The Mountain Goats

I won't pretend to understand much about John Darnielle or his songs but I can say definitively that both are very good.

The Mountain Goats are led by lead singer John Darnielle who often plays solo on guitar and vocals. The vocals are a bit unorthodox in that he doesn't always "sing" per-se, sometimes it borders on spoken verse with music in the background. This seems to really bother some people; if this really bothers you then I suppose you're just going to have to miss out. Sorry.

Darinelle is obviously a pretty intelligent guy as evidenced by a few interviews with him I've read and the depth and cleverness of his lyrics (I'm sure if I knew enough about scales and what not I could tell you they were clever, too.). This in mind separates him from a lot of artists who maybe are good at writing songs but don't have a clear idea on what they believe underneath their lyrics (see popular music).

I haven't ever read much in terms of a biography about Mr. Darnielle but if you listen to any of his music it is pretty evident that he comes from complicated roots. This gives some of his music a bit of what many people I've offered his music to have called a "depressing" twist, but that is not quite right. Darnielle doesn't intentionally write a lot of upbeat and positive songs, but I think it is unfair to describe his music as depressing. Darnielle is simply writing songs as he sees things. I think this is an important distinction that people should consider before judging his music.

A lot of Darnielle's albums are concept albums, or at least the songs share a premise. Most albums also share a common thread in tune and beat as well. This makes it essential to actually listen the whole album, which is not something many of us are used to doing these days with the advent of the iTunes single/YouTube video. I've always advocated listening to music albums at a time, not that I always do- but it can be really cool to sit through a well put together album that lays out a story about a time or place that the author of the album experienced (this is why LP's are awesome).

I thought about reviewing all of The Mountain Goats albums that I have, but as I mentioned earlier they are mostly concept albums and I think it would be somewhat foolish to try to "rate" what Darinelle was trying to put to song. So I am going to somewhat arbitrarily recommend several songs from my favorite Mountain Goats albums.

Sunset Tree-
You or Your Memory
Broom People
This Year
Dilaudid
Dance Music
Dinu Lipatti's Bones
Up The Wolves
Lion's Teeth
Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod
Magpie
Song for Dennis Brown
Love Love Love
Pale Green Things

Get Lonely-
Wild Sage
New Monster Avenue
Half Dead
Get Lonely
Maybe Sprout Wings
Moon Over Goldsboro
In the Hidden Places
Song for Lonely Giants
Woke Up New
If You See Light
Cobra Tattoo
In Corolla

Heretic Pride-
Sax Rohmer#1
San Bernardino
Heretic Pride
Autoclave
New Zion
So Desperate
In the Craters on the Moon
Lovecraft in Brooklyn
Tianchi Lake
How to Embrace a Swamp Creature
Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident
Sept 15th 1983
Michael Myers Resplendent

I think you get the idea... listen to it album at a time and you will appreciate it much more!
However I suppose until you get an album this will have to tide you over.