Free Music: 100 Essential Noise Pop Songs

Noise pop is used to describe that genre of songs that find the perfect balance between messiness and ear candy, “a certain yin and yang of melody and dissonance.”

The creators of Noise Pop Festival and the Noise Pop Podcast have picked the 100 songs that best represent the genre, and they’re letting you listen to them, for free.   They say,

We conceived of this list chronologically, and it contains songs that we feel best represent the “noise pop” sound. We dug deep to the roots and started with the earliest examples of the ’70s and early-’80s bands who expertly mix melody with dissonance, like The Velvet Underground andBig Star. Moving quickly to the ’80s and early ’90s, we find the real progenitors of the scene, with bands like Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine. We then take a step forward and explore how modern artists have kept the noise-pop torch burning and redefined the genre for themselves — No Age, Cloud Nothings and The Men, among others.

See the full list and check out the stream at NPR.org.

The Mix: 100 Essential Noise Pop Songs