Nothing helps a blue mood like hearing from someone who knows just how you feel. From the sensitive singer-songwriters of the early '70s to the gloomy indie rockers of today, this is the perfect playlist when you're in the mood to mope.
The massive post-war folk revival in Britain emphasized 19th century work songs, including industrial labor songs and sea shanties. Here are the most important recordings of Britian's traditional music movement.
This playlist of mostly acoustic, guitar-based songs is perfect for long, relaxing nights in your bedroom. By yourself, or with someone special, listen to this until the sun rises.
The hardest partying, most indulgent '80s rock stars were at their best when they showed their sensitive side. These hit love songs feature the dramatic choruses, passionate vocals, wailing guitar solos, and epic drum fills that defined an era.
A new brand of country music emerged in the '70s that sought to bring raw honky tonk emotion and authenticity back to the genre, which had become increasingly pop-oriented. These are the outlaw country songs that mattered.
Classic sounding, sometimes sentimental, and a still a little drunk, these nocturnal rock ballads are the perfect nightcap to a long day of sex, drugs, and rock & roll.
At the end of the relationship, sometimes you just want to wallow. These classic lost-love ballads from the 1980s are the perfect soundtrack to a good cry.
The softer side of contemporary country music. Songs with themes of love, heartbreak, patriotism and nostalgia that evoke that comforting, down-home feeling.
Trumpeter and singer Chet Baker came out of the first flowering of the West Coast school of cool modern jazz in the early 1950s. This playlist explores that time and place, with a particular emphasis on languid ballads.
Starting in the late 1940s, a new, more cerebral and mellower response to bebop became one of the dominant strains in jazz. Enjoy the birth, maturation and continuation of cool jazz, with an emphasis on ballads.
Radiohead are always tinkering, restlessly, with their strange yet soulful fusion of rock and electronica. Listen to songs from cited influences and indebted followers while getting a taste of the band's current setlist.
Many of the solo artists that emerged in the 1970s became widely referred to as "singer-songwriters." These artists wrote and performed songs that were personal, sincere, introspective, and, most importantly, timeless.
Everyone with a soft spot for singer/songwriters knows their Troubadour History 101, filled with songsmiths from previous generations, but here's where you'll find the best of the current crop of artists committed to the crafting of thoughtful tunes.
From World War II through the early '60s, The Golden Age of Big Band Jazz brought us some of the greatest interpreters of song, arguably ever. This velvet sound was the stuff of legend.
Sink into the gently serrated sound of shoegaze, that amorphous strain of British indie pop of the late '80s and early '90s. All the original shoegazer hits are hit, from all the key figures in the scene that celebrated itself.
Moods:
Sad