#i'm partial to the indie rock space but i genuinely listen to a bit of everything

[sidewalk-scrawls]

Hello, please may you recommend five of your favourite albums to me, as I am still recovering from my dark era of "just outsource it, get someone else to pick the music" of the last thirty yrs and I wish to learn :)

I haven't been as active about seeking out music these days, but I really want to start doing it again! I used to be *very* good at it, so if you'd like tips, happy to share!!!

In terms of my five favorite albums... These are a little arbitrary because I have too many, but I decided to focus on albums that I consider to be really strong from beginning to end. So, in no particular order:

Draw Down the Moon by Foxing: Foxing is Midwest emo-adjacent, so this one speaks to my nostalgia a bit. It's a gorgeous album in the post-rock vein, so it's got a lot of really lovely texture. Also features the culmination of nearly 10 year long recurring albatross imagery which absolutely demolished me the first time I heard it.

The Million Masks of God by Manchester Orchestra: Manchester Orchestra has been around for like 20 years now, and it's been really fun to watch their music change over time. As a post rock lover, this is my favorite album by them (the album is not really post rock, but listen, it's post rock adjacent.)

Historian by Lucy Dacus: A beautiful album with some real gut punches of songs. Lucy Dacus is frequently associated with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker (they all make up the band boygenius), but tbh I don't find her style all that similar to theirs -- She has a much more energetic approach to melody as well as instrumentation in general, and lyrically, she's a lot more hopeful.

Crushing by Julia Jacklin: Severely underrated imo! Singer/songwriter with some indie pop and folk influences. If you like Historian, you'll probably like this album, too.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks by Frightened Rabbit: A weirdly hopeful album about overcoming depression that rewired my brain in college. I find this one kind of hard to listen to these days (the leader singer killed himself back in 2018, god it's been 6 years--), but it's gotten easier. It's a good fucking album!

Bonus: Because Some Things Cannot Happen Enough by Tomasz Bednarczyk. I intentionally left instrumental albums out of the above list because they take up a very different space in my brain but like... holy shit it's such a good instrumental album. The textures.... Pop on a good pair of headphones for this one if you can.