Band of Horses was never my favorite band, but they are consistently great for many an occasion
Great Lake Swimmers is folky and sweet, but NOT sad. Rare combo. Their first album is great to fall asleep to.
Sufjan Stevens is the best
Cloud cult is pretty fun, but repetitive. Not amazing
Death cab for cutie is a great band if you are 16 and sad about girls
LCD Soundsystem is the best thing that libertarian capitalists ever gave the world. Two huge thumbs up
Bob Dylan songs often have great melodies. Tangled up in blue is a particular favorite. And then it so happens they they have nice lyrics too
Leonard Cohen is the thinking man’s Bob Dylan.
Of Montreal are great for walking down busy urban streets and giving yourself a spring in your step
The Velvet Undergrounds first album is phenomenal for sitting on a train going through the countryside looking out the window
The violent femmes are underrated
Gnarls Barkelry is great and every knows it, but they’re often overlooked for some reason
Robyn is the killingest pop star
Sigur Røs is great music to convince a date to kiss you for the first time
I’ve been getting into fugal I. Half their stuff is great and half is pretentious crap
The Mountaon Goats have way too much crap in their catalogue. But the good stuff is golden. Get Lonely is the best breakup album I’ve ever heard
Radiohead whatever
Daft punk yes we get it they’re amazing. Did you know they have an album length music video which is awesome? (Look up interstella 5555)
Arcade fires first two albums are the purest expression of the rage and terror of living in the early bush years
Strokes are overrated
Janelle Monae is so fun
The Decemberists stopped being interesting 8 years ago
Jeans Lekman will never be the center of anyone’s musical universe, but he’s always welcome as a nice addition
Alt-J’s breezeblocks is just catchy as hell
I can and have listened to CAKE on repeat for days.
Billy Bragg has some good stuff, and a lot of misses. His Red Flag and Internationale are killer, though
Wilco’s live album will blow the mind of moody freshmen minoring in philosophy
Hercules and Love affair had one really good song (Hercules theme) and milked that into two mediocrely albums
Justice is good for dance music if you’ve got less than five minutes to prepare before drunk people knock on your door demanding a party
Bikini Kill is great for when you’re an angry feminist and unbearable screaming the other 95% of your life
Frank orange has one great album. Get it.
Animal collective is music that won’t distract you from more important things, ht then when you decide to finally pay it attention you’ll be well rewarded.
The xx is for being generally sad about the world but not sad enough to go play games or eat ice cream about it
Iron and Wine is like the god fare of sad folky music. Put him in Pandora and you’ll get a selection of a ton of good stuff by other people
I hear Grimes is great. Honestly I don’t get it
Björk is terrible. Burn her albums in a fire
The freelance whales are fun and poppy and you should. Check out their first album
DJ /rupture is awesome and interesting
Nettle is obscure and fun and exotic!
Explosions in the sky is like better classical music. Play it whenever you want great background music to whatever you’re doing. (Boring Skype calls?)
Ratatat fills the seem need as explosions in the sky but it’s much faster and more aggressive
Fleet Foxes are solid
Cat power deserves our money and attention
Beck is a genius, but not as much as he thinks he is
Neutral Milk Hotel is the Pixies of new folk music. In a good way
Pete Seeger is an American treasure. <3 <3 <3
Johnny Cash is the best and only country music you need to hear
Remember Kings of Leon? Me neither. Same for Hot Chip.
Sleigh Bells does one thing, and they do it well!
The Whitest Boy Alive is great background music as you stroll across a campus, or stroll anywhere actually. Someone needs to use it in a film soundtrack asap.
Purity Ring is actually pretty nice. Just getting into them. I like Shrines
Simon and Garfunkel had a good thing going. “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls” – be still my heart!
Did I mention that sufjan is the very bae of bae’s?
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