A gloriously melancholy playlist to kick off 2014 compiled with suggestions from the DiS community.

For a lot of people January is a time filled with promise. A fresh start. A clean slate. So many things that weren't conceivably possible a few weeks ago suddenly become attainable goals. This promise of self-improvement puts such pep in a certain sort of person's step, that you'd think Grandma's port was still cruising through their veins. However, a crash is gonna come and even the most well-intentioned, kale-slurping, dumb-grin sporting do-gooder knows that a lot of this is mere self-delusion. It'll end in tears, but for a week or two these people, drunk on their avocado smoothies, spurs kicking at the side their high horses will say "neigh" to frowns, and they will repeatedly tell the likes of you and me to have a "happy" new year.

It's not so much the hollow gesture, it's the way this automated new year greeting has become some sort of demand that really gets my goat. A gun to the head won't suddenly turn my frown upside-down. In fact, it's likely to have quite the opposite effect - nothing in this world irks more than being told to "cheer up... it might never happen". And after thirty years on this planet, I still have no idea what the "it" is that might "never happen" (I have a theory it's probably the same "it" that everyone's chasing on Ex-Factory Worker and Lemonkurdashians).

To fly in the face of these donut-dodging, joy-stuffed, 30-day detoxers, DiS decided to spend so-called 'Blue Monday' canvassing our community for their favourite "wonderfully miserable" songs. You know, the sort of tunes that touch you there, deep down, approximately where your hopes and dreams used to reside. Songs that remind you that you're alive, and that death's cold shadow could lurch your way at any moment, so perhaps you should do something with your surprisingly short time on this planet.

Don't worry, this isn't meant to be some life-changing mixtape, I mean, it's got Spiritualized's 'Broken Heart' which could turn even the world's most chipper chap into a suicide risk. We're not sure what it (this playlist) is or why it is or what it might do for you, but if one DiS reader ends up discovering Tindersticks or Red House Painters then how can "it" be wrong?

Spotify Playlist

Tracklisting

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – The Road
Sparklehorse – It's A Wonderful Life
Cat Power – Say
Elliott Smith – Ballad Of Big Nothing
Joy Division – Twenty Four Hours
Manic Street Preachers – The Intense Humming Of Evil
The Cure – The Same Deep Water As You
Low – Sunshine
Antlers – Kettering
Spiritualized – Broken Heart
Big Star – Holocaust
Blur – Sweet Song
Red House Painters – 24
Tindersticks – Dying Slowly
Leonard Cohen – Famous Blue Raincoat
Azure Ray – November
Grandaddy – Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)
Beck – Lonesome Tears
The Magnetic Fields – I Didn't Believe In The Sun
Chelsea Wolfe – The Waves Have Come
Swans – Failure
My Bloody Valentine – No More Sorry
The Smiths – Asleep
The National – England
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow
Townes Van Zandt – Waiting Around to Die
Ben Watt & Robert Wyatt – Walter And John
Nico – Janitor Of Lunacy
Antony & The Johnsons – Hope There's Someone
Beth Gibbons – Show
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band – Breezy
Keaton Henson – You Don't Know How Lucky You Are
Suede – The Asphalt World
Lou Reed – The Kids
Johnny Cash – Hurt
John Grant – Ernest Borgnine
Team Sleep – Our Ride To The Rectory
Glasvegas – Flowers & Football Tops
Everything Everything – The Peaks
Jesus And Mary Chain – Nine Million Rainy Days
Okkervil River – Missing Children
George Jones – He Stopped Loving Her Today
Frightened Rabbit – Acts Of Man
Nadine Shah – Runaway
Wilco – How To Fight Loneliness
Randy Newman – Real Emotional Girl
William Fitzsimmons – I Don't Love You Anymore
Au Revoir Simone – Stay Golden
Arab Strap – Glue
Angel Olsen – Lonely Universe
Laura Nyro – New York Tendaberry
Nirvana – I Hate Myself And Want To Die

We've also exported this playlist to RDIO.

Find out who picked which track over on our Music Forum or in this Facebook thread.