Help needed narrowing down the qualities of these songs that I like so much

TheFireTheft
2023-10-20T13:18:09Z

I've been building a playlist of songs that I would classify as, for lack of a better term, "cool" songs. The word is extremely subjective and based on my personal experience, of course. But the best way I would describe these songs would be: if I imagine myself riding in a car with a friend, and he/she puts on a playlist to show off some new music discoveries, these would be songs that I hear for the first time and think, "damn, that is a cool song."

Most of the songs that I'm about to list have similar qualities, but there are some exceptions. I know all of these songs by heart, so my objective is to find new songs that fit these obscure qualities. Also, I'd really like to know what exactly is causing me to call these songs "cool".

The songs (with Spotify links):

The Prodigy - Breathe

Eels - Novocaine for the Soul

Lo Fidelity Allstars - Battleflag

Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground

White Town - Your Woman

Run the Jewels - Blockbuster Night, Pt. 1

Now, you're instantly thinking: 5 out of 6 of these are songs from the 90's from groups that all probably ran in the same circles and shared pedal board setups backstage. There's probably a lot of truth to that. Aside from that theme though, here's what I've identified:

Typically the sound is lo-fi.

There's some sort of funky beat/rhythm. The drums are probably electronic.

Many of these songs feature buildups into a powerful chorus or ending

There may be vocal distortion or other effects

Usage of electronics

There's a dark/minor/modal sound to them

Maybe there's a bit of industrial tie-in?

The singers are closer to monotonous than all over the octaves

And that's all I've got so far. I've been thinking about this a lot and would love to discover some more music to fit into this theme. I want to be clear that I do NOT think this should just be a 90's playlist... unless that just happens to be where all of these songs exist.

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