Listen to: The Decemberist's newest album, Picaresque. Its story-songs are stunningly beautiful (Of Angels and Angles, The Engine Driver, and We Both Go Down Together are especially good. Breathtaking, actually.), not as cloying as I've found them in the past, with lyrics that will make your heart ache with recognition. Music this good is not made every day--if you want something that really lives up to the fuss made about it BUY THIS ALBUM! (It's the kind of album that when you first hear it--in the car at night, with the darkness smelling of orange blossoms through the open windows--you immediately start trying to sing along with it and impress the lyrics in your memory, so that you can have something that beautiful with you all the time.)