Music is always the canary in the coal mine for my mental health. The worse that my mental health is, the less music I listen to. Which is why I can tell things are looking up rn because I want to listen to music and listening to music makes me happy!
As part of my "journey" back into loving music, I ditched Apple Music because it was fucking horrible for discovery (Their playlist editors have a lot of love for music and a lot of technical knowledge, but they have no whimsy.) and signed up for Deezer. It's been less than a week as of writing this (02/11/26) and I love it. It's purple and funky and it has daily mixes that I actually want to listen to! If you want to see my playlists and maybe listen to them they're in the sidebar under the Deezer link.
COSMIC OPERA ACT I by Labrinth
I listened to this one because the album cover goes hard and, spoiler alter, the album goes just as hard as the cover. It's a brilliant mash-up of classic genres and modern ones and I definitely have to listen to it again because I spent most of my time listening to it the first time going HUH???
Hot Singles in Your Area by Scene Queen
No thoughts I love ladies who scream.
Everybody Scream by Florence + the Machine
I have loved every album by Queen Flo to varying degrees and this one is just the latest. Sympathy Magic lives rent free in my mind and will forever.
Strange Trails by Lord Huron
This is the second in Lord Huron's trilogy of weird west cowboy albums and my favorite of the three.
Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 OST by Laurien Testard
OK OK OK I haven't finished the game yet. I haven't touched it since December because I cried so hard that I couldn't see the screen of my SteamDeck and decided that maybe it was time for a break. The soundtrack does something similar to me.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The music is by Hans Zimmer and the entire singing cast are Broadway vets. Also? Tom Hulce has the nicest voice I have ever heard and I could listen to him for the rest of my life.
MANIA by Fall Out Boy
Controversial, I know. HOWEVER this album has gotten me through so fucking much. Like almost bottom of the barrel depression and MANIA was there for me.
Hozier by Hozier
This album effected me in ways that I cannot explain.
Mother. Fucking. Apashe. This bitch. This mother fucker. I love him. His music? The marriage of nasty base dubstep that you loved in the mid 2010s and classical music. But in the best way possible. His album covers? Hard as fuck? His music videos? Harder than fuck. The man is like "I fucking hate Disney!" "Watch out for cults because when the government comes for you, the cult leader will ditch you and leave you to mop up the pieces!" "Don't let greed rob the earth of all its resources so we have to eat each other in ten years." etc etc. Also one time he robbed a russian bank with a bear. Please listen to at least one of his songs. I'd recommend Lacrimosa to start.