Does anxty/melancholy/sad music exist in the popular chart anymore?

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Betsy Og

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Now, I'm nae misery guts but there can be some great songs which are not pure bubblegum pop. I guess Radiohead were a classic example, I was never a huge fan tbh - Leonard Cohen - I know v little about, but a good example is "The Next Life" by Suede, slow and haunting, not necessarily melancholy but definitely would never get aired on mainstream media. Hurt - esp the Johnny Cash version did get a good airing, but even that is not today nor yesterday. If someone says Hallelujah I'll put my foot through the laptop.

I wouldn't be a muso by any stretch of the imagination, and at the risk of requiring my pipe and slippers and a curmudgeonly expression - there's nowt on the radio at the moment only tat (upbeat tat mostly). Bands like the Script or Picture This, even when having a 'quieter moment', I can't really relate (yes yes, I know I'm not their demographic, but it doesn't seem to have any depth), it's all very schmaltzy....
 
The National maybe? They just played two nights in Donnybrook stadium but I suppose they are not ripping up the charts.
 
odyssey06 said:
The National maybe? They just played two nights in Donnybrook stadium but I suppose they are not ripping up the charts.
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I like the National but they are no spring chickens.
Some of Pinks stuff can be very soleful and quite melancholy. I have to admit that despite my preconceptions she is a superb song writer and has a fantastic voice.
 
Thinking about who I've seen on Jools Holland recently... Rag & Bone Man. Gregory Porter.
 
Damien Rice? He doesn't produce a whole lot but what he does is generally very good imho. Fleet Foxes and Sufjan Stevens are others you might like to check out - more melodic maybe than melancholy but certainly not schmaltzy! You could check out Jools Holland of a night for what's new (although his latest season just finished).
 
Jazz01 said:
Florence and the machine perhaps?
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yeah I did think of the current hit "We all have a hunger", I really like it, but bar 1 or two lyrics its still a fairly 'bouncy' affair (they're the best types of affairs....I'd imagine) :eek::D

Really like the Killers too, Keane would be I suppose along the lines of what I'm thinking - is there a current version of them on the go??... does anyone under 25 know that type of stuff??, doesnt appear to be any contemporary versions.
 
Good man Dub Nerd, the 1975 was good for the skinny microphone and to know what I was looking out for in the classical one. Queen's "Who wants to live forever" - a bit on the romantic side of melancholy but a pyar daycent track all the same kid !!
 
BetsyOg - have you a spotify (or equivalent music streaming app)? Put in a few of the albums you like, in there, then additional suggestions of playlists pop up ... some of those suggestions are wide of the mark, but some might take you down a music path that you can kick back & do your thing...
 
In the unfortunate event of feeling too cheery I generally turn to country music.
Dwight Yoakam & Levon Helm with tales of murder , unrequited love , orphaned blind children , drowned mothers & mining disasters are particular favorites.
But for murder ballads Nick Cave is the master - Stagger Lee must be the grimmest ever with the filthiest lyrics .
 
Came across a playlist on Spotify called Melancholy - its so so - but it did have "Little Lady", Mikill Pane, doing a reworking of A Team by Ed Sheeran (a genuinely good Sheeran song), fierce grim lyric but it does work well. Worth a listen.
 
Am an Eminem fan, but I dont think he's done anything of note (pardon the pun) in years.

One conclusion from the last few days listening on Spotify is that piano is THE instrument of melancholia - which has a great resonance with my childhood where I got to Grade 3 but absolutely loathed piano (childhood was otherwise idyllic:)). Which is why I did not subject my kids to odd Italian terms and music so remote and uninteresting as to make it a total chore. They do learn other instruments and not in a grade setting.

For my part I have, after extensive therapy... gone back to piano in the form of a supermarket Yamaha keyboard (a bit short on the bass side:() and learned the aforementioned The Next Life over the course of this last week (its fairly easy). This was armed only with EGBDF & FACE from my former toil (and working out the notes below the standard lines from the keyboard manual, including the entire bass 'clef' (?) from that same manual). I will in due course sing along woefully (in terms of pitch as opposed to emotionally) with the tune, except probably for the dog howling bit towards the end (which is one of those annoying 'is that even being sung' bits where it seems to start out as voice but then seems to branch into keyboard - or maybe voice synth if that's even a thing - Enya used to be a terror for it).
 
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