In talking with a friend of mine on WOW, we got into a bunch of different songs and artists, and I started firing off recommendations.  Here are a few tracks that I really, REALLY love, with YouTube links:

Alice In Chains - Don't Follow - this is tied with "Down In A Hole" for my favorite AIC track.  It's beautiful, melancholy, and Layne Staley's vocals here are as raw and powerful as they ever got.  This song holds a special place for me because it was the last song I heard on my local rock/metal radio station in 1994 as I was driving south through Indiana to move to North Carolina...made me cry then, and usually still does.

Pearl Jam - Oceans -  This is, in my opinion, probably THE most underrated track PJ ever cut.  Absolutely beautiful and huge and full and open and...If you know what I look like, imaging me, standing on the sand cliffs on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, watching a storm come in over the lake as the wind blows my hair back and for just a moment I remember what it was to feel like a god.  Sheer beauty.

Pearl Jam - Masters of War -  As with so many of Bob Dylan's songs, it takes another artist to really define it.  Here, we have PJ not just covering one of Dylan's most ascerbic and biting anti-war commentaries, but taking it and making it their own, permanently, forever.  Any other artist who ever covers this song will have to measure up to this...and one of the guitars being juuuust slightly out of tune only adds to it.  This is what music is about, kids - it grabs you by the neck and inexorably chokes the ignorance out of you with the unrelenting force of an oncoming nuke.

Pearl Jam - Love, Reign O'er Me - This band was made to cover this song.  Vedder's vocals make even the great Roger Daltrey look pale by comparison, and the whole thing is just so full of energy and light...again, pure beauty in sonic format.  Eddie gets kind of undersold on his vocal range, due to being part of the same scene that brought us the unparalleled incredibleness that is Chris Cornell, but he's all over it here.

Soundgarden - Like Suicide (Acoustic Version) - The electric version of this track is a piece of music that any lesser band would give their careers to write.  The acoustic will break your heart.  This particular vid is labeled as 'High Quality Audio,' but for some reason it's a bit faster and about a half-step higher than the CD I have it on.  *shrug*.  Still gorgeous...and with incredible personal significance to me as well.

Chris Cornell - Seasons - Another track that I relate very closely to, and have since I first heard it.  It's funny, you know...if you're just some bonehead on the internet running his mouth about these feelings and ups and downs and moods and darkness, you're a freak.  But if you can listen to this song and not feel it, either you're way too young or you just plain can't feel.  There's not a word in this song that I don't feel at some point during every day of my life.  "And the naked floor is cold as hell...the naked floor reminds me."  Pure beauty.  If everyone on the planet were capable of even a fraction of this kind of passion and depth of emotion, we'd all be a lot better off.

Pink Floyd - Mother - One of the all-time angst classics.  I still owe Katie Tharrington a cover of this...and those of you who know me REALLY well know how closely this one hits.

Pink Floyd - Nobody Home - Maybe it helps, to be half-nuts, to really appreciate this song.  This and the previous track are, of course, from the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's "The Wall," which to this day I can no longer listen to completely...it just reminds me way too much of my own life, and I'm afraid repeated listenings would have me moving in to Syd Barrett's old room in short order.  "I've got wild, staring eyes...and I got a strong urge to fly...but I got nowhere to fly to..."  Yeah.  I suspect that if I'd ever gone far enough over the edge of sanity to take my own life, this is the song that would have been playing when I pulled the trigger.  Thank God it never came to that.

And here's one I got turned on to by my friend:

Susan Enan - Bring On The Wonder -  I haven't really listened to this enough yet to get the whole of it, but it's unquestionably beautiful and moving, and like all of these songs, deeply melancholy.Highly recommended; I'll be looking more closely at this artist to see if the rest of her work is this good.  Musically uncomplicated, but a really gorgeous mood/vibe that will touch your soul.

These are not happy upbeat pop songs, but they are great music that touches and moves, the way great music should.  There is more reality and depth in these nine songs than in the entire careers of Britany Spears, Miley Cyrus, and all eight seasons of American Idle (sic) combined.

Enjoy...in moderation.