If you want a part-time lover, listen to Stevie Wonder. If you want a private dancer, groove to Tina Turner. If you want "music without a whole lot of stylistic baggage," you better check out Autechre. As mischievous lads in Manchester, England, Sean Booth and Rob Brown bonded over a cheap synthe

Dark, Hi-tech, Intense, Machinistic, Melancholy

A kind of charming darkness oozes between Morrissey and Johnny Marr of the Smiths. The combination of Morrissey's syrupy, melancholy voice and Marr's jangling, meticulously layered guitar breeds an infectious moodiness. Breaking away from the bawdy new-wave synth pop that characterized the early 1980

Brit-pop, Dark, Ethereal, Melancholy, Post-punk, Quirky, Sincere

Radiohead's musical gestures are grand, even spacious, but they are neither airy nor light. Indeed, the space of this music is dense. Beneath the stupendous angst of their songs Radiohead creates a minute, complex texture, a flexible network of distortions and modulations. The band's angst turns in o

Brit-pop, Epic, Grand, Lush, Melancholy, Moody, Pathos, Progressive rock, Smarty arty pop, Voluminous

Like the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Henryck Górecki 's music seems cerebral almost to the point of insularity. Stevens wrote: "Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves." Of course, no art exists in a vacuum, carrying as it does an inherent quality of communication. Yet, there are those artist

20th-century music, Contemplative, Dreamy, Ethereal, Melancholy, Mythic, Pathos, Religious