetto on a hundred dollar plate
Nothing lasts forever, that's the way it's got to be
There's a great black wave in the middle of the sea

4 years after Funeral, Win Butler and friends do it again. More overtly political this time, but still fundamentally centred on individuals as society is falling down around them. Now, every time you're thinking of doing a 'MCs kill the evil elites (and become the evil elites, whoops, didn't think of that!)' plot just pause and ask yourself, 'am I doing anything that Neon Bible didn't'?

Sample: Black Wave / Bad Vibrations
Full: Youtube | Spotify

bôa - The Race of A Thousand Camels
1998 | Indie Rock | Alternative Rock

And in the midst, I saw the mayor.
He looked at me with such a glare.
And then I danced my secret dance,
A million angles sang to me.

It's the band that did the Lain OP. Very feminine album, concentrating on chiefly female problems and perspectives, but in a grounded and mature way with that spunky alternative attitude. Rather sensual and sexy but understated; you can tell Jasmine's having fun with it.

Sample: For Jasmine
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On
1997 | Indie Rock | Emo | Post-Rock

You cold called everybody
But you haven't sold a thing
A bad idea gone funny
A pinch felt in a dream

Very nice, layered, complex songs that weave on and on beautifully without getting stuck in themselves. Album centres around the idea of trying to match up to your potential, or otherwise to lofty ambitions, but feeling that you're consistently failing to, with an overt Christian bent of what those 'ambitions' entail. If you're trying to be perfect, and aware of your own flaws, you'll probably see others' strikingly sticking out too, won't you? That can be a lonely place to be. Not fully hopeless, but depressocore

Sample: Velvet Waltz
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Dear Hunter - Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise
2015 | Indie Rock | Symphonic Rock | Concept Album

Waking in the afternoon, a captive in a passive tomb
Moments turn to long Decembers, stoking fires from dying embers.
I try to move a limb, but there's a disconnect within
A devil in the alchemy, a phantom staring back at me,
It's you.

Wonderful album. The Dear Hunter's discography is what you get when someone whose genuine first language is music decides, "I'm gonna write a novel!" and then they do... in music. It's theatrical, but it's not a musical, it's bombastic, but it's not an opera — it's just pure storytelling, with every sonic element serving to tell that story.

This is the fourth instalment of The Dear Hunter's 'The Acts' narrative, which follows the birth of a boy damned into sin and his struggle to reach a good future. If you know my work you should know this premise tickles my jimmies, and storywise this is exceptional. I could talk about this story for 100k words. And I did! Here's my read of it!

But if you're just here for the music, you don't even need to know the plot to adore this. Equipped with a full symphonic orchestra, and Casey's modestly absurd vocals, here's a work of full-on passion that'll leave you thinking, 'wait... rock can do that?'. Yes!

Sample: A Night on The Town
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
1999 | Indie Rock | Post-Hardcore | Post-Punk

When I die, I'm going to heaven!
Leave it all to the cockroaches and the 7-Elevens
But it'd be nice to think we could get it right down here just once

Bunch of great songs for people in that period of being in college where you're just slogging through it and the real joy is in the people you know, except, you don't know any people.

Sample: The City
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Forgive Durden - Razia's Shadow
2008 | Indie Rock | Pop Punk | Rock Opera

To learn and love and laugh
Until the cycle circles back
I'll just separate, weigh anchor, disengage
Divide and disappear, and see you in the mirror
I'm a slave to the sight

Ok don't run away after seeing those genre tags. This is cheesy but man if it isn't sincere, very much a passion project of Thomas Dutton that does what it needs to do... perfectly, basically.

Rock Opera that follows the story of a talented angel whose misdeeds break the world and land him in exile, and the restoration of the world's broken halves by his descendants hundreds of years later through the power of love. this was unsurprisingly a big influence on GoH

Sample: Life is Looking Up
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
2004 | Indie Rock | Post-Punk

Eyes burning a way through me
Eyes, destroying so sweetly
Now there is a fire in me
A fire that burns

The classier Glaswegian brothers of The Arctic Monkeys. Focused on the same kind of scummy, seedy party nightlife, and the scummy, seedy relationships you have with the people you find there, but dressed up all smoky in pressed suits and stilettos to brood proper.

Sample: Come On Home
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
2005 | Indie Rock | Post-Punk | Concept Album

She drove it like she stole it
She stole it fast and with a multitude of casualties.

Wonderful, smoothly funny lyrics, with a lot of nods to other artists in the scene — see if you can catch them all. Follows the stories of some rather scummy, sinful, chaotic, but nonetheless zealous people in a rather rotten city trying to get clean, failing to get clean, or just getting up to their antics.

Took Matthew 21:31 and ran a marathon with it. 'Light is brightest in the darkest places'/'the worst illness needs the most treatment' kind of vibe, but by no means stiff or downbeat despite often dark subject matter. Moreso just fun.

Sample: Your Little Hoodrat Friend
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Homesick for Space - All We Are Now
2010 | Indie Rock | Dream Pop | Emo

When all I have left is love
For you, I know it's not enough

Great introspective rainy day music. Gentle, and subtle, but smoothly strong songs about a romance that isn't working out despite the singer's earnest efforts. The dream pop/emo mix is both surprisingly rare and surprisingly good, it's never in your face but I struggle to turn it off...

Sample: Please Continue
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Kiev - Falling Bough Wisdom Teeth
2013 | Indie Rock | Progressive Rock | Art Rock

Attrition led us quietly, Dismiss all we get
The veil I thought we saw dissolved from eyes
But the soil I sat alone in was slowly known
Sunlight found

Progressive-tinted indie that leans heavily into jazz, in a way that works smoothly and beautifully. Looks at the state of things as being plainly off and wrong, and is looking forward for a solution whereby the elites fall that doesn't mean losing yourself to, or perpetuating 'the system'.

Sample: Solving And Running
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Kiss Kiss - The Meek Will Inherit What's Left
2009 | Indie Rock | Art Rock | Art Punk

The romance of death
It's gone from years spent with you
'Cause it's Christmas
Here's a virus
It's for you

Absolutely maniacal album with insane vocals and insane progressions seeped in disdain, but a fun disdain. Hey! Says this album. It's not all daisies and bunnies! You want some wine or some oil? That takes some crushing first! Those men on horses weren't suppositions, they were promises! But so is the promise that there's something left in the end...

Sample: If Only They Knew
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Lotus Child - Gossip Diet
2006 | Indie Rock | Piano Rock | Gothic Rock

Your left-handed compliments, Sinister compliments
Rattle my rib cage like tin cups on bars
"Lets get coffee", You says, you says
I'm crossing the street into comets of cars.

Very nice, melodic songs with some wild hooks and lyrics that lodge themselves in the brain and stick there forever. Covers some pretty heavy stuff like drug addiction, suicidal thoughts, general disillusion with society but always with this upbeat grimness. I use it for Zachary's playlist so you know it's very good.

Sample: Had To Laugh
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Macha - See It Another Way
1999 | Indie Rock | Post-Rock | Neo-Psychedelia

We clean each other for comfort
Do you smell like me?
Do I smell like you?
And do we smell like us?

Indie Rock that uses traditional Malaysian instruments (gongs etc) and it's not a gimmick it's actually good.

Sample: The Nipplegong
Full: Youtube

Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
2005 | Indie Rock | Noise Rock | Punk

The sky is blue most every day
The lemons grow like tumors, they—
Are tiny suns infused with sour

Noisy, aggressive songs with great vigor and a pronounced darkness under those killer drums and guitars, alongside magnificent vocals. Not quite riot grrrl but comes out of that scene, (all the band members are female and you can tell from the energy), so it's steeped in this femininity that is proud to announce it has claws. Kind of like boa.

Sample: Jumpers
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Sundays - Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic
1990 | Indie Rock | Dream Pop

England my country, the home of the free
Such miserable weather
But England's as happy as England can be
Why cry?

Another female-fronted offering with some truly beautiful vocals, and a sound that is positively ethereal while still being grounded with strong guitars and structure. Great stuff that captures that mood for when it's raining out and you're stuck with your thoughts, introspective.

Sample: You're Not The Only One I Know
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
2003 | Indie Rock | Indietronica | Twee

And then night came, so we got into our sleeping bags
And then someone told a story about something dead and gory

Sinfully catchy experimental... thing... that is the lonely nerd dweeb kid's diary of existential poetry except the dweeb kid in question was like, Mozart. Outrageously strong songwriting that holds up relentlessly even though it's another one you're better off not 'gelling' with sooner or later.

Sample: I Was Born (A Unicorn)
Full: Youtube | Spotify

ずっと真夜中でいいのに。 - 潜潜話
2019 | Indie Rock | Pop Rock

おかしいと思うほど　頷いてしまう方法
顔に出すこと　許されなくて
泣き疲れてしまおう　リセットを覚えよう
興味ないなら　ほっといてくれ

Great 'entry to J-Rock' album because it does everything you're going to find in J-Rock, but very well.

Sample: こんなこと騒動
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Clann Zú - Rua
2002 | Post-Rock | Celtic Folk | Trip Hop

I walk past your grave each night
and each morning I still hear the voices of eight million starving
I still hear you calling out today

Because you don't need guitars when you have violins and breakbeats. Aussie outfit that embraces and celebrates its Irish heritage, with heavy Irish folk influences, focus on Irish history, and occasional lapses into Gaelic.

Sample: Rí Rá
Full: Youtube

Kaki King - Dreaming of Revenge
2008 | Post-Rock | Acoustic | Singer-Songwriter

You said I'll see you in September
But that's not long enough for me

Mostly instrumental pieces that buck typical Post-Rock trends by instead of being no guitars, being one guitar, and only one guitar, but played so proficiently that anything more than that would feel outrageous. Very soulful atmosphere. It's like she turned a guitar into a piano...

Sample: Pull Me Out Alive
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Newfound Interest In Connecticut - Tell Me About the Long Dark Path Home
2005 | Post-Rock | Emo | Field Recordings

But the slightest variations they can be enough, all in all
All in All, the smallest things can be too much

Moody atmospheric emo that sounds like the guy is bleeding out in the snow. Except he's not really because he's also well enough to trudge through the forest full of snow to get back home, and has these angsty regretful thoughts in his head while he's doing it, but he's looking forward to getting home too. Too emo for me personally but it is very good.

Sample: Okay, You Can Be Tigers, But No Crashing
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Pretend - Bones in the Soil, Rust in the Oil
2009 | Post-Rock | Math Rock | Slowcore

‘cause I want to sing about love
Without having to say anything

Beautiful album following the narrator travelling around, looking for love and God after turning away from a relationship with a bad ex. Has the atmosphere of walking through a graveyard, but the brighter part of what that entails, being able to feel the souls in the air.

Sample: Bones in the Soil, Rust in the Oil
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun
1999 | Post-Rock | Dream Pop | Ambient

Ég flýt um í neðarsjávar hýði
(á hóteli)
Beintengdur við rafmagnstöfluna
(og nærist)

A lovely, hopeful album with immersively elaborate, but gracefully gentle arrangements backed up with beautiful singing, cellos, and brass. Songs largely centre on a desire to be connected with a divine energy source, one that gives you life and comfort.

Sample: Olsen olsen
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Years of Rice and Salt - Nothing of Cities
2009 | Post-Rock | Chamber Pop | Ambient

dah dah dah dah
dah dah dah

String-fronted series of songs that build steadily up into elegant crescendos, without falling into the repetitiveness frequent in post rock that attempts to do what this is doing. Very beautiful, mostly instrumental.

Sample: Carnival
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Covet - Effloresce
2018 | Math Rock | Post-Rock

[Instrumental]

The conclusion of the 'soft, twinkly' sound that predominates when the focus is to make a smoothly listenable album, rather than the dissonant mess you can get when seriously pushing math rock. Relaxing, like you're watching light reflecting off the gentle waves of a lake, but what the guitar's doing is sharp enough to keep you focused.

Sample: Glimmer
Full: Youtube | Spotify

大象體操 - 角度
2014 | Math Rock | Post-Rock | Jazz Fusion

我是一隻長不大的蟲
緩慢地抬頭看著天空
世間萬物都那麼的大
於是我唱出聲

Bass-focused outfit from Taiwan. It's the same kind of twinkly sound as Covet, but a little 'sturdier' and with with more grounded songwriting. You're not watching the light on the water, you're stomping through it and splashing it all over your ankles and watching the droplets spatter to the pavement.

Sample: 頭,身體
Full: Youtube | Spotify

ヒトリエ - ルームシック・ガールズエスケープ
2012 | Math Rock | Pop Rock | Post-Hardcore

どうしようもない言葉ばかりだ
何故だろう 部屋に馴染んでいく。
使いかけのこころでは 上手く言えないけれど

More 'rock' focused than 'math' focused, wowaka of Vocaloid noteriety puts away the Miku, gets with an actual band, and pumps out seven full J-Rock bangers. Relentless upbeat-emo energy that grabs you by the throat and demands you have fun bouncing along for the rest of its runtime.

Sample: サブリミナル・ワンステップ
Full: Youtube

tricot - THE
2013 | Math Rock | Math Pop | Post-Hardcore

美女は汚れても魅力的で衰える事が何より怖い
君も嫌いになるのかい?

Probably the best band that blends the complexity of math with the catchiness of pop/rock. Great guitars, great drums, great bass, great vocals, great songwriting, always smooth but always ready to take you in an unexpected direction that feels completely natural while also being mindbendingly technical. Full of passion, creativity, just all-round excellent.

Sample: おもてなし
Full: Youtube | Spotify

This Town Needs Guns - Animals
2008 | Math Rock | Midwest Emo

I’m in love!
are the 3 words I hope to hear next year.

Very nice midwest emo that leaned hard into the math, and did it well. Covers the usual emo topics of love failing and yearning for a true relationship, but gives that sense of lonely anxiety in a way that is lucid and warm.

Sample: Baboon
Full: Youtube | Spotify

宇宙コンビニ - 染まる音を確認したら
2013 | Math Rock | Dream Pop

全て君がいたから
想像する　蒼い照明も
光が僕を突きさして
誘うんだ『出かけよう』

Beautiful, clear guitars complimenting some of the most unmatched beautiful, clear singing I've ever heard. Very warm and delicate, but strong. Members went on to form JYOCHO, which is also great, but this is better honestly.

Sample: 8films
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Björk - Post
1995 | Art Pop | Alternative Dance | Trip Hop

Since we broke up
I'm using lipstick again
I suck my tongue
In remembrance of you

'The musical equivalent of sugar', I say, and then start off with Bjork. Well, it's still sugar, but the kind that exists to elevate the other flavours. Here's a bunch of sensual songs about various stages of a romance, which sticks in your life even after you try to move on. Very odd, smooth, and idiosyncratic singing style, but it's Bjork, so you already know that.

Sample: Hyper-ballad
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Depeche Mode - Playing The Angel
2005 | Synthpop | Darkwave | Post-Industrial

Oh, Lillian
I should have run
I should have known each dress you own
Is a loaded gun

Somewhat overlooked release from Depeche Mode that hits exactly what it's going for. Very dark and grungy thing that revels in the idea of pain and suffering, for how bright the interspersed glimpses of salvation look against it, but then kind of turns around and decides to mush its face back in the dirt.

Sample: Suffer Well
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Grimes - Art Angels
2015 | Art Pop | Electropop | Synthpop

Easily, I'm the sweetest damn thing you ever saw
Easily, suddenly, you don't know me at all
Easily, three years later and now you wanna call
Easily-y-y-y yeah yeah yeah yeah

What mainstream pop could be if the music industry weren't, uh, evil. Extremely high energy, creative, and quirky, but in a genuine way.

Sample: Kill Vs. Maim
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Janelle Monáe - The Archandroid
2010 | Art Pop | Contemporary R&B | Progressive Pop

When you get elevated, They love it or they hate it
You dance up on them haters, Keep getting funky on the scene
While they jumpin' round ya, They trying to take all of your dreams
But you can't allow it

Concept Album, part 2 of a series about an android that falls into forbidden love for a human, this part about her rise in prominence among the other androids. Personally, I'm against robot rights, so the story is awkward for me, but the operatic grandiosity of the music and smoothness of Janelle's singing and flow makes it stand out powerfully despite my misgivings. Very, very funky and very, very passionate.

Sample: Dance or Die
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Lucky Kilimanjaro - FULLCOLOR
2015 | City Pop | Electropop

空っぽになってそのまま
僕の心は星にぶら下がり
忘れられず夢見てる
あなたの笑顔を

Holy moly, ENERGY! As far as 'raw', 'get up and dance' pop goes, this one stands out as unceasingly fun and upbeat.

Sample: Burning Friday Night
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Manganas Garden - Solar Satisfaction
2015 | Pop | Disco | Dance Funk

You will be fine
Come enjoy the weather
In the sunshine
You are gonna be alright

Another BIG ENERGY offering. Disco-inspired pop from Sweden, in the same region that the songwriters for all the big pop hits come from, so might as well cut out the middleman and go straight to this. Infectious, upbeat, it's time to dance!

Sample: Stuck In Nostalgia
Full: Youtube | Spotify

椎名林檎 - 勝訴ストリップ
2000 | Art Pop | Noise Rock | Progressive Pop

どうして　歴史の上に　言葉が生まれたのか
太陽　酸素　海　風
もう十分だった筈でしょう

Kind of like Bjork, but Japanese and noise-oriented rather than trip hop? Similarly eclectic and similarly extremely good, but with a punchier energy. Has some beautiful jazz-influenced singing and orchestral strings, cellos, backing up addictive pop hooks and vicious walls of distortion.

Sample: 闇に降る雨
Full: Youtube | Spotify

advantage Lucy - Have a Good Journey
2001 | Indie Pop | Shibuya-kei | Jangle Pop

迷ったカモメは瞬く合間に海へ戻った
振り切った想いにさよならと告げて手を振る

Sunshine in a bottle. Compilation album from a band whose hits all sound like different rays of summer, very warm and peaceful.

Sample: How Do You Feel?
Full: Youtube | Spotify

As Tall As Lions - As Tall As Lions
2006 | Indie Pop | Art Rock | Emo

If love comes your way
Don't be afraid
Unlock the box your heart's encased

Beautiful, melodic vocals for a bunch of sentimental, teenager-y but still very competent and interesting emo love songs. Covers the usual topics of failed love, lost love, and yearning for love, with a lot of reverence for it.

Sample: Song for Luna
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Copeland - You Are My Sunshine
2008 | Indie Pop | Indie Rock | Dream Pop

Back to where we started
Losing who we were
Everybody knows that
You’d break your neck to keep your chin up

Similar vein as As Tall As Lions, but even more melodic and even more beautiful. If ATAL is saying that love is something to have reverence for, Copeland is emphasising that it's precious, and every moment you have it should be valued, because all you have without it is the melancholy of not having it and the fading ember of its warmth.

Sample: To Be Happy Now
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Delays - Faded Seaside Glamour
2004 | Indie Pop | Dream Pop | Jangle Pop

Tore it up and walked away
Why'd you wanna go do that for?
Threw your Lego in the lake
Why'd you wanna go do that for?

Beautiful (can you see the trend in my preference of Indie Pop?) album that feels like it's threaded with light. Singer has some wild no-exaggeration angelic vocals against all these bright, happy but very lush instrumentals, intimate as anything.

Sample: Nearer Than Heaven
Full: Youtube | Spotify

fun. - Aim and Ignite
2009 | Indie Pop | Chamber Pop | Progressive Pop

Were you named for the river that surrounds
All my biggest mistakes or the way that I made it out
All the muscles in my mouth never smiled or said profound things
Until the day she handed you to me

Nate Reuss: wonderful songwriter whose output consistently gives me the impression that he's a bit of a jerk, but man can he write songs. Before Some Nights, which we won't talk about, he made this: a wonderfully creative, energetic, and adventurous album with powerful storytelling in each track, that I've never really found anything like.

Sample: Walking The Dog
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Hush Sound - Like Vines
2006 | Indie Pop | Piano Rock

Your eyes like sea glass, so weathered and worn
From all they've seen of adolescence torn
The lovers who have tainted you, they pulled you into the night
They touched your skin with velvet gloves and made you feel alive

you think it'd be the neutral milk hotel and arcade fire that gives me away as an aging 2000s hipster but no it's actually this. Lovely singing from Greta Salpeter in charming duet to compliment a bunch of quaint, sentimental story-driven songs that are really effective at being the musical equivalent of young adult novels. But, you know, the guilty pleasure 'wait that was interesting' type you can't help but go back to. Imagery from this is still way more influential on me than I like to admit.

Sample: Wine Red
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Knife - Silent Shout
2006 | Indie Pop | Electropop | Techno

I hold my breath and then count to three
On and on, outworn
Must be five hundred degrees
Will it show, in my show

Dark and rather demented techno-pop that gets you dancing along, without falling into any overblown 'edgy' pastiche that similar 'dark pop' outfits tend to. Very smooth, very cold, eerie, and brutal.

Sample: We Share Our Mother's Health
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Lamp - 恋人へ
2004 | Indie Pop | Shibuya-kei | Jazz Pop

予定のないあなたのいない日曜日
髪を梳かして街に出掛けてみよう
空は晴れて 穏やかに流れる風が
スカートの裾を軽く揺らすの

Beautiful, blissful, humble love songs. Wonderfully capture the mood of a summer night spent thinking about being with your partner tomorrow afternoon, even though you were already with them today — you just love them that much, and pining for such a love if you don't have it.

Sample: ひろがるなみだ
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Naked And Famous - Passive Me · Aggressive You
2010 | Indie Pop | Indietronica | Noise Rock

All the lights go down
As I crawl into the spaces
Fight, flight, or the screams
Life tearing at the seams

Band that had a huge hit in the single Young Blood overshadows the rest of what is an all-the-way-through incredible album. Surprisingly varied and experimental with dips into harsh noise, all rooted in these youthful, fun summery synths, with the classic college indie male/female duet going on. More complex than it looks.

Sample: Spank
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Mariam The Believer - Blood Donation
2013 | Indie Pop | Art Pop | Vocal Jazz

To have everything and nothing
To want everything and nothing
To have everything or nothing
To want everything or nothing

Eclectic, but not in a way that rubs it in your face. Very refined but also very weird, without deviating too much from the simple attractiveness of a smoothly written pop song. Like your local wine aunt forgot she's too good at music to be making anything radio-friendly, but she's also Swedish and couldn't suppress the 'write a pop banger' instinct.

Sample: Blood Donation
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?
2003 | Indie Pop | Indie Rock | Post-Punk

Passive attraction, programmed reaction
More information, cash masturbation
Follow the pattern - the hemlines, the headlines
Action, distraction, faster than fashion

Very nice stuff from Emily Haines steeped in this seductive dispassion that's youthful and cynical, but lit with a romantic fire of ambition that lovingly scolds you. Wears its politics on its sleeve without being too obnoxious about it either so even that part holds up well. trve pvnk for emo lasses

Sample: Dead Disco
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Mew - Frengers
2003 | Indie Pop | Dream Pop | Math Pop

I don't feel alright in spite of these comforting sounds you make
I don't feel alright because you make promises that you break
Into your house, why don't we share our solitude?
Nothing is pure anymore but solitude

Snowy, dreamy, and sentimentally bright emo love songs that almost go too far in how goopy the sheer emotion is over ruthlessly competent songwriting. Vocals are very high pitched 'love it or hate it' falsettos and how well the album works for you hinges on that, though I'm personally more in the 'like' camp.

Sample: Am I Wry? No
Full: Youtube | Spotify

of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
2007 | Indie Pop | Neo-Psychedelia | Art Pop

The sun is out, it melts the snow that fell yesterday
Makes you wonder why it bothered

Kevin Barnes throws together everything that should be too obnoxiously pretentious and too flamingly metrosexual to bear, and, somehow, makes it work actually excellently because he's completely insane and very genuine in expressing it. And unparalleled at writing pop.

Concept album where the first half is him trying to cope with being a needy arty nerd with a thousand mood disorders and the second half is him going 'now I'll try being a flaming gay black transvestite! (hey I'm still sad?)'. Misery fun!

Sample: Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Passion Pit - Gossamer
2012 | Indie Pop | Synthpop | Indietronica

Sylvia, right back where you came from
You're a pendulum, heartbroken and numb but
Sylvia, no one's gonna tell you when enough's enough
Enough is enough

'Listen to Manners,' everyone said. 'Gossamer is inferior,' everyone said. They are so wrong. Gossamer is high-tier misery fun with the most gut-wrenching emo lyrics being belted out like a cheery birthday celebration, and everyone's high on sugar and dancing, because if you don't do something happy you'll probably kill yourself. It's extremely sober in its subject matter but has this strong upbeat attitude that is quite loving by contrast. Depressocore.

Sample: Mirrored Sea
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Phantogram - Eyelid Movies
2010 | Indie Pop | Indietronica | Trip Hop

To work it out
I'll dig a hole
To crawl inside
And make my home

Similar territory to Lykke Li in that it's radio-focused pop that is a little too competent to get as popular as it should. Not that it's unpopular, either. Very gentle, sombre stuff with generally dark subject matter, but a light of hope running through it.

Sample: When I'm Small
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2009 | Indie Pop | Synthpop | Post-Punk

Where would you go, where would you go
With a lasso?
Could you run into, could you run into
Could you go and run into me?

Fun, upbeat summery pop that has never really been replicated. Has this smooth sensuality that invites you to smile and dance, but not too much because the post-punk aspect means it's pretty stripped down, but also means it's never overpowering so it's applicable anywhere. Great 'driving down the highway into the sunset' music.

Sample: 1901
Full: Youtube | Spotify

ROAR - I'm Not Here To Make Friends
2012 | Indie Pop | Chamber Pop | Psychedelic Pop

Never once stopping like a shark in its sleep
Moving just to breathe
This is what you call "free?"
Harsh as it seems, maybe "love" means being naïve

Extreme depressocore set to upbeat cheery Beach Boys-esque pop. It's great, but not if you're not emo, or don't want to be emo, in which case don't bother.

Sample: Poor Grammar
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Sandra Kolstad - Zero Gravity State of Mind
2014 | Indie Pop | Art Pop | Synthpop

There’s a million friends to love
There’s a million foes to run from
There’s a million ways to live
And you don’t know what you die from

bro this album's not even on youtube or spotify. Genuinely can't remember how I found this, it might've been a random pull. But it's excellent! Upbeat, weird catchy synthpop that's very refined, mature, and because of that quite intelligent while not pushy to show off how smart it is. Goes down very smooth. Kind of like Phoenix in that way.

Sample: Zero Gravity State of Mind

相対性理論 - ハイファイ新書
2009 | Indie Pop | Jangle Pop | Twee

とろけるキッスは誰のため
おざなリキッスは誰にする
恥じらいキッスは彼のため
はちみつキッスはどんな味?

Tooth-rottingly sweet without being saccharine, this album is a bunch of cute love songs steeped in the pining of a young girl just coming in to adulthood. That being said, very chaste and very warm, while still very honest in its senitmentality. Extremely easy to put on and listen to the whole way though without realising, in a good way.

Sample: 四角革命
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History
2010 | Indie Pop | Rave | Post-Punk

You hid there last time, you know we're gonna find you
Sick in the car seat, 'cause you're not up to going
Out on the main streets, completing your mission

This album is a plague that never leaves because despite being a massive example of the early 2010s stereotypical kistchy 'indie hipster' pop sound it's kind of just great. You can try to get rid of it. You can try to forget it. One day it will still return, into your life, when you do not expect. You are still going to hop to the beat, hum to every catchy hook, remember every lyric, sing along and have a lot of fun doing it. Oh, Tourist History. You stupid rhinestone gem.

Sample: What You Know
Full: Youtube | Spotify

V V Brown - Samson & Delilah
2013 | Indie Pop | Art Pop | Darkwave

Don't testify me
Don't bring me down
Don't hold me captive
Not the apple of my eye, you see

Haunting, powerful vocals winding in and out of pitch-black, brutal, and yet very smooth pop synths. Has an atmosphere that's very classy without being pretentious, kind of similar to The Knife if The Knife was less overtly experimental and more melodic and dancey. Deep, dark, undersea feeling where you can see little around you and the pressure is thick. Insane record, extremely good.

Sample: Igneous
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Beautify Junkyards - The Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards
2018 | Baroque Pop | Psychedelic Folk | Ambient Pop

Come closer
The whisper of the stone will tell you now
Magnify the trees
Like electric storm as the sun goes down

Very dreamy, lovely album that feels thick in this atmosphere of like... a wild orchard? Like there's fruit trees all around you you can eat from freely but it's a little bit untamed, far from society, you might bump into a fairy or something.

Sample: Ghost Dance
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Busman's Holiday - A Long Goodbye
2014 | Chamber Pop | Baroque Pop | Indie Folk

I sit in a darkened room
I watch projections on a wall
But I draw my focus to
The story of a light beam's crawl
Into a pool of white

Strong indie lilt to this one except when it's not being indie at all. String-focused with some horns, overall quite subtle and delicate. Melancholic sunset out in the fields, easy to listen to.

Sample: Baby Blue
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Chamber Strings - Gospel Morning
1999 | Chamber Pop | Indie Rock | Singer-Songwriter

I have woken on the sunny side of the bed
That was made up for the night time for a tired sleepy head
The air was cold and coffee old and raindrops on the ledge
And I tried to find those little things that you keep them on a shelf

Feels like a warm blanket. Extremely calm and soothing with Kevin Young's croony vocals, but with the warm energy of strings and pianos and the bite of guitars; full of humble tracks that don't draw attention to how well-made they are, but are hard to put down because of how well-made they are.

Sample: Flashing Star
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Choir Boy - Passive With Desire
2016 | Chamber Pop | Synthpop | Art Pop

The moon shines red with my blood now
Illuminating my parents house
I see my childhood rewound
I lost my happiness somehow

The album art is sad classy vampires and what you will get is sad classy vampires. Very sentimental kind of album with the sentiment being a dude in his house at night staring out at life going on around him while sipping wine (also crying single tears into the wine) and yearning he could be out there with them.

Sample: Passive With Desire
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Deas Vail - Birds and Cages
2009 | Chamber Pop | Indie Rock | Emo

What's a name
When in the darkness we all look the same?
Holding candles looking for the flame
For the fire to chase the night away
As we wait for daylight to break

This feels like it shouldn't be as good as it is, but it is. Rooted in the immature, impetuous soil of rough-round-the-edges indie with sentimental emo kid vocals, but so sincere about wanting more than pain and suffering that his heart is bleeding. Full of light, overtly Christian.

Sample: Birds
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Dylan Mondegreen - Dylan Mondegreen
2012 | Chamber Pop | Indie Pop | Jangle Pop

It seems that I am struggling to find
The right time to open my mouth
When I don't know what to say
You make it easy

One of the first examples that springs to my mind of genuinely 'happy music'. Majestic cellos and violins for an ensemble of humble, happy love songs about a guy singing to his wife. Has the air of a beautiful, breezy beachside summer where you just want to go outside and soak in how lovely everything is, with the birds out and trees in bloom.

Sample: Come Tomorrow
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Family Crest - Beneath The Brine
2014 | Chamber Pop | Symphonic Rock | Indie Rock

So you lost your head inside your heart
And the weighty world it tore you apart
And you've all but given up, on the stone you call a heart
You're singing out, sing it out

These guys have like half an orchestra and go insane putting every instrument they can in the spotlight as they jump through like fifty styles: folk rock, sea shanty, noir, orchestral, cabaret that ISN'T cringe. Theatrical and bombastic.

Sample: There's A Thunder
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Grasscut - Everyone Was A Bird
2015 | Chamber Pop | Indietronica | Art Pop

Hold the slide up to the light, and see the place
The wind blows, screams and moans
Chills you to your hollow bones
And knocks you to the ground

Very interesting release. Slightly dark and mysterious with minimalist electronics and percussion building such an atmosphere, of the lonely coolness just before dawn, then blooming into complex and melodic warmth flickering through in the cellos. Very cool, clever stuff overall.

Sample: Halflife
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Kishi Bashi - Lighght
2014 | Chamber Pop | Art Pop | Progressive Pop

What a beautiful life away
Naked from all the Apollonians
For their radiance shines on and on
And on and on and on...

Remarkable violinist Kaoru Ishibashi drops 11 classy pop BANGERS full of sheer creativity and sentimental whimsy. Aglow with this playful sunshine, that shows in subject matter with tongue-in-cheek silliness like Mr. Streak and Bittersweet Genesis, but also able to get contemplative and sublime.

Sample: Philosophize In It! Chemicalize With It!
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Little Tybee - For Distant Viewing
2013 | Chamber Pop | Indie Folk | Progressive Pop

You are gasoline
Floating to shore
Covering everything
With your light and your glow, oh

So lucid and clear it's almost too lucid, with lovely violins weaving through casual folk percussion that gives the atmosphere of like... going on a hike with your friends in the summer over a hillside and looking over the sea under a crisp blue sky.

Sample: For Distant Viewing
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
2010 | Chamber Pop | Indietronica | Progressive Pop

Some way, you will want it your way, sunrise
So I would not be mistaken what I know is right
Don't be so funny with me, I'm not laughing
Oh, I love you, I love you

yeah I jam to impossible soul all the way through what about it? 10/10

Sample: Age of Adz
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Born Gold - Bodysongs
2011 | Hyperpop | Glitch Pop | Indietronica

You were yourself in your skin
Womb shaking
Knit in varicose veins your whole
Body was naked
Collapsed on the slab we're
Awaiting the hour

Wild album that's demented in every aspect, the album art, the distortions, the lyrics, the atmosphere, everything. It is extremely fun though with all this weird, cryptically grim imagery juxtaposed against such manic cheerful energy, very up my alley. Short, too, so easy to listen to.

Sample: Boring Horror
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Sleigh Bells - Treats
2010 | Hyperpop | Noise Pop | Industrial

Keep thinking about every straight face, yes
Wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces
What about them? I'm all about them
Six such straight A's
Cut 'em in the bathroom

cheerleaders in hell. Basically. mogs the entire riot grrrl genre by being 10000x more abrasive and 10000x more girly, and at the same time, SOMEHOW, still catchy

Sample: Kids
Full: Youtube | Spotify

ゲスの極み乙女。 - 魅力がすごいよ
2014 | Power Pop | Math Rock | Jazz Pop

最終回で見せた気迫も あなたの前では希薄になる
きっと向き合うのが怖くなる 同時に流れる悲しい音

Fun, playful release with obvious technical skill that stays engaging, but pretty modest. It's pulling off weird crazy jazz licks but you almost don't notice because it's blended so well into this approachable upbeat pop/rock chorus-verse-chorus structure; good drawing music.

Sample: サリーマリー
Full: Youtube | Spotify

パスピエ - 幕の内ISM
2014 | Power Pop | Art Rock | Electropop

きっかけは六月のダイヤ
喉にしみるレモネード
今日もまた居留守を使って
ドアスコープ覗いているわ

Also extremely fun and energetic, with a notably unique vocal style that is offputting at first, then grows on you, then is hard not to enjoy. One of those 'get up and DANCE!!' ones that will get you humming along.

Sample: あの青と青と青
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - Solid State Warrior
2006 | Power Pop | Psychedelic Pop

Did you get the picture I sent you
Did you happen to hear the song I wrote for you
Here’s to us on our tenth anniversary
It’s not too late for us now

Solo act from the band Jellyfish. (You wouldn't think it with how complicated this thing is though, it's one guy doing everything.) Whimsical and calming, because it's not shoving itself in your face, while still having strong boppy pop songwriting with catchy hooks and pumping energy to the point you can't help but notice, 'wait, this is great'. Large focus on looking back to love you missed in your younger years, but in a happy way.

Sample: Sandman
Full: Youtube

that dog. - Retreat From The Sun
1997 | Power Pop | Indie Rock | Grunge

I want to set a place for you at my table
We can sit forever watching reruns on cable
Take you driving in my brother's beat-up car
Sharing a cigarette, we'll wish upon a star together

Really nice stuff with a bit of edge. Has that carefree air of anything being possible, and from that a feeling of youthfulness, combined with a bit of disaffection that actually cares a lot. Vocals draw the most attention here but the hooks/songwriting is quietly extremely impressive, whole thing is addictive.

Sample: Minneapolis
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Anaïs Mitchell - Hadestown
2010 | Folk | Chamber Folk | Show Tunes

Follow that dollar for a long way down
Far away from the poorhouse door
Either get to hell or to Hadestown
Ain’t no difference anymore!

Concept album following the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice told through the filter of Hades being this scuzzy, impoverished underground city where everyone's doing thankless labour to get a dime. (I was rather pleased to bump into this as good 'Ordanz' music). This got adapted into a Broadway show and might be more well known through that, but I like the original here.

Wickedly sharp songwriting with clever but unpretentious lyrics, focused on the 'scuzzy underbelly' of Americana: work songs, jazz clubs, cabaret dens. Extremely easy to follow the story because of how sharp the atmosphere and delivery is. It's harder not to see the scenes unfolding than to see them.

Sample: Our Lady of the Underground
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Big Blood - Big Blood & The Bleeding Hearts
2008 | Avant-Folk | Psychedelic Folk | Gothic Country

How I love to leave you crooning your songs
Mooning away the time to stretch farther
While he chased the lovely tails of youth turned soft and holy
Makes loose the leashes and lashes of this cracked armor

Very nice, dark album that gives the feeling of being out in the countryside, in a lonely run-down town where everyone eyes strangers with suspicion, churns their own butter, and has crows on their fencepost. At the same time, mournful and melodic with thumping waltz rhythms, so very romantic for all its moody darkness.

Sample: Graceless Lady
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Builders and The Butchers - Salvation Is a Deep, Dark Well
2009 | Folk | Gothic Country | Americana

And the soldiers light houses on fire and they burn down
And all your belongings turn to dirt in the ground
When your heart's deep and dark as a well
And everything that's golden and green
Goes to hell

American gothic country, so similarly focused on dark atmospheres and events going on out in the middle of nowhere, but focuses specifically on people's corrupt practices and the world around them failing because of it. Has a noticable Christian bent, in a 'the sin is so thick you can feel it here' sense. Like-it-or-hate it vocalist, definitely distinctive though.

Sample: Down In This Hole
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Caprice - Kywitt! Kywitt!
2008 | Medieval Folk | Progressive Pop | Dark Cabaret

You spotted snakes with double tongue
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong
Come not near our fairy queen

Whimsical, fantastical, theatrical. Immerses you out in a mystical European fairytale land where there are lots of strange spirits and fae creatures you can interact with, but need to be careful about—they might have ulterior motives, or they might be quick to offend. Very upbeat and playful about it.

Sample: Kywitt! Kywitt!
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Carla Bozulich - Boy
2014 | Avant-Folk | Experimental | Singer-Songwriter

Tickle your bones
With my last lonely finger
Heart of tarantula
A nervous bellringer

Dark, dark, dark. Bozulich has the spidery, sexy voice of a witch acting as your anchor in the middle of this grim, pitch-black world where the sky is always night and the buildings are dripping with tar.

Sample: Danceland
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Danielson - Tell Another Joke at the Ol' Choppin' Block
1997 | Freak Folk | Indie Pop | Progressive Pop

Been brought to new heights of courtship
The Groom, he cries, as we who are the Bride
Wake up from the, the sleep
It's oh so deep

Uh, very weird and very Christian. You don't get past how weird this is you just roll with it, and when you do it's like, oh no it's well written. Bless you Danielson.

I AIN'T NO
DEVILLED EGGGGG

Sample: Deviled Egg
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Diane Cluck - Monarcana
2006 | Avant-Folk | Anti-Folk | Singer-Songwriter

Things arise to compliment each other
The skin, when burned, weeps its own water
The woman, now grown, gives birth to a daughter
Who carries a torch of hot, white light

Mostly a bunch of poetry recitals set to guitar. Very raw, intimate, and genuine kind of thing with lyrics that are at least interesting (at worst cheesy. "I SAID LEAVE ME LUCY / YOUR STORIES ARE JUICY" lives in my head permanently and I don't even hate it) and always earnest. Her voice is lovely too, in a homely kind of way, which bares mentioning.

Sample: Dilapidalliance
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Fire on Fire - The Orchard
2008 | Folk | Psychedelic Folk | Americana

In the form of this burned up basement
We'll mourn all that used to be
And the chalk scrawls out the shape of our bodies
And the crows move faster than we can see

Side project of Big Blood that is a little less experimental, but still very... quirky's not the right word, but it puts all its chips into this alienating, gothic homestead out-in-the-country sound very seriously. You go about your business ploughing wilting fields on your horse and everyone's getting sick, your township has a shifty pub and a shifty town hall and that's it, and if you want consolations you better turn to God.

Sample: Assanine Race
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Hexvessel - When We Are Death
2016 | Psychedelic Folk | Psychedelic Rock

Teeth of the mountain
Body of the rivers
Always by your side
With you, forever

Finnish pagan 'running around in the woods naked hunting animals out immersed in nature everything is connected cycle of life seeking spiritual enlightenment through drugs' stuff. Feel kind of obligated to say hey don't take the spiritual aspect of this too seriously or some messed up stuff can happen but as far as aesthetic and music go, this is very nice.

Sample: Hunter's Prayer
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
2009 | Alternative Country | Americana | Singer-Songwriter

You know they call them killer whales
But you seem surprised when it pinned you down
To the bottom of the tank, where you can't turn around
It took half your leg and both your lungs
When I craved I ate hearts of sharks, I know you know it

Sensual vocals and clever storytelling paired with captivatingly smooth yet lively instrumentals. Overall slants dark (even noir at some points) but not in the way the full-on gothic stuff does, more just uses it to talk about the intensity of her feelings and the atmosphere of a warm homely country town at night, when the familiar becomes a little mysterious.

Sample: This Tornado Loves You
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Dodos - Visiter
2008 | Indie Folk | Indie Rock | Psychedelic Folk

No one to hold, no place to lie
I know we're all alone and still
You come to brush this gray aside
I know, I know, it's fate I feel

Punchy stuff paired with rustic but melancholic vocals that gives the atmosphere of wandering around a smallish (but alive and not tiny) town, it's a bright day outside but a bit chilly with fog and condensation on the windows, you're isolated with your thoughts. Introspective and experimental in a good way.

Sample: Red and Purple
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Gregory & the Hawk - Moenie and Kitchi
2008 | Indie Folk | Chamber Pop | Singer-Songwriter

Noisy in my head
Voice rings like a bell
And try as I might, I cannot forget
And try as I might, I cannot love you less

Lives and dies by the sweetness of its vocals but they are extremely sweet vocals. Lonely, yearning, bittersweet, but very warm and sentimenal with gentle instrumentals backing it up. Fun singalong love song album.

Sample: Oats We Sow
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Hop Along - Get Disowned
2012 | Indie Rock | Anti-Folk | Art Rock | Emo

Young love is in the air
Young love is cheap; I mean, it's everywhere
This ain't no statement of knowledge
It's just my defense
I've been ignoring the cost

Incredible vocals and lyrical delivery, as well as captivating imagery, paired to ambitiously experimental instrumentals that go all over the place without ever really breaking out of the affable atmosphere of 'we're just some randoms off the street except we went to art school because our lives are messed up'. People fixate on Tibetan Pop Stars but every track has something great, Laments' build-up to pay-off is insane, Diamond Mine's imagery is insane, Kids on the Boardwalk is unparalleled. Completely worth your time.

Sample: Tibetan Pop Stars
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Laura Stevenson - Sit Resist
2011 | Indie Folk | Indie Pop | Singer-Songwriter

I am small, the television's falling from the second floor
My sister's hand in mine, as we watch it go
Another scene with sirens in the front yard
For the neighbors to read by the lights of

seriously undersold by its genre labels. Top-class songwriting paired with beautiful, girlishly stubborn but genuine vocals. Addresses some raw parts of life with a certain hope and optimism, not in the wee-woo sense of, 'ohhh maybe things could get better,' so much as, 'it happened, don't lose your heart, but you have to make your best shot to deal with it'. Catchy, good singalong album too.

Sample: Master of Art
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Marika Hackman - We Slept at Last
2015 | Indie Folk | Slowcore | Singer-Songwriter

I'm jealous of your neck
That narrow porcelain plinth of flesh
It gets to hold your head
And I'd rather perform the task instead
I'll use my hands

Dark, grim, and ethereal. Oscillates between this smothering feeling of loneliness and dark longing, and this airy feeling of desolate aloofness, as if the singer is dead or a living ghost. Overall delicate and lovely.

Sample: Let Me In
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
2002 | Indie Folk | Americana | Singer-Songwriter

I've got you
You've got whatever's left of me to get
Our conversations are like minefields
No one's found a safe way through one yet

HHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNG 10/10/10/10/10. I wish I could put this up in the Baby's Firsts except it wasn't a baby's first. Extremely influential because it's extremely good, even though it's 90% just one nasally dude singing with guitar.

Concept album about a dysfunctional couple moving to Tallahassee to try and rejuvenate their failing relationship, except it doesn't change anything and they continue being dysfunctional while pretending vaguely they're not.

Sample: No Children
Full: Youtube | Spotify

River City Extension - And The Unmistakable Man
2010 | Indie Folk | Indie Pop | Alt-Country

Everyone I meet these days likes to ask me what I do
And I was hoping recently that the answer might be you
My moral standing stands alone and it's contradicted too
Oh Adrianne, won't you ache again?

surprisingly hard to describe. Arcade Fire influence apparent but goes its own direction with some interesting, but not overbearing experimentation leading to a surprisingly varied album rooted in being confessional, but also just listenably fun and catchy.

Subject matter? Like, the most dishevelled guy struggling to be a good Christian while also a heavy alcoholic who has a new girlfriend in LITERALLY every song, very open about what a wreck he is and how badly he needs Jesus, but not 'pity-me' gorging on it so much as it's kinda just his life, and it's fantastic.

Sample: Our New Intelligence
Full: Youtube

Грай - О Земле Родной
2011 | Folk Metal | Russian Folk | White Voice

Колосится рожь златая в дивном полюшке
Причитала, улетая, плач о долюшке
О несчастной и печальной, красна девица
Как над полюшком, над дивным, темень стелется

Interesting juxtaposition of delicate, melodic traditional flutes and panpipes against the aggressive metal electric guitars. The vocals are also sung in a traditional east-slavic style with a beautiful female duet, so for people (like me) who get put off by typical growly metal vocals this is very accessible. Subject matter is pagan 'circle of life' nature stuff and traditional stories, as you'd expect.

Sample: Средь лесов
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Katzenjammer - Le Pop
2008 | Cabaret | Folk Pop | Indie Folk

"Nine hours passed, and how long will it last?"
Says the man with the plan and a gun in his hand
He's scared but prepared it might be as he feared
"Are they still in control and safe behind the wall?"

A bunch of stupid hammy fun. Very high energy with funny accordians and washboards and calliopes and like a thousand other niche instruments—it's the stuff to be played in a weird, wacky circus full of creative artists who decided to get on the road and put on a big show because they were too weird to settle down anywhere.

For the pastiche of the aesthetic, though, really strong ambitious songwriting, vocal performances, and storytelling in this thing. Hard not to smile and bob along to.

Sample: Demon Kitty Rag
Full: Youtube | Spotify

385 - 人間
2013 | Jazz Punk | Funk | Noise Rock

怠けていたのは
誰のせいでもない
憎しみの連鎖が終わらない
誰かを蔑んでしかいられない状態に
悪魔という影がニッコリと笑ってる

Phenomenal album. Ruthlessly raw with crazy vocals and crazy bass and crazy synths off doing crazy things that is alogether spitting in your face and punching you to HEY, LISTEN UP, while still being melodic and catchy through the funky jazz influence.

Phenomenal lyrics too IF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THEM.

Sample: 極端な人達
Full: Youtube | Spotify

ぼくたちのいるところ。 - ぼくいる
2017 | Jazz Punk | Pop Punk | Emo

みんなに好かれたいから　ポップな曲をいっぱいつくろう
そんな単純な曲ばっかじゃ　物足りない　つまんない
みんなが幸せになる　やさしい歌をいっぱい歌おう
そんな簡単な世界だったら　戦争は起こらない

Compilation of top-tier manic pop punk about being too extraordinarily mentally ill to function and hating everybody even vaguely normal who just acts crazy for fun, but also, making fun out of being crazy because what ELSE are you gonna do at this point?? Extremely catchy and high energy, fun to singalong too while being experimental and varied enough to not be, like, just bad.

Great lyrics again!

Sample: 人骨フィーバー
Full: Youtube

ミドリ - あらためまして、はじめまして、ミドリです。
2008 | Jazz Punk | Noise Rock | Post-Hardcore

『愛』を喰いちぎって『過去』を振り返って
もう泣くのはやめて グッドデストロイキューティーハニー

"Hello, I have CRIPPLING BPD, could you tell?": the album. well I guess most people just know it as 'that anime titties album that has a cute beginning then turns into the most brutal unhinged distorted woman screaming over jazz ever and wowie that's cool' but yeah it's about being ruined for life after getting raped as a child.

I did translations of this!

Sample: お猿
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Ramshackle Glory - Live The Dream
2011 | Folk Punk | Anarcho-Punk | Singer-Songwriter

So I won’t, but we shall overcome someday
I can’t do it alone, but I shall be free someday
I don’t know how to live, but I’m sick of learning how to die
Vampirism is for poseurs in junior high

One of the EXTREMELY few folk punk artists that is legit. 99% of folk punk artists are just pretending to be poor and washed out, the singer of Ramshackle Glory was ACTUALLY poor and washed out, having been homeless since adolescence and hopping from couch to couch across druggie dens while addicted to heroin. He got into the punk rock scene in this period and also heavily into anarchism, if you are a teen in similar circumstances, this discog is lifesaving.

That being said, Live The Dream is the album he wrote after coming out of rehab, and centers around the sentiment that this bottom-of-the-barrel lifestyle isn't something worth romanticising or holding on to, and that not every problem leading to it is one outside of one's personal control. In effect, 'you REALLY need to get yourself together and try something else if you want things to be better than this, it is possible,' though told with a lot of love and empathy because the guy clearly cares a lot about the people he met in this peroid. So while rooted in this fundamental darkness of poverty, homelessness, and addiction, it's an extremely hopeful and optimistic album about turning away from all that. and realising that communism sucks. lmao

Also very singable!

Sample: Your Heart is A Muscle
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Taxpayers - "God, Forgive These Bastards": Songs From the Forgotten Life of Henry Turner
2012 | Folk Punk | Punk Blues | Avant-Garde Jazz

The ticking of a busted watch
The storm is a thunderous, dark applause
And my love is locked in a pitbull's jaws
Believe me, I am a weapon of god too

Very lovely, fun and dark album that focuses like a laser point on the 'washed-up scoundrel' thing folk punk has going on but does it in an actually good way. Black, black, black—takes a microscope to the worst parts of society by illustrating the consistently terrible life of a fictional baseball player named Henry Turner, whose promising career is cut short when a forceful game-saving throw damages his rotator cuff and leaves him permanently disabled.

But also has this consistent sense of promise about it that despite all the terrible things Henry gets into, there's still a hope of things turning better or at least not terrible, and of friends still cheering him on despite failures.

Should mention that musically too this thing is a lot of fun, scuzzy, but also quite experimental with the low-down jazz blues and all that.

Sample: I Love You Like An Alcoholic
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Dog Faced Hermans - Those Deep Buds
1994 | Post-Punk | Jazz Punk | Noise Rock | Experimental

Justice - two steel balls on a hard rod
Miscarriage - a centrifuge losing its hold
Incident - that from which we be embarrassed
The comfort of strangers - hope lies constant in the mouth

Killer. You know some punk outfits are only punk outfits because it excuses them being awful musicians. Not the case here! Hellishly dark, moody, abrasive percussion with screeching vocals that retain intricate, listenable melody through the inclusion of wild jazzy horns and immersive guitar riffs.

Overtly feminist/riot grrrl-y.

Sample: Volkswagen
Full: Youtube

O. Children - O. Children
2010 | Post-Punk Revival | Darkwave | Gothic Rock

Now dry your eyes
Make a smile and go outside
When there's nothing else to do
Find the fun inside of you

Mostly want to bring more attention to that VOICE. Has a dark face, it's certainly not hidey-ho cheerful, but the overall atmosphere inside that gooey black center is really quite mellow and sweet.

Sample: Heels
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
2006 | Emo | Indie Rock | Post-Hardcore

Do I divide and pull apart?
'Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark
And this ship went down in sight of land
And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands?

Top class. Everything good about emo in one place and a great example of why I like it so much. Vocals are superb in their expression of very complex, deep but relateable sentiments everyone struggles with at some point, with lovely punchy instrumentals that both accentuate the bite when it's biting, and the cool contemplation when it's sombre. So what's the actual subject matter here?

Some heavy stuff. Focuses on how Jesse Lacey feels like he's not a good person, and struggling to figure out how to be a good person, laced in overt concerns about God's thoughts on all this, and worry about where all his actions will ultimately wind him up. A strong good vs. evil, 'morality matters, but what's its nature' type album.

Sample: Millstone
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Bright Eyes - Every Day and Every Night
1999 | Emo | Indie Folk | Indie Rock

Maybe it's me who's this unstable
Always obsessed about the end
Why can't I let what happens happen?
And just enjoy the time I spend

Also top class. Conor Orbest is a good gateway drug into enjoying scruffy unpolished voices, because while it's certainly not dolled-up or pretty, his singing is steeped in such sincerity that's hard not to find charming. Subject matter here is compelling too: talks about the damage of substance addictions, feeling aimless or purposeless, dysfunctional relationships, so on, and trying to see the alternative to these things.

Sample: A Perfect Sonnet
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Lync - These Are Not Fall Colors
1994 | Emo | Post-Hardcore | Slacker Rock

Push with hands, push with hands
Push with that, I think it's me now
And the shell is broken, but I'm not out yet
And the light comes in, the light comes in

More overtly hardcore, with harsher vocals and louder guitars, but very strong and lowkey hooky songwriting holding it up under that stark, sweet wall of 'I will use my heart to punch you in the face'. Major influence on everything that came after it.

Sample: Cue Cards
Full: Youtube

Mansions - Dig Up The Dead
2011 | Emo | Indie Rock | Alternative Rock

My youth was stolen from underneath my nose
Bodies were broken underneath all those clothes
You'll spend half your life waiting in line
Half your life waiting to go home

honestly the album art might be better than the album but the album is also very good. Centers around that time of being a teenager coming into adulthood, but you live out away from anywhere important, you don't have prospects of being anything much, your friends are all into drugs and vandalism to break the tedium, and when it's not about that it's just the drudgery of the 9 to 5, and you have to question what the point all is because while you still like this place and these people none of this is what you want.

Sample: Not My Blood
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Rilo Kiley - The Execution Of All Things
2011 | Emo | Indie Pop | Alt-Country

You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
And you'll be better and you'll be smarter
And more grown up and a better daughter
Or son, and a real good friend

Really good stuff. Brutal lyrics sung so sweetly and earnestly, with some casual indie pop male/female duet stuff going on, and to such elegantly gentle music with some chamber calm, it almost makes you overlook how actually brutal it is, except that it's consistently landing stabs to the heart. Gives me the feeling of being out in the country and going on a drive to try and get away from your thoughts but since it's the country, though it's peaceful there's not much going on so all you have is your thoughts.

Sample: The Execution Of All Things
Full: Youtube | Spotify

神聖かまってちゃん - つまんね
2010 | Emo | Noise Pop | Dream Pop

死にたいな
生きたいな
天使＆悪魔
僕の中にわわ

Utter self-hatred. Songs from a guy named noko who was severely bullied in school to the point he dropped out and became a hikkikomori, during which time he wrote a bunch of songs about feeling horrible, wanting to kill himself, not wanting to kill himself, and scrambling to try and get himself out of the hellpit that is BPD, by channeling it all into music. Which actually wound up working because over time he mellowed out a lot and things became more positive, but for THIS ALBUM that is not the case and he is very much still in the hole.

Absolutely ruthless in how he talks about himself here, pitch-black dark, unfiltered suicidal screaming, the highest point of the album is an anthemic celebration of leaving the house for 2 minutes, and musically great to top that all off.

I did translations of this! Sample: 美ちなる方へ
Full: Youtube | Spotify

empire! empire! (i was a lonely estate) - What It Takes To Move Forward
2009 | Midwest Emo | Post-Rock

So history repeats, and the feeling that I will one day wake
An old and empty man only drives me harder
Even if you will not sacrifice your youth
It will grow to resent you like a body of water

Elegant but cutting. Has a rather whiny but very genuine and sincere sound that hits great if you're a miserable teenager and want to wallow in your misery, or at least want someone to relate to, which is to say it's great midwest emo. Stands out above others though for how sheerly well it delivers the sad sentiment; it catches you then you kinda have to keep listening...

Sample: Keep What You Have Built Up Here
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Everyone Everywhere - Everyone Everywhere
2012 | Midwest Emo | Math Rock | Indie Rock

Should we be more uncivilized?
Don’t apologize
Pretend I'm yours
And you are mine

Solid high-energy release that's less whiny than a lot of midwest emo around this time, leans into conventional indie rock too so it's also accessible though not in a bad way. Hooky with strong technical twinkle-riffs and SOMETHING weirdly experimental on every track that rumbles up the ol' feelings alongside the forceful emotive vocals. Opening track is notably killer.

Sample: Queen Mary II
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Foxing - The Albatross
2013 | Midwest Emo | Post-Rock | Chamber Pop

I swear I'm a good man
So why don't you love me back?

Extremely delicate, probably the most delicate emo ever got without just turning into rock. Goes all-in on the yearning, lovesick style of 'maudlin depressive emo' with some beautiful flutes and violins mixed in there to bring in some light, while the vocalist shouts like his heart is either weeping in the snow or murdering him at any moment.

Sample: The Medic
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Circa Survive - Juturna
2005 | Post-Hardcore | Alternative Rock | Emo

Verse after endless verse, I can't escape the echoed words
I long to find a cure for the feeling I find in these chords
I smile as it burns

Not quite the grandaddy of modern Post-Hardcore, but like, the really cool cousin that everyone wants to be like. Beautiful, complex, bombastic, dramatic, but very smoothly produced and lush tracks with Anthony Green's infamously charming boyish vocals that half the genre subsequently adopted.

Sample: In Fear and Faith
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Cursive - The Ugly Organ
2003 | Post-Hardcore | Indie Rock | Emo

If at first you don't, you don't succeed
You gotta recreate your misery
'Cause we all know art is hard
Young artists have gotta starve

Punchy. And emo with some bite and gristle, but retains a smooth elegance with gentle string melodies and soulfelt sombre singing when he's not yelling or discordantly murdering his guitar, even dips into cabaret here and there but in a good way.

Sample: The Recluse
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Dance Gavin Dance - Acceptance Speech
2013 | Post-Hardcore | Swancore | Math Rock

I'm sick of twisting the knobs, your little baby's a slob
I wanna love you but this house ain't built for two
I think I panic a lot, not really sure what I've got
I wanna love you but this house ain't built for two

Very nice harsh technical stuff that remains melodic and catchy, hinged on the interplay of one harsh screamo vocalist juxtaposed with/against a gentle, songbirdlike vocalist to give a wide field of emotional expression. While being just great music on top of that. Spawned its own scene of similar bands trying to capture the dynamic of that interplay plus complex guitars.

Sample: Death of the Robot with Human Hair
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Hail The Sun - Wake
2014 | Post-Hardcore | Swancore | Math Rock

Cold and still found in the back room
Carnage all over the wall for all to see

Haunting and grim. Heavily Dance Gavin Dance/Circa Survive influenced, juxtaposing sweet vocals against the harsh or complex mathy guitars, but notably more 'stark' than these other outfits.

Sample: Jane Doe
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Johnny Foreigner - Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything
2011 | Post-Hardcore | Indie Rock | Emo

You know how jealous exes get, you never stood a chance
Your old friends talk about it, they're convinced that it was planned
For all your blushing sentiment, they'll never understand:
You take the chance to get out while you can

Moody partying brits having fun. Notably more on the 'poppy' side of post-hardcore, but still very punchy and experimental, especially on this album. Focuses on the close bonds you lose or break by necessity as you start growing up and shifting away from the people you only knew through school or coincidentally tangenting scenes, but how even if the relationship was 'shallow' in retrospect it still impacts you a lot for the landmark it puts in your life.

Sample: You vs Everything
Full: Youtube | Spotify

mewithoutYou - Pale Horses
2015 | Post-Hardcore | Indie Rock | Art Rock

Was he a violent man? Well, he had his genocidal moments...
Or penned by fiction’s hand? To whom could that phrase not apply?
How much are even lifeless sounds responsive to our listening ear!
What Pharoah now, what Pharoah now, or Jew or picture holds us here?

The return of Aaron Weiss in top form as ever. Frankly I'd put his whole discog here but I lean towards Pale Horses because it's the most... easy listening? That's a weird way to put it given that it's still mostly screamed/spoken poetry over harsh drums and dissonant guitars, but the cadence of it all is so good here.

Sample: Mexican War Streets
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Paper Chase - God Bless Your Black Heart
2004 | Post-Hardcore | Indie Rock | Noise Rock

So where's your love song now?
Your cookie's crumbled, you sang very soulful, thumbs down
So where's your four-part Bach chorales?
Your melody's dying, it's bankrupt and lying down
Heaven for climate, Hell is for conversation

DEMENTED and BLACK. People call other things edgy, but this is an example of 'actually edgy', and it sounds like you're being slobbered over by a demon. One of those albums I like if only because it doesn't ignore how genuinely messed up those dark little corners under the couch are, or present them as cool. It presents them as awful, murderous, clingy, and revelling in it.

Sample: What I'd Be Without Me
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Receiving End Of Sirens - Between The Heart And The Synapse
2005 | Post-Hardcore | Alternative Rock | Emo

My bloodhounds are hooked on a trail of ink
Which led me to the words you scribbled down;
An obituary dedicated to me
Submit before coming

Doing the DGD soft/hard vocal juxtaposition thing, but before DGD did it and with each pole being a little less extreme, so it's harder overall while retaining strong melodic focus.

Sample: Planning A Prison Break
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Thrice - Vheissu
2005 | Post-Hardcore | Alternative Rock | Art Rock

We're more than carbon and chemicals
We are the image of the invisible
Free will is ours and we can't let go
We are the image of the invisible

One of those bands that influenced the bands that influenced all the other bands. An 'OG' if you would. Probably where the DGD soft/screamo juxtaposition thing originated, significantly hardcore, significantly complex, and significantly Christian. Goes down like black coffee, puts some hairs on your chest. Image of The Invisible is one of those songs that justifies someone being born to make it, and very Worth Your Time.

Sample: Image Of The Invisible
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Antarctigo Vespucci - Leavin' La Vida Loca
2015 | Pop Punk | Power Pop | Indie Rock

When I look to the night sky I see darkness
With well-lit interruptions in between
When you look above, tell me, what do you see?
Is there a heaven in the sky for you and me?

BANGERS. High-energy depressocore bangers, basically, half of pop punk and associated outfits are trying to be this, but they are not this. Has the mood of being a homeless bum couch-hopping with no prospects after high school, except enough time has passed where you're not really a kid and being wayward is excusable anymore, and you can see your life is falling apart because you're always spending all day being a bum and really need to shape up.

Sample: Save Me From Myself
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Captain, We're Sinking - The Future Is Cancelled
2013 | Pop Punk | Post-Hardcore | Emo

And now she says "I'm sorry for the mess, but I'm not dead yet"
She's staring at the blood stained filter of her cigarette
And then she wipes the blood from her lips
And admits she's sick

Really really really nice. The kind of stuff that venerates Pop Punk's existence. Heavily influenced by The Hold Steady, and makes overt references to them and other big acts in the scene, which are fun and rather heartwarming to catch. Centers around people in bad situations or who have come from bad circumstances realising something is wrong and they need to not perpetuate it. Overt Christian bent.

Sample: Montreal
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Gatsby's American Dream - Volcano
2005 | Pop Punk | Post-Hardcore | Emo

What can save me
From this beast that eats everything inside me?
If there's a place where good folks go
All I know is they'll never let me in

Panic! At The Disco for even bigger nerds. Very youthful teenager-y energy that's nonetheless very fun, focused on corruption of power leading to people committing atrocities and/or being complicit in them, and lust for evil being pervasive. Christian bent, but maybe more like Christian-themed.

Sample: A Mind Of Metal And Wheels
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Good Luck - Into Lake Griffy
2008 | Pop Punk | Midwest Emo | Power Pop

So we gathered up the broken stars, lit a spark, put them back up in the sky. If you can wish on their falling, imagine what you can do bringing them back to life

Optimistic and uplifting album about seeing the best in people and finding meaning in encouraging each other or lifting each other up, even or especially through hard circumstances. Quite technically impressive too with the math stuff but it's the warm themes on this one that stick out the most.

Sample: 1001 Open Hands
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Mae - The Everglow
2005 | Pop Punk | Indie Rock | Power Pop

I could feel something different from the first time
Heaven made sense
And all the words rhymed

Cheesy and bright love album about young couples hopelessly in love trying to make their relationships work despite technical difficulties. Really happy stuff that hits on some transcendent things here and there, one of the few albums that consistently gets me.

Sample: The Everglow
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Motion City Soundtrack - My Dinosaur Life
2010 | Pop Punk | Power Pop | Emo

Maybe you were right after all...
Maybe I'm just bad news...
I've been drowning in memories
Call it residual blues

Cool-albumartcore. Also very cheesy and hokey, with a clear emo bent because the singer is openly a depressed/anxious nerd (from the 00s when being such a nerd was complete social death) and it seeps in everywhere, but fun with enough interesting licks and lyrical delivery to stick around.

Sample: Pulp Fiction
Full: Youtube | Spotify

p. s. eliot - Introverted Romance in our Troubled Minds
2010 | Pop Punk | Power Pop | Indie Rock

I said just go again
Maybe I'm too ambiguous, the supreme subject of your distress
And it's not so hard to be aloof
Brain on my sleeve, this abrupt mess that I get into

Weird album hedging the border of pop punk and totally absolutely not pop punk at all but it has an emo-midwesty-enough vibe that I put it here. What it says on the tin: songs about entering and being in a relationship when you're both young, inexperienced, a little anxious and awkward (and you both kinda live in the middle of nowhere and have no big grand plans so this is what you think about).

Sample: Incoherent Love Songs
Full: Youtube | Spotify

RVIVR - The Beauty Between
2010 | Pop Punk | Power Pop | Indie Rock

HUNGER FOR ANYONE OR ANYTHING
WE WANT TO BE WELL

Super high-energy top class pop punk, which is to say it's very pop, and very punk. Full of rebellious youthful edge, definitely 'tumblr-aligned' for lack of better phrasing, lyrics would resonate with people who are concerned with identity politics, music itself is sharp and wild enough to resonate with anyone who isn't. Fun male/female vocal interplay.

Sample: Wrong Way/One Way
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Arrah and the Ferns - Evan Was A Vegan
2006 | Twee | Indie Pop | Folk Pop

OMG! He broke up with me!
Now I hate the world
And I hate you too, she said

Cute and comedic, takes two seconds listening to recognize the 'style' of what's happening here, which is a bunch of silly songs about being a bit nerdy around highschool and the associated social troubles that seem so big when they're not really. Lowkey bangers, fun, male/female vocal interplay.

Sample: Apple For Evan
Full: Youtube

Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster...
2008 | Twee | Indie Rock | Indie Pop

We have to take the car 'cause the bike's on fire
We cannot trust your friends 'cause they were born liars
And if you don't exist with hearts the size of a house brick
Cease and desist

GLOCKENSPIEL.

Sample: You! Me! Dancing!
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Nana Grizol - Love It, Love It
2008 | Twee | Folk Punk | Indie Rock

I would tell you but I'm not so good with words
Language makes a simple feeling seem oh so absurd

Uplifting, hopeful album about appreciating the simple beauties in life, getting back on your feet after a hard time, your friends, and pining for love, told through the lens of... how to say, Portland. Gets existential but is happy and encouraging about it, very warm album.

Sample: Stop And Smell Thee Roses
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Tilly and the Wall - Bottoms of Barrels
2006 | Twee | Indie Pop

I was kidnapped real young by the sweet taste of love
Built a fondness for things that just weren't good enough

there's tapdancing as percussion all through this. which kind of says everything you need to know about it. Youthful, rebellious, unabashedly 'quirky', just here to have fun and vent about various injustices while not getting too depressed about it. Male/female vocal interplay.

Sample: Sing Songs Along
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Agent Fresco - A Long Time Listening
2010 | Progressive Rock | Alternative Rock | Math Rock

Halcyon
Calm me for this night

Icelandic outfit with some gritty stabbing guitars paired against poignant, heartrending, but not weak or weepy vocals. Borders on a post-hardcore feeling for that but it's distinctly prog with its emphasis on transcendental topics and overall bombastic approach. Lots of variation in this thing too from delicate piano ballads to thrilling, high octane hits like the title track.

Sample: A Long Time Listening
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Bent Knee - Land Animal
2017 | Progressive Rock | Art Rock | Art Pop

I'm always at it
Chasing the vermin
Sealing the letters and kissing goodbye
Truth be told I'll soon be old

holy VOCAL DELIVERY. Great example of a band where everyone knows what they're doing with heavy classical educations but went into doing rock instead, not by going the chamber 'put violins in it' route but by applying things like movements into rock songs. Wonderful stuff, can't speak enough about Courtney Swain's voice and lyrical delivery because it's only by hearing it can you understand how good it is.

Sample: Time Deer
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Closure in Moscow - Pink Lemonade
2014 | Progressive Rock | Post-Hardcore | Concept Album

I won’t let anyone have mercy until you bring me down
Pretty little thing came up behind me
Twist and twirl, she damn near blind me
Then she smiled as she took my crown

Schizophrenic album. Not unintentionally but this thing is going all over the place everywhere, in one second it's doing something extremely too impressive, in the next second it's doing something extremely too weird. KIDDING! It rocks.

Concept Album following a venal and hedonistic character named 'The Fool' who drinks a glass of pink lemonade in pursuit of enlightment, his subsequent and uniformly failed forays into false enlightenment through far-too easy and attractive options, and his realisation of actual enlightenment that was there all along. Overtly gnostic so I'm wobbly on it but the music bangs.

Sample: Neoprene Byzantine
Full: Youtube | Spotify

In The Presence of Wolves - Of Two Minds, Stages 1-2: The Ape and the Cage
2017 | Progressive Rock | Progressive Metal | Concept Album

Silly sleeping siren cuddled safe under your covers
These are my last words, don't even bother
To write, to call while you're wandering on the road

A more literal schizophrenic album. Comes out of the growly prog-metal scene, then discovered Anthony Green vocals and started using them instead to make this more delicate, lofty, emotional EP.

Concept album following the story of two brothers, one of whom struggles with severe schizophrenia to the point of committing suicide, and how the other struggles to cope, and may be developing symptoms of the same deadly condition himself...

Sample: The Ape and The Cage
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Kindo - Happy However After
2018 | Progressive Rock | Jazz Rock | Jazz Funk

What I found is golden
Set sail in a dream
Taken to the shoreline
And begin to catch the gleam

A bunch of drippy love songs, and spicy tense romance songs (there's a difference), set to technical but approachable jazzy rythms that want you to get up and dance! Musical prowess on display here goes without saying but I want to shoutout the lyrics for hitting a weird line of 'kinda cheesy' and 'genuinely neat' that falls more on the 'neat' side than not, which I find myself admiring more and more over time.

Sample: Colder Than December
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Magna Carta Cartel - Goodmorning Restrained
2009 | Progressive Rock | Post-Rock | Dream Pop

Mark your points by arguments
Distinguished by despair
You'll never meet your dreams while you're awake

Dreamy and chill, gives you the sensation of floating in this warm current while the distant world passes on around you, not quite in a melancholy way so much as a 'it's just how things are' way. A more 'low-key', honeylike, and smooth example of proggy complexity.

Sample: Valiant Visions Dawn
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Pure Reason Revolution - The Dark Third
2006 | Progressive Rock | Space Rock | Alternative Rock

The skies' sublime lunation towards the setting sun
With eyes of painted dilation towards the fragile sun
Their sight in firm fixation towards the setting sun
We've seen the ruined foundations towards the fragile sun

An exciting and celestial kind of album, with great fascination for the light of divinity from the vantage of a dark world, has the atmosphere of following points of blooming starlight spearing through the night. Has a transcendental, anthemic kind of spacey etherealness with the mellow synths and ringing harmonies but never gets too floaty. Overt Christian themes.

Sample: Apprentice of the Universe
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Rishloo - Feathergun
2009 | Progressive Rock | Alternative Metal | Alternative Rock

Now Scissorlips throws scissor fits
'Til bleeding's what the kissing gets
To fork the tongues of old and young
Forever speaking opposites, and
Sing your lullaby

Beautiful beauitful album that executes flawlessly some really, REALLY big sentiments, centered on people's nature as being fundamentally base or cruel but trying to pretend, or even having the genuine potential, to be other than that and more like a divinity. Scissorlips for example is a genuinely inspired song and if it 'clicks' for you congrats you've taken a DEEPER THAN YOU KNOW dive into some hefty theology.

Sample: Feathergun In The Garden Of The Sun
Full: Youtube | Spotify

高中正義 - The Rainbow Goblins
1981 | Progressive Rock | Jazz Fusion | City Pop

The trees, the bushes, the animals, the flowers, the grasses... they all cried with fear: "The Rainbow Goblins have come!"

Smooth, funky, and beautiful jazz blended with the chill air of city pop and grand ambitiousness of prog. Concept album following the story of the peaceful Valley of the Rainbow, suddenly under threat when the menacing Rainbow Goblins show up to eat the rainbow, and how the valley resists them. Mostly instrumental, very sweet and whimsical.

Sample: The Sunset Valley
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
2012 | Progressive Rock | Swancore | Jazz Fusion

Waiting for someone to show me, but I won't hold my breath
Nothing left, no control, only pictures of someone I used to know
And I gave it all away, and I can't take it back
Here I am, tornado

Manic emo thoughts filtered through prog nerd brain. The songs themselves are mostly your typical emo self-doubt, anti-commercial, and love songs type things, but phrased by a guy in love with a thesaurus, freeform jazz, zheul, and pop, to synthesize all this huge ambitious experimental stuff together in a way that is genuinely catchy and listenable without sacrificing its technical complexity or creative flair. Really impressive.

Sample: Feed The Horses
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Bryan Scary - The Shredding Tears
2006 | Progressive Pop | Power Pop | Music Hall

The stammer in your glamour, the fork in your gears
The sorceress in your fortress, the salt in your fear
Blow out the candle and the smoke will take the blame
And I'll just shed tears all over the place

Whimsical and theatrical piano-fronted songs that are basically a bunch of funny storytelling. Every song has its own offbeat characters with a coherent narrative about what they get up to and what the conflict is today, from silly things like a grandma getting fed up with the boys on her lawn, to the local starlet of a backwater town leaving to marry a sailor. Varied and very creative.

Sample: Macedonia Hotel
Full: Youtube | Spotify

The Color Bars - Kairos At Infinity
2006 | Progressive Pop | Geek Rock | Neo-Psychedelia

So what if the universe is one big accident?
It's beautiful and you're a part of it

This was a random pull. Chill fuzzy pop with a bit of flamboyant 'woah my third eye is open' type energy, upbeat and lovey-dovey.

Sample: Ja Mata Shibuya
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Dirt Poor Robins - Deadhorse
2020 | Progressive Pop | Chamber Pop | Rock Opera

They were born with the strength of a mountain
With the modest intent of a dove
An end to the shedding of blood
(It won't be long, it won't be long)

Dirt Poor Robins stands out as a band dripping with passion and ability that just never quite cuts high enough to get recognition, and it's a shame because they're very good. Warm beautiful chamber music with deliciously welcoming pop theatricality and lovely emotive singing from Kate DeGraide, dealing with huge existential themes in an approachable way. Overtly Christian.

Concept album following the end and enslavement of most of humanity into an AI brain-matrix, becoming bound to its immortal physicality and from there unable to reach Heaven.

Sample: Skywriter
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Everything Everything - Get To Heaven
2015 | Progressive Pop | Indietronica | New Wave

You are a thief and a murderer too
Stole the face that you wear from a craven baboon
’Cause you did it to her, and you did it to him
And you did it before and you'll do it again, I know it

Great stuff concentrating on people's growing disillusion and desensitization to the truly horrible things that just keep happening and happening and happening in greater perpetuity over the past decades, either putting a blind eye to it or leaning on stupid too-simple 'solutions', while also acknowledging how easy it is to become a person who could perform or support such horrible things.

Lovely sense of irony on the whole thing since it's so upbeat and... fruity? while talking unabashedly about people setting themselves on fire or children being blown up on TV and this having ZERO effect on the growing line at Starbucks.

Sample: Get To Heaven
Full: Youtube | Spotify

平沢進 - 救済の技法
1998 | Progressive Pop | Electropop | Orchestral

一振りは雨の起源に響かせて
二振りで海の怒りを学ぶ
三度の恵みでこの世に間借りして
四方を魔法の支援で囲む

The dude who did the Paprika soundtrack. Very grand, powerful, but dreamy type songs, where it feels like everything is happening in some kind of weird parallel universe where everything's just a bit 'off', but despite that, the implications of those weird apocalyptic things happening is still real.

Sample: 救済の技法
Full: Youtube

Make A Rising - Infinite Ellipse and Head With Open Fontanel
2008 | Progressive Pop | Avant-Prog | Baroque Pop

All I want is your love for me, always
And to look up and turn you
All my friends are here
They shouldn't move away
(We shouldn't move away)

Experimental and ambitious stuff that manages to be listenable while being so extremely experimental. Certainly something different for those with eclectic tastes who are bored of the same-old same-old, enjoy some jazz, enjoy some classical, enjoy some wailing and battering at pots and pans, but also, mostly love songs.

Sample: How's Bout A Love Supreme
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Moulettes - Constellations
2014 | Progressive Pop | Chamber Pop | Art Pop

Following behind the ghost of summer
Fire and frost and lust and shudder
Whispering of secrets to discover
In the gap between walls
In a crack in the tarmac floor

Grand and theatrical stuff focused around the cosmic mysteries of nature with a clean fantastical air. Huge lineup with a lot of tiny layers building up a massive but effortless whole, with lovely harmonic vocals too.

Sample: Constellations
Full: Youtube | Spotify

大森靖子 - Kitixxxgaia
2017 | Progressive Pop | Pop Rock | Art Pop

歌で人の気持ち　明るくできるように
きっと人生にくじけている人がいると思うから

Upbeat emo-manic ballads with impeccably strong songwriting and zany sugary energy that knows just when to step off the breaks for a second, so it can ram the car into you even more vigorously.

Fun lyrics too.

Sample: 勹″ッとᐸるSUMMER
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Pepe Deluxé - Queen of the Wave
2012 | Progressive Pop | Baroque Pop | Surf Rock

You better dress for action
That's right son!
Dress for action like a Powerman
Never wait for reaction
Join the race that has begun

Extremely bold and ambitious album showing off all the cool things it can do while having bombastic FUN! And there's certainly a lot of things that it's doing, playing with harpsichords, bassoons, high-octane surf rock, war anthems... while always feeling coherent.

Sample: The Storm
Full: Youtube | Spotify

惑星アブノーマル - 私は怒りでできている
2018 | Progressive Pop | Art Pop | Jazz Pop

物申すところじゃ甘美な　曰く愁訴を気取る讃美歌
許すまじかな　そう貴殿の　外道にも劣らない行為

Another highly refined but highly manic jazz-influenced japanese experimental pop album, like the middle ground between Kayoko Yoshizawa and Seiko Oomori. Very much its own thing though with dips into noise that slants harsher and more spitefully aggressive, really good.

Sample: ヤってもいいよ
Full: Youtube | Spotify

吉澤嘉代子 - 屋根裏獣
2017 | Progressive Pop | Art Pop | Chamber Pop

七つの海はもう　静かに靡いた
わたし真珠の涙を　月に食べられたの

Playfully theatrical but very classy and refined story-songs about various creepy crawly monsters, like mermaids and evil dragon grandmas and taxis swooping young girls to Hell, that takes delight in expressing the zaniness of these stories and admiration for the fantastical. But able to chill down a bit too; has Cafeteria on it.

Sample: 地獄タクシー
Full: Youtube | Spotify

adjy - The Idyll Opus (I-VI)
2021 | Progressive Folk | Chamber Folk | Indie Rock

To a wild-eyed young man restless to be
Had a dream, "Wake, late!" “Trouble.”
Never fit within their frames
An incurable love soaked all he could see

Weird band takes the Arcade Fire type sound then goes in a more folk direction with it, and it works great. Grand, majestic, very emotionally poignant arrangements with powerful orchestral backing, that does a fantastic job giving the atmosphere of a summer out in the country.

Concept album, too, following the fateful meeting of two young, passionate lovers, but a looming tragedy may shortly end their romance in a way neither of them expect...

Sample: Where June Meets July: IV. O Tonight
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Musk Ox - Woodfall
2014 | Progressive Folk | Chamber Folk | Dark Folk

[Instrumental]

Fully instrumental, so it's all-in on the orchestrals. Heavy on the strings, with a beautiful, but rather haunting atmosphere, though grounded, rather than 'floaty'. Can get a bit stuck in itself but if you like classical or need 'atmosphere' music it works really good.

Sample: Windswept
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Typhoon - White Lighter
2013 | Progressive Folk | Champer Pop | Indie Rock

Years'll go on your pretty face'll grow strong and hardened
We'll own a small patch of land outside of the town we'll grow a garden
And after I've departed you will never know if your love was unconditional

Oh look! It's a 10/10! Blood sweat tears and a childhood destroyed by a near-death scrape with Lyme disease went into this thing, as Kyle Morton goes over all the most traumatic, difficult, or affecting moments of his life, and hopes he had for a life that was quite literally ending any second, then distills them into this. Suffer for art? Oh yup! Wonderfully!

Band is huge, with grand sweeping orchestrals uplifting these complex sentiments of facing your mortality, and despite the heavy subject matter the overall mood is... not positive, but very hopeful.

Sample: Artificial Light
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Burial - Untrue
2007 | Dubstep | Ambient | Future Garage

Dark angel
Fall from the heavens above (can)
God send me an angel to heal my heart
From being in love (can)
And after all I still love you

Wobbled on putting this album here since it's such a 'duh, yeah' pick but also, it's such a 'duh, yeah' pick because it's very good. If it sounds a bit 'normal' nowadays it's because basically everything after it was cribbing from it. You know, a Tolkien kind of deal.

Ethereal, dreamy, and bleak. Has the atmosphere of being in this cold, lonely, washed-out city where everything's a bit misty and smudged in monochrome black-and-white. Trancey depressocore.

Sample: Archangel
Full: Youtube | Spotify

::M∆DE::IN::HEIGHTS:: - Without My Enemy What Would I Do
2015 | Alternative R&B | Synthpop | Ambient Pop

It's just a story though, is it a story though?
I can't tell if it happened 'cause it felt impossible
Don't know whether it was real or a dream
Imagination playing tricks on me

Ethereal and isolated, but sweet and youthfully elegant with the lovely clear vocals of Kelsey Bulkin against the snowy fresh beats of Sabzi. Strong air of mystery wafting around this one, though not so much as to get pretentious as just contemplative, mystical, and playful (weird combination but it works), gives me the mental image of like, misty ballerinas.

Instrumental side is really strong too, with quite a lot of experimentation. They use the sound of a shoe squeaking against the floor in one of these tracks as a main beat and it like... works.

Sample: Death
Full: Youtube

DAOKO - Dimension
2015 | Alternative R&B | Hip Hop | Electropop

一体　どうすれば
見えない　雲の上で
視界は　曇り空
到着しない　飛行機内

The softest, sweetest, cutest, girliest rap you can imagine that isn't just phoning it in. Daoko's voice is very soft and ethereal, but simultaneously strong, and the way she speaks is hypnotically soothing, contrasted against soft but somewhat anxious electronic instrumentals. Unique if nothing else, definitely.

Sample: 8階
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Deca - The Ocean
2013 | Alternative R&B | Rap | Conscious Hip Hop

I chased dragons now I'm chasin' the dream
They're both mythic
One's a ball and chain the other's the soul's image
Restrained manacled child, so afraid
Like somebody's tryin' to tear the wings out of my shoulder blades

High-minded type hip hop concerned with man's spiritual nature and the power of language and myths, as well as the world's hedonism and oppression stifling these things, but on this album it's kinda more chill. Deca's flow is buttery smooth and samples used for the backing beat are on-point, quite a short album too, so very easy listening while delivering some fat stuff.

Sample: Breadcrumbs
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Dessa - A Badly Broken Code
2010 | Alternative R&B | Conscious Hip Hop | Singer-Songwriter

Before you came along I was a lone cub
Fell in love with language, tried to tell the grown-ups
About the storm clouds, the weather in my head
Hadn't heard the word for melancholy yet

Smooth and chilled out, but distinctly dark kind of album where Dessa is being frank about the things she sees in the world, and most of it being harsh, in a, 'that's how it is, have to deal with it' kind of way. Feminine and poetic, with this cutting sensuality both in her effortlessly sharp rapping and beautifully transfixing singing.

Sample: The Crow
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Archive - Londinium
1996 | Trip Hop | Hip Hop

39 steps 22 catch boxed in
Tales of the city we are lost in
Living in a haze I'm amazed by the ways in the days
Of forever go non stop pressure

Very chill, somewhat brighter and warmer than most Trip Hop with the prominent violins and delicate pianos, but still distinctly chilly at the edges. Quite groovy too with dips into lounge. Very influential, one of the OGs.

Sample: So Few Words
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Crustation - Bloom
1997 | Trip Hop | Dub

I'll feel no remorse
When I quit this place
Too long I've wasted in this
Melancholy space

Very nice interplay between the coldness of the instrumentals and the light of the vocalist, one of those ones where the album art really communicates the vibe. Nocturnal album on a night where the moon is very bright.

Sample: Purple
Full: Youtube

The Gathering - Souvenirs
2003 | Trip Hop | Art Rock | Alternative Rock

Form an arrow, point at us
Be the target of the center
Find the key, lock the door
Close your eyes for encore

Spooky! More rock-leaning than most trip hop, but still strongly rooted in the atmosphere formed by these haunting, creeping, ethereal beats, just has a guitar on top of them and singing that is free to do whatever it wants, since the beats are strong enough to communicate the right desolate air without needing magnification from the voice. Sharper and more biting than most.

Sample: Souvenirs
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Monk & Canatella - Do Community Service
2000 | Trip Hop | Rock | Breakbeat

Material wealth is coming from all sides
Glancing to find another place in which to hide
Things are getting better, solitary letters
Plus the new vendettas, go-getters

One of the super OGs. But everyone copied the bands that were influenced by this band (Portishead) instead of being influenced by this directly, which means the genre became predominately female-vocals instead of male vocals and it drives me nuts because it's the perfect sound for Aquila and despite being one of the genre's progenitors there's somehow NOTHING ELSE LIKE IT FOR HIS PLAYLIST. But I digress...

Leans more on the jarring, desolate atmosphere than the 'ethereal spookiness' atmosphere found in most Trip Hop, and more sample-heavy in how it builds up its texture, very cool stuff.

Sample: Elephant
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Second Person - Come To Dust
2011 | Trip Hop | Downtempo | Dream Trance

Meditation on the new
Another version of an I Love You
It's a variation on a theme
It's attraction speaking a different name

Cute girly love songs steeped in the classy nocturnal trip hop vibe, very chill and relaxing with minimalist beats to accentuate the vocals. Lives and dies by the vocal delivery, but it's very good.

Sample: Unretractable Facts
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Tricky - Maxinquaye
1995 | Trip Hop | Dub | Post-Industrial

Hell is round the corner where I shelter
Ism's and schisms, we're living helter skelter
If you believe or deceive, common sense says shouldn't receive
Let me take you down the corridors of my life

Dark, smooth, and sexual. Another one of the super OGs. Blends a lot of influences effortlessly into this thick atmosphere of like, an extremely seedy VIP lounge that has this dim lighting and red velvet everywhere to maintain this tacky semblance of class but really it's an evil BDSM sex dungeon and you can still see the murder-rape stains. And if you're sitting on the couch here, you're already in it.

One of those ones like The Paper Chase that doesn't shy away from dark things actually being dark. (Guy's life was/is pretty screwed up.)

Sample: Aftermath
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Blue Sky Black Death - NOIR
2011 | Downtempo | Instrumental Hip Hop | Post-Rock

[Instrumental]

One of those albums like Tourist History that I just can't escape from. Extremely peaceful, happy, uplifting, to the point that it's a bit cheesy, but the sentimental atmosphere is sweet enough that it could be a whole moon of camembert and I'd still enjoy it. Makes me think of going out and exploring in summer.

Sample: And Stars, Ringed
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Emancipator - Soon It Will Be Cold Enough
2006 | Downtempo | Trip Hop | Instrumental Hip Hop

[Instrumental]

Very chill and a little chilly, but fundamentally light and soothing. Has the atmosphere of sunlight glittering on the snow and over a pristine river just thawing with a hint of spring to come.

Sample: Lionheart
Full: Youtube | Spotify

きのこ帝国 - Eureka
2013 | Shoegaze | Indie Rock | Post-Rock

隠しても隠しても隠しても見えてる
はみでてるわかってるあなたは狂ってる
それでもそれでもそれでもやっぱり
まっすぐ佇むあなたはきれいさ

Beautifully hypnotic but not in a way that dissolves into goop. Floaty so it grabs you and carries you along, with strong walls of immersive reverb, yet sharp, clear, and focused with feminine melancholy and anger. Wonderful vocals, vocal delivery, and lyrics here too, language barrier kind of irrelevant.

Sample: 平行世界
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs
2005 | Singer-Songwriter | Chamber Pop | Indie Rock

Certain fads, stripes and plaids, some singles ads
They run you hot and cold like a rheostat
I mean a thermostat
So you bite on a towel, hope it won't hurt too bad

Remarkable violinist Andrew Bird drops a bunch of tracks that are simultaneously smooth, classy, accessible, and cleverly written in a way that is obviously cleverly written, but isn't showing off about it so much as the guy is just smart and thinks in weird metaphors. Super impressive stuff where you can tell he's conveying something complex and important through poetry, and you can get the vibe through the sounds, but you kinda need to sit down if you want to unpuzzle the meaning.

Little dude on the cover is adorable too.

Sample: A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Elliott Smith - Either / Or
1997 | Singer-Songwriter | Indie Folk | Indie Pop

People you've been before that you
Don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Wonderful songwriter Elliott Smith is very very emo and very very good at expressing it. Delicate, touch-them-and-they'll-break vocals set to gentle guitar progressions as he gorges on his depressed ruminations, spinning out unshowy but extremely well-considered lyrics that only happen when you think about this stuff way too much. Particular slant towards issues around drug addiction, identity disturbances, fame, and general suicidality.

Sample: Alameda
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Susanne Sundfør - Music For People In Trouble
2017 | Singer-Songwriter | Art Pop | Chamber Folk

Verdict unanimous
Dawn will turn to dust
And the snow falls down
Your footsteps on the ground
Are lost in the silence

What it says on the tin. Lovely, powerful, beautiful, but delicate compositions about being in a world and era where things will inevitably die and end, and it's hard to find anything true or lovely to believe in, but you have to keep going anyway. Final track especially is a really big 'woah' moment.

Sample: Undercover
Full: Youtube | Spotify

Terry Allen - Just Like Moby Dick
2020 | Singer-Songwriter | Progressive Country | Americana

Did you enlist
After we kissed?
Was it that bad that you had to go?
Bad kiss

A bunch of classic, fun, story-driven American folk describing various episodes centered around whimsical characters who have rather serious conflicts: you have your Houdini looking for wizards to resurrect his mom, bad girl pirate Jenny, the horror of the American military-industrial complex, the circus going to a town full of vampires... you know, the classics.

Sample: Abandonitis
Full: Youtube | Spotify