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votes
Recommend me a song that _________.
Top level comments should fill in the blank with some sort of descriptor identifying a kind of song you would like suggestions for. Be as generic or specific as you want.
Replies can then recommend songs to that individual.
Hint: Use the "collapse replies" button to view only top-level posts.
Recommend me a song that will make me feel joyful.
I hope you listen to lyrics. ;)
Chris Staples - Golden Age is one of my all time favorites for this. Frankly, if we're doing a Tildes themed song mixtape someday, this one should be on it. Nice bright baroque pop, usually lifts my spirits.
Raphael Saadiq - Go To Hell perhaps doesn't seem titled to make you feel joyful, but it will. One of his best tracks ever, and totally underrated. Pure orchestral soul.
Johnathan Jeremiah - Happiness is good advice for feeling better any time of the year. Baroque pop.
Josh Rouse & The Long Vacations - Oh, Look What The Sun Did! is another excellent track from an underrated artist. More baroque pop.
Michael Kiwanuka - I'm Getting Ready for some more smoky, silky soul.
Listener - Wooden Heart for a little spoken word over post-rock. Not your typical track, but I'll challenge anyone to find a track with better lyrics than this one has.
Tom Waits - You Can Never Hold Back Spring from a bourbon-soaked piano in a bar.
Johnathan Richman - Summer Feeling is a bit wistful, and melancholy, and probably on the top 1000 songs of all time list. Just one fellow with a guitar.
Bahamas - Lost In The Light is a rather rousing explosion of light, if you're a sucker for a good chorus.
Kings of Convenience - Dance With You if this one doesn't make you smile, definitely get your soul a tune-up, it's clogged. More catchy and danceable than the rest.
Cotton Jones - Blood Red Sentimental Blues is a floating cloud of sound that just takes you away, from one of the best records no one has ever heard.
C2C - Happy if you don't mind having your ears blasted clean off by soulful electroswing.
Babe Rainbow - Darby & Joan for a little funky bop.
Kishi Bashi - Bright Whites is pretty uplifting. I don't think they have a genre tag for his music yet, though. He's still unclassifiable.
Hyde & Beast - Keep Movin' is a bit of an anthem.
Bop English - Dani's Blues got a bit more of a rock and roll edge here... which reminds me of
Ezra Furman - Lousy Connection because nobody wants to be the bad guy.
Shakey Graves - To Cure What Ails is obligatory, and probably the best closer for this set.
I'm sure I can find more but that's enough going on for now. I tend to collect what you might call 'musical therapy' songs.
I still play that album semi-regularly. What a masterpiece.
Shonen Knife - When You Sleep
The Mountain Goats — Fall of the Star High-School Running-Back is probably something that'll raise a laugh or two!
Dreamers – Wanna Stay has weirdly uplifting lyrics with an almost nostalgic feeling IMO.
Parquet Courts: "Tenderness"
Car Seat Headrest: "Nervous Young Inhumans"
Alvvays: "Plimsoll Punks"
Iceage: "Thieves like us"
This song is short and really sweet.
Recommend me a song that's chill and relaxed but that still has a great groove.
Maybe She by Still Woozy
Really any of his songs that are out now. Love them all and they could all fit what you're asking.
Two quite different styles, but hopefully one or the other is the sort of thing you were hoping for:
Noname - Self
Kate Tempest — Firesmoke
Geotic is pretty good for this.
Recommend a song for me that has great guitar work.
Edit: Thanks for all the replies! Some great stuff here!
Shinki Chen - Requiem of Confusion for if you want something like a bit heavier variant of the kind of psych Hendrix and others were doing.
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (this one's pretty obvious but I notice it gets passed over a lot in a lot of circles despite being legendary in its own right so I'll throw it in just in case :P)
Wintersun - 'Winter Madness'
The Duel by Dethklok
Rodrigo y Gabriela - Hanuman
This song has a pretty nimble guitar part.
And this song won me over with its tasty guitar work.
Recommend me a song that is a great cross genre cover song.
On The Dillards' killer progressive bluegrass album Wheatstraw Suite, they've got a cover of I've Just Seen a Face by The Beatles which I think I prefer to the original at this point.
The Front Bottoms' cover of Just Stay might fit this criteria?
Wasted Years · Carved In Trees Iron Maiden cover
Smile Like You Mean It by Tally Hall a beautiful bitter-sweet cover of a Killers song
Recommend me a song that's incredibly lyrically dense and complex.
Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
One of the best lyrical rappers
Never been a huge fan of him as a whole but a track here and there catches my ear, thanks for adding another to that pile :)
Phew, that's a tough request. I don't know if it really fits, but here's one I like that came to mind (lyrics are in the video description): The Wonder Years - Pyramids of Salt
There's a lot of Wonder Years songs I'd put on this list. Great band suggestion.
Haha, something that immediately came to mind for this prompt was another thing from Dan Campbell, specifically the last few tracks of the most recent album under his Aaron West project.
Most Bob Dylan songs, but particularly Tangled Up in Blue and A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. There's a lot to unpack in each.
I actually asked this thinking I want things as dense as Newsom or Dylan...so spot on :P
mewithoutYou - The Fox, the Crow and the Cookie - lyrics
It's a retelling of one of Aesop's fables. While it is quite simple from a narrative perspective, it's also beautifully written. Rich wording, clever turns of phrase, and a powerful conclusion.
(Worth noting: if you're listening to the song on YouTube, the official music video uses a different mix that puts the vocals lower and adds some distracting (IMO) instrumentation above them. If you're wanting to focus on the words I'd recommend the album version where they're a lot more clear.)
Glad you like it! The crow's boast is my favorite part of the song too! I think the vocalist does a great job of giving his voice the slightest tone of smugness to really sell it. Plus the way it's written is just sublime.
I don't really have a clue of what you tend to enjoy, so here are a few things from a handful of genres, ranging from folk (Slaughter Beach, Dog) to pop-punk-country (Aaron West & the Roaring Twenties) to twee-ish pop-punk (Los Campesinos!) to various flavours of punk ranging from folk-punk to queer pop-punk (Against Me! has changed genres a couple of times).
Against Me! — Searching For a Former Clarity
Against Me! — Walking Is Still Honest (warning, this one has a chorus)
Against Me! — The Politics of Starving
Against Me! — Scream It 'Til You're Coughing Up Blood
Against Me! — Paralytic States (warning, this one has a chorus)
Aaron West & the Roaring Twenties — Bloodied Up In a Bar Fight
Aaron West & the Roaring Twenties —God & the Billboards
Aaron West & the Roaring Twenties — Winter Coats
Aaron West & the Roaring Twenties — Routine Maintenance
Warning: all Aaron West tracks barring the last one have choruses.
Los Campesinos! — Hate for the Island
Los Campesinos! — To Tundra
Los Campesinos! — Every Defeat a Divorce (warning, has a chorus)
Slaughter Beach, Dog — 104 Degrees
Tool - Rosetta Stoned
Deathspell Omega - 'The Shrine of Mad Laughter' (lyrics)
Parquet Courts' "Total Football" is all about arts unionization and collectivism, told via an allegory of the eponymous, revolutionary Dutch football strategy. Further reading
Hmm, I can't speak to the complexity (at least, not until Saul Williams' appearance), but this track is certainly lyrically dense.
Recommend me a song that sounds like it's from homestuck, but isn't from homestuck
Recommend me a song (or an album) that is guaranteed to make me cry e.g. Hospice by The Antlers, For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver, Are We There by Sharon van Etten, Ma Fleur by The Cinematic Orchestra
Nick Cave may be considered cheating for this request, but his most recent album Skeleton Tree is particularly haunting given the circumstances of its recording.
For gut-punch songs:
-"I See A Darkness" by Will Oldham or Johnny Cash's superior version (cry for help)
-"Truce" by The Dresden Dolls (break-up song)
-"Still Fighting It" by Ben Folds (children growing up)
-"Plants and Rags" by PJ Harvey (it's just depressing)
Real Death by Mount Eerie (and the rest of the album) if that's really the challenge. I warn you though, the album is kinda...hostile to the very idea of exploring loss through art, and the reasoning it's so immensely painful isn't only that it's a vivid picture of a man directly encountering the death of his wife, but because there is no satisfaction to be found here, it's not the kind of thing you listen to when you're sad to squeeze out some of that emotion. I have no plans of listening to it again in my life.
Because that's a shitty answer for what I imagine you're looking for and you may well already know it, I'll throw in some others for some of that cathartic cry-bait. I usually go for more...muted dull sadness when I'm wallowing in that emotion, but here's some more direct ones:
Townes Van Zandt - Waiting Around to Die
Eyedea & Abilities - Burn Fetish
Harry Nilsson - 1941
Earl Sweatshirt - Faucet
Danny Brown - 30 (yes even with that intro...stick with it)
Has-Lo - In Case I Don't Make It
$UICIDEBOY$ - Antarctica
Wu-Tang Clan - I Can't Go To Sleep
One Hundred Years - The Cure
Bedhead - Liferaft
For albums I'll throw in I Would Set Myself on Fire For You - s/t and Lisa Germano - Geek the Girl (lots of TWs that come with the territory on everything I linked here but I'll put one specifically on this for really vivid imagery involving abuse and stalking)
Recommend me some epic tracks that go beyond what we normally think of as a song, in the 8+ minute range, in any genre. Longer is better, but short and wild is fine too. I'll link some examples so you can see what I mean. ;)
Since you changed your request from 10+ minutes to 8+ minutes, I guess I can provide this track without a qualifier.
Also, if you're looking for more long-form music , why not stuff in the art music (for lack of a better term) tradition? A bit o Messiaen, or some Reich. Of course there's Stravinsky and Debussy. Swinging a bit more modern, there's Michael Gordon (and the entire 'Bang on a Can' collective) and...I suppose I'll throw Sean McCann in there, as well.
Recommend me a song that has a wall of sound like Madeon.
be careful what you wish for
Heh that's why I added "like Madeon" :)
Julia Holter's cover of Hello Stranger, which is basically the song as-is with the tempo cut in half.