What album do you listen to when you're sad?

[dizzyorange]

^

 

[cotdt]

Aqua - Be Happy!

 

[NightEcho]

If you want to get sad, stay sad or get sadder, then go for Damien Rice - O

 

[JazzDB]

Nick Drake-5 Leaves Left

 

[Lou Erickson]

I put Weird Al on shuffle and let it go until it amuses me again. If I had to pick a single album, probably "Off The Deep End".

 

[trains are bad]

Turn on the Bright Lights.

If I don't commit suicide, I conclude I wasn't really that sad after all.

 

[robm321]

Beck - Sea Change.

Also,

The Decemberists - Crane Wife

[size=xx-small]Nice big picture for ya

[/size]

 

[Thelonious Monk]

Alice In Chains

Alice In Chains

makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

 

[goldenratiophi]

I don't think any (non-comedy) album can cheer me up more than

Green Day - Dookie

Unless I don't feel like being cheered up, and then I listen to Turn On The Bright Lights.

 

[Kilane]

I will second Sea Change

Also Jose Gonzalez - Veneer

 

[dizzyorange]

My pick is Bright Eyes - Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground.

 

[catachresis]

Albums that are genuinely life-affirming are few and far between. Any bedsit misanthrope can cough-up fifteen third-rate paeans to miserabilism (also called 'abject despair' flavored with low-expectations and self-recrimination). Not everybody can be Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake or Vic Chesnutt on a bad day, but there are lots of convincingly moribund bands out there that are close enough to pass.

There are also a number of notably stupid but happy albums that should not be dismissed out of hand.

But best of all are the albums that mix solid affirmation with the wisdom that comes from wrestling the dark angel and (temporarily) kicking his sorry ass. F_ck cynicism.

Some utterly believable pyrrhic victories:

The Kinks - Are the Village Green Preservation Society
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Jimi Hendrix - Axis Bold as Love
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
Husker Du - Warehouse: Songs and Stories

 

[sonick]

Any Elliott Smith

 

[blinx]

both of the Portishead albums.

and the smiths

 

[JSTpt1022]

If I'm sad:

Radiohead - Kid A, OK Computer, Amnesiac

Damien Rice's "O" was also a good suggestion. If I'm angry I always reach for selected Bush tracks. It's sort of a tradition.