There are some songs that are meant to be listened to in the car with your windows rolled down and your best friend belting away in the back seat. There are songs that are meant to be background noise while you’re studying. Then there are songs that you need to listen to at full volume (well as loud as you can without hurting your ears) with earbuds so that the music is the only thing that you can hear. This is a list of some of those songs!
“I’m Not Yours” by Angus & Julia Stone
This song is sweet, sad, and just a little bit confident. It’s positively haunting. The singer’s voice is just a gentle whisper in your ear, and the piano is an ocean wave carrying you to a new shoreline.
“Retrograde” by James Blake
For this song, I recommend going one step further by closing your eyes. The humming melody in the background is nostalgic, like a memory of a feeling. You can remember the feeling intensely, but not what caused you to feel that way anymore. The build up from the beginning with just the hum to the climax of the song will give you goosebumps, and you’ll find yourself humming it all day long.
“Like Real People Do” by Hozier
This song will make you happy. It’s simple and saccharine. The singer mostly speak-sings the entire song. With this song being the only sound that you can hear, you can imagine that Hozier is talking directly to you.
“The Funeral” by Band of Horses
This song is used in so many TV shows and movies. It’s one of those songs that you’ll swear you’ve heard before, but you just can’t place it. A couple of shows and movies that this song appears in are Criminal Minds, 90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, How I Met Your Mother, The Night Shift, Love and Honor, and Battleship.
“Broadripple is Burning” by Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s
This song makes you feel like you’re standing in the ocean and just letting wave after wave crash into you. You sway back and forth and back and forth and just exist. I have listened to this song dozens of times, I still cannot tell you what it’s about. It’s the type of song you just lose yourself in.
“The Grand Optimist” by City and Colour
The guitar in this song feels like a pair of well-worn sneakers: comfortable, familiar, and old. What is particularly great about listening to a song at a volume that makes it the only sound you can hear is that you can appreciate each individual layer that makes up the song. Pick out the guitar during one listen, then pay more attention to the percussion the next time, and then the voice then next listen. Each time through, you can notice something different!
“Cigarette Daydreams” by Cage The Elephant
This song sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom because the acoustics are just amazing. I recommend that after you’ve listened to it enough times you sing this in your bathroom and just feel the sound. When you sing in a bathroom, the sound is becomes something that you can almost touch and taste. It’s also not a vocally challenging song, so anyone can sing it!
“Way Down We Go” (Live in a Volcano) by Kaleo
This specific version highlights the vocalist perfectly. Literally any Kaleo song should be listened to at full volume with earbuds because of the singer’s voice. It’s beautifully chilling which is ironic because they are singing inside a volcano in this piece. I feel like if you could be inside that volcano with them as they performed this piece, you’d be shivering because I’m in my dorm room with no air conditioning listening to this and shivering.
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