bands that are depressing but you couldn't do without.

My Bloody Valentine
Slowdive
Gary Numan

i second or third or whatever Joy Division
Her Space Holiday
Jeff Buclkley
and old love songs.
Try listening to Old love songs, like stuff by Eddie Arnold, or Hank Snow, when your depressed. It's wonderfully miserable.

Velvet Underground
Belle and Sebastian
Low
Dead Can Dance
For Stars

shellac-they sing about everything that is depressing... this trio has the musical great steve albini. They are such great musical talent. I recomend for everyone to check them out.

slowdive
sigur ros
jeremy enigks solo
the album leaf

Joy Division, Dead Can Dance, Slowdive/Mojave 3,LUNA, AMC-Mark Eitzel,Nick Cave + bad seeds, GVSB, Medicine......

Why is it that the saddest songs are sometimes the most beautiful?
My definitive list, for today at least:

Joy Division "Unknown Pleasures" and "Closer"
American Music Club/ Mark Eitzel. Music for getting drunk and tearful to
Henryk Gorecki: "Symphony No3" ("A symphony of sorrowful songs". Does it to me every time...
Sparklehorse "It's a wonderful life"
New Order "Regret"
Low "Things we lost in the Fire", "Songs for a Dead Pilot"
Samuel Barber "Addagio for Strings"
Manic Street Preachers "The Holy Bible". this is a bit too much sometimes, which is most of the time.
Galaxie 500
Tindersticks

Forgot to add:
Godspeed...for when I want to believe that the world is actually as big a mess as I think it is,
Arab Strap
Beth Orton, for feeling sad sometimes and feeling okay about it.

shellac is too cynical to be depressing..
my favourites have already been mentioned : low, joy division...maybe faith-era cure..

slint are so good its scary, i can't believe i forgot them as well.
oh and spirtulized "ladies and gentleman were floating in space" and "broken heart" are great deppressing songs.
and are the smiths really that depressing.. maybe i guess. sometimes they can make me feel really good. i geuss they are a perfect combination of that happy/sad music

The Swans "you know everything" is probably the most haunting, sad song I have ever heard.

For me, its James, born of frustration and say something wrench my heart every time

Cherry - You find the Weddoes (i.e. The Wedding Present) depressing? Huh. I find them fun...if we're talkin', like, "Kennedy", "Silver Shorts", "Three" the cover of "Pleasant Valley Sunday"...I realize I'm sticking mostly to Hit Parade Volume 1 here, I can also think of stuff like "You Should Always Keep in Touch with Your Friends", but still...to me, Gedge = romantic + fun.

I like The Verve's Urban Hymns and A Northern Soul a lot...but I don't listen to them a lot, cuz they're kinda bum-out time...

The Cure's Pornography is pretty infamous as the bleakest album, but I would guess in the 1990s and this decade (however you'd numerically abbreviate it) there's tons of bands pushing the depress-the-hell-outta-you enevlope that I haven't heard. Pornography is great, though...and yeah, when I first bought it, I was like 18 and the clerk asked me if I was old enough to buy "pornography", har har...

NICK DRAKE

also
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass (I guess this one is especially depressing since I never heard it until after he died)
and some of Loreena Mckennit's stuff can get depressing at times.

[Edited on Jan 20, 2003 by lecorbeaufou]

Black Tape for a Blue Girl

Damien Jurado
Tear Garden
Godspeedyoublackemperor gives a depressed sound I guess
and definitely Hayden. Just listen to "September", "Skates", or "When This IS Over" (the last being a heart breaking song he wrote for the children whose mother seat belted them into the backseat and drove the car into the water and drown them).
Cheers.

Crowbar, Black Heart Procession, Johnny Cash, Shining, and EyeHateGod (EHG isn't really depressive but messes up my head pretty good)

bright eyes...and bright eyes...so depressing but i can't not listen to them...

i'd have to say (among others already listed here) cocteau twins, because liz's voice makes me want to die (which is both good and bad).

I like a lot of these bands but I'm not gonna relist them all. However I do find murder city devils depressing and no one has mentioned them. so I say murder city devils.

The Cure of course. And Lacuna Coil because Miss Scabbia's voice is so beautiful.......