I'll try to keep the suggestions obscure, illustrative, and brief. If you're looking for good, new music, you might like getting into some of these bands; others on the list might be total a dead-ends. But here's some songs by local and/or lesser known artists that I'll totally vouch for:
1. The Heirs - "What You Want" (2016, Electro-pop)
In 2016, my brother and I drove up to Boise, Idaho in his janky car just to complete our summer goal to go to Warped Tour (since we missed the Salt Lake City stop of the tour). While we were in line to get into the show, a poster for The Heirs caught my eye and I kinda liked the way it looked. "You know what? If there's literally no other band I want to see when they're on the stage, maybe I'll stop by." As you might have guessed, there was no other good bands playing during that random afternoon slot, so we stopped by to see them.
In short, they were not that good. They came across as one of those local bands who was just grateful to be given a shot to play at Warped Tour--which is probably because they were a local band who was just grateful to be given a shot to play at Warped Tour. After standing through a mostly-dull lineup, right at the end of their set The Heirs floored me with this electro-pop anthem. I won't speak too much to describing the sound of the song; I'll let you experience it yourself. But you can imagine how good this might have sounded in context. Not to mention, "What You Want" still only has 7,000 views on YouTube (half of them are probably me) and this song isn't even playable on Spotify. Talk about a hipster song to add to your repertoire.
2. Tarot Death Card - "Tell Me When It Hurts" (2017, Indietronica Trip Pop)
I actually have no idea how I found this song. But the story, I suppose, begins with the girl I had a crush on back in 7th grade named Chloe. She was a tall, gorgeous, red-headed 8th grader on the volleyball team and I was a weird band kid who sometimes wore a cape to school, sold gum balls to kids at lunch for a nickel, and filmed goofy videos with friends. Needless to say, it didn't work out. But! My then-crush went on to start Tarot Death Card--and now they've got about half a dozen songs on Spotify. I don't know if they're still progressing as a band or not, but I still think they're worth talking about just because of this song.
I'll admit, their trip pop style isn't really the kind of stuff I normally listen to, and when I was checking them out, I wasn't sure I really liked them--until I heard "Tell Me When It Hurts." Chloe's vocals finally pop to the front of the track (where they probably belong) and her vocal/lyric performance carries the song as a whole. Something about the slow, melodic vocals draws me in like a siren song--the vocal track on "Tell Me When It Hurts" is completely captivating and entrancing. It's got less than a thousand plays on Spotify, but I might single-handedly get it to that mark someday with how often it pops up on random on my playlists.
3. Ozma - "Restart" (2003, Indie Pop/Alt Rock)
Something about this song I absolutely adore. Startlingly, it starts by describing a fairly depressing situation of a man stuck in a cubicle all day who has an intrusive thought of throwing himself off the roof one day during work, but he decides the better of it. He then moves on from it and muses over life and love in a relatable but confounding manner. But the real reason I love this song so much is absolutely the melody. I can't really describe how, but it speaks to my soul. I love every bit of sound Ozma recorded on this track, with a particular soft spot for the organ part, background guitar, and chorus vocals. These guys really should have gotten so much bigger than they ever did.
4. Tally Hall Feat. Casey Shea - "Club Can't Handle Me (cover)" (2011, Indie Pop/Alt Rock)
Let's be real, Tally Hall had no business covering this song--which is what makes it so good. They're a tiny band I wish still existed who (optimistically speaking) made a living off recording goofy songs and filming a goofy internet show. On the other hand, Flo Rida was one of the hottest "artists" of my high school career (2008-2010) and the original "Club Can't Handle Me" was a chart-topping, million-dollar banger back in 2010. But, the original song is a steaming pile of shit, whereas Tally Hall's ironic cover featuring random tour buddy Casey Shea is every bit of fun the original song, by nature, could not have been. In the breakdown, they even talk about showing the recording to Flo Rida himself (I imagine this was fabricated, but who knows) and he totally hated their new cover. I suggest giving it a whirl, obviously.
5. Five Iron Frenzy - "Wizard Needs Food, Badly" (2003, Ska)
For any ska band that isn't The Aquabats, Streetlight Manifesto, Reel Big Fish, or Suburban Legends, there's a decent chance I discovered them by some sort of random autoplay feature online (YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, etc). Because I listen to a decent amount of music online, if that wasn't obvious. Now I don't recall which autoplay introduced me to this strangely hit and miss Christian ska band, Five Iron Frenzy, but I'm glad it did.
At that, "Wizard Needs Food, Badly" is one of their momentous hits. On more than one occasion I've had this tune stuck in my head all day and was disappointed to find it isn't even on Spotify. But besides the Gauntlet gimmick the song is based on and the muted horns that interestingly round out a great overall melody, the reason this song works, in my mind, is because of the lyrical theme. The song is basically about having girlfriend troubles on account of being a big nerd; he likes video games, TV, baseball, and motorcycles--and she's not having ant part of it ("You say 'tomato,' I say 'video games'"). It's hard to say who's at fault here since he seems to love his hobbies too much and she just hates everything he does, but I love the concept. I imagine that relationship didn't last too much longer, but I'm glad this song made it out alive. Oh, and if you like their ska sound, I highly recommend their cover of It's Not Unusual or one of their two originals Far, Far Away (which is very Christian) or Oh, Canada (which is very Canadian). As I said, they're really hit and miss. You're probably not gonna find a solid album by these guys, but they definitely hit gold with their sound here and there.
6. Limbeck - "Honk+Wave" (2003, Alt Rock)
Okay, I know nothing about this band. But I do know that whenever I listen to "Honk+Wave" it puts me in an introspective, reflective mood despite the generally upbeat sound. The song is about a guy, probably from California (you can tell he's not from Utah because he calls I-15 'the 15'), who gets his heart broken by a girl from Utah. The lyrics are essentially that guy thinking out loud, trying to figure out what he wants out of his old breakup--he's not ready to totally burn the bridge because they were so close and they were in love once. He doesn't necessarily want anything from her now, but it's been 4 years and he still isn't totally over her. His thought? "Hey, it'd be nice if ever we passed each other on I-15 that we could at least honk and wave at each other." I've thought about this myself in a different way--I'm not on excellent terms with all my ex's, but every single one of them I loved in some way in the past. At minimum, I'd hope if I saw them one day at the grocery store, we'd at least stop and talk to catch up and have it not be awkward, rather than pretend we didn't see each other (which I do to 80% of the people I went to high school with). Man, this song can get you thinking.
7. The Pietasters - "Can I Change My Mind" (1995, Ska)
For my last song, I was having a tough time deciding between "Can I Change My Mind" and another Pietasters hit, Out All Night, which is much more popular. In fact, despite The Pietasters being an incredibly underrated ska band, "Out All Night" has nearly 1.7 million plays on Spotify (about 7 times more than their next most played song), probably because it was a standout from the 2006 NCAA Football PS2 soundtrack. Honestly, "Can I Change My Mind" isn't the better song of the two, but I still enjoy it immensely and for an entirely different reasons than why I like "Out All Night."
Although "Can I Change My Mind" is great if you're looking for a song that you can identify with after leaving a girl who didn't even seem to care you were leaving (who hasn't done that, right?), the lyrics aren't what I find most appealing about this song (unlike most of the other songs on this list). Instead, I find the instrumentation to be more compelling than anything. I really love the beautiful organ intro, the chill/optimistic reggae backbeat, the short yet infectiously perfect piano riff, the horn solos... It might not be your jam if you have something against reggae or ska, but it definitely vibes with me.
Honorable Mentions
If you're looking for more suggestions that fit this same kind of musical niche:
-"Mixtapes" by The Nonce (Hip Hop, 1994)
-"Down by da Beach, Boieee!!" by Super Hero (Ska, 2016)
-"Waiting for the Sunset" by The Planet Smashers (Ska, 2014)
-"It's a Wonderful Life" by BOTAR (Classical/Acoustic + Ska, 2001)
-"Waterslide" by The Bonedaddys (Party Chill Rock, 2007)
-"Shoot out the Lights" by Mad Caddies (Reggae, 2014)
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