What do you play, when you get "Da Blues"?

[Worf101]

You don't have to call them the Blues, you can call it melancholy, ennui, down in the dumps, a case of the crab ass... whatever. But I know we all get that feeling sometiimes, and not always from specific events... sometimes we get weary and our musical choice reflects that. What do you play so that you can wallow in your misery or bring yourself out of your misery?

When I'm feeling blue I mostly go "old school" 60's slow jams....

1. Delfonics - Thom Bell at his best. "Didn't I blow your mind this time" and others.

2. Stlyistics - Thom Bell again. "People make the world go round." Make up to Break up".

3. Blue Magic - Not Philly but damn close "Sideshow" and too many others to mention.

4. Laura Nyro - Sigh, perfect songs for drankin' . "Gonna Take a Miracle"

5. Carol King - When I want some pop with my pathos. "It's too late baby."

6. Sade - When I truly want to torture myself.

7. Aretha - "Do Right Man". "Never loved a man the way that I loved you".

8. James Taylor - Pick any tune you want. "Swee Baby James" , "Carolina in my mind". Jesus... was this guy ever happy?

Da Worfster

[tentoze]

Ahh, the joys of living with monopolar depression: Taj Mahal, Damon & Naomi, Guy Clark, John Hiatt. And more.

[kexodusc]

I'll keep this limited to songs and not albums (though I'm usually an album guy, but for the most part you can just take the appropriate album the song's found on).
Hmmm...this answer might scare me:

1) Gov't Mule - Soulshine

2) B.B. King - Lots of stuff, he's one of the few "Blues" artists that can make you share his emotions...probably because back then they had more to be "blue" about? Wish I saw him in his prime!!!

3) Tori Amos - Spark, Cornflake Girl, a few others...sometimes you feel like she's listening to you...

4) Pearl Jam - some of their slower numbers are good for wallowin'

5) Pantera - Cemetery Gates, I feel like Phil Anselmo wraps his arm around my shoulders and gives me a big "It's okay" hug

6) Holst "The Planets" - for the days I wish I could just get up and leave the planet...

7) Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box & Lithium, I grew up during this era of music, I'd be lying if these didn't reach me at the time...still listen to them a bit.

8) Dream Theater - "Hell's Kitchen" the best track on their weakest album, and it's a an instrumental..include "Lines in the Sand" since they're really attached...but listen to "Hell's Kitchen" and tell me you don't feel something.

[nobody]

Great call on the Delfonics.

A few I pull out in such situations would be...

Tom Waits: Blue Valentine (crying in your beer kinda stuff)
Love & Rockets: Earth, Sun, Moon (atmospheric and uplifting)
John Lee Hooker: Real Folk Blues (down home blues)
ISAN: Lucky Cat (soothing synths)
Roberta Flack: First Take (that voice can make ya feel better)
Desmond Dekkar: Greatest Hits (uplifting songs of hope)
Skip James (old time blues master - I'll take him over Robert Johnson anyday)
Marvin Gaye: What's Goin On (more love for the soul music)
KLF: Chill Out (ambient relaxation music - brings you down slow and easy)
Galaxie 500: This Is Our Music (slow and hazy)

10's enough before I start getting depressed just thinking about all these...

Oh...and The Drugs Don't Work by the Verve off Urban Hymns is perfect for me.

[Worf101]

Great call on the Delfonics.

A few I pull out in such situations would be...

Tom Waits: Blue Valentine (crying in your beer kinda stuff)
Love & Rockets: Earth, Sun, Moon (atmospheric and uplifting)
John Lee Hooker: Real Folk Blues (down home blues)
ISAN: Lucky Cat (soothing synths)
Roberta Flack: First Take (that voice can make ya feel better)
Desmond Dekkar: Greatest Hits (uplifting songs of hope)
Skip James (old time blues master - I'll take him over Robert Johnson anyday)
Marvin Gaye: What's Goin On (more love for the soul music)
KLF: Chill Out (ambient relaxation music - brings you down slow and easy)
Galaxie 500: This Is Our Music (slow and hazy)

10's enough before I start getting depressed just thinking about all these...

Oh...and The Drugs Don't Work by the Verve off Urban Hymns is perfect for me.

Only band to have a Top Ten Ska song on the American charts "The Isrealites", that nobody understood a single friggin word of. It took me a long time to understand what this Pre-Reggae rasta chant was really about. Oh the time I had trying to explain this one to my Jewish friends....

"Errr no Schlomo, he's NOT singing about your brand of Isrealites. They're called Rasta's not Pasta's!! Sigh... fuggedabouit!"

[mad rhetorik]

Two words: Joy Division. Closer is just about the darkest album ever made. Strangely therapeutic, though, when you're feeling down (and that's about the only time I pull that album out--it would depress the hell outta me otherwise).

An abyss that lasted creation
A circus complete with all fools
Foundations that lasted the ages
Then ripped apart at their roots
Beyond all this good the terror
The grip of a mercenary hand
When savagery returns
for good reason
There's no turning back the last stand
Heart and soul, one will burn...

The rest of Joy Division's music has a similar icy, dark power to it. I still play Unknown Pleasures and Substance all the time.

The Wall is an ideal album for when I'm feeling lonely, disconnected, isolated. Nobody can tap into that sort of vein better than Roger Waters. For really dark, nihilistic music I put on Alice In Chains' Dirt or The Cure's Pornography. The title track of the latter is pretty scary.

Other albums I listen to when I'm in a dark mood are Neil Young's Tonight's The Night; Nirvana's In Utero ("Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" is just about as abrasive, shattered, and confessional as Kurt ever got); and Slint's Spiderland.

[MindGoneHaywire]

You hit it, Mad. Not that the choices you named are ones that I would, but the point about not listening to the blues when you're in a down mood. Don't know if it's because I am actually a fan of the blues & listen to plenty of it, but when I'm down it's kind of the last thing I'm really interested in hearing. Not even the Tom Waits stuff, and I like his blues stuff from the 70s probably as much as any other blues artist, up to & including Howlin' Wolf. Naw, I'm more inclined to reach for Joy Division, Psychedelic Furs, Echo & The Bunnymen, that sort of thing. Or even something I just listened to a lot when I was younger like the Violent Femmes or something.

Maybe jazz, but definitely more experimental-type stuff, such as Coltrane's Ascension, maybe some Ornette Coleman, some of Sonny Rollins' skronkier moments (like the 17-minute version of Now's The Time from 1964), Eric Dolphy, you get the picture.

I do have a Chess soul collection that might fit the bill as well, but I'd generally avoid anything that leans towards R&B. However, Motown & some of the poppier Atlantic & Stax R&B from the 60s & 70s is fine.

[Javier]

But for me if it is love lost it should be latin bolero music like los panchos, los tres diamantes ( guitar and vocal trios ), or the new trova like Alejandro Filio or Fernando delgadillo.
In obscure days yes, Pink Floyd suits the mood wit animals, wall or wish you were here and of course Roger Waters amused to death.

[Dusty Chalk]

Crowded House, "Straight Old Line"
Barry Adamson, "Cinematic Soul"
War, "Low Rider"
Bauhaus, "Bela Lugosi's Dead"