This is a tough thread for me, am old dude who loves music but I don't recognize 3/4 of what others have posted. I'll have to check out some of it but it has been hard for me to find new bands I like. Songs Ohia is an example, but lots of them are too twangy, too folksy, or overuse auto tune.

Anyways, to the question:

• Cranberries - Zombie

• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Poor song

• Simon and Garfunkel - The sound of silence

• NIN - Hurt

• Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats

• Dolly Parton - Jolene

• Annie Lennox - Don't let it bring you down

Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely

Radiohead - Exit Music (For a Film)

Led Zeppelin - Rain Song

Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

Pearl Jam - Black (especially the MTV Unplugged version)

Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (MTV Unplugged)

This isn't every song I could put forth, but it's a good short list off the top of my head. They're breathtaking, emotional art when actively listened to with good headphones or speaker setup with volume up and no distractions. Even if you know these songs already, I encourage you to have a focused, active listening session. I think other than Rain Song which is probably like 7 or 8 minutes, all of these songs are only like 4 or 5 minutes long. We should all be able to take 5 minutes out of our day to enjoy some good art. If that 5 minutes is really precious, then I specifically recommend How to Disappear Completely because I interpret it to be about dissociating from anxieties and expectations and responsibilities for just a moment of peace, almost wishing for failure because what success you've found is contributing to the lack of time and peace that you so crave, and feeling guilty for that when you know that people would give anything to have what you have. That song didn't mean anything to me until I put it on in the shower (I love my waterproof Bluetooth speaker) after a rough stretch of work, and it slammed into me harder than any song ever has. It was the exact right time and place for me to be listening, and it allowed me to let go of much more than I even knew I was holding onto. It was like an emotional enema, flushing things out that I didn't even know were there. It wasn't fun, but it was what I needed, and it might be what somebody else reading through these is looking for... Have a good cry!

A bunch of Sia’s music really sparks something in my soul and gets me emotional.

I can't remember the last time I've had a good cry to some music but goosebumps come easier. Crying is hard haha. But here's some sad stuff that runs an equal risk of giving me goosebumps or ruining my mood for the day:

Lingua Ignota - All Bitches Die (album)

Uboa - The Origin of My Depression (album)

Joy Division - Closer (album)

The Antlers - Hospice (album)

Giles Corey - Giles Corey (album)

Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There (album)

Modest Mouse - Edit the Sad Parts (song)

The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Grave (album)

Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric co. (album)

Two Gallants - What the Toll Tells (album)

The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee (album)

Might come back an add more later!

Joe Hisaishi. It just hits different.

Certain anime opening and ending themes

Live musicians give me goosebumps more easily than my HiFi headphones

I don’t cry just when listening to music but when it appears in certain movie scenes it can happen. Like a few times in CODA (don’t click if you haven’t seen the movie) or when „What was I made for“ began in the Barbie movie.

Goosebumps:

• This Mortal Coil - Song to the Sirens
• Anne Clark & Murat Parlak - Be Drunk
• Samuel Barber - Adagio for strings
• Jean Sibelius - Violin Concerto in D minor - I. Allegro moderato
• Antonio Vivaldi - Four Seasons - Summer III. Presto
• and a few other classic songs

Also just in general

• Hania Rani
• Eva Cassidy
• Scala & Kolacny Brothers
• Dead Can Dance
• Rokia Traoré

He's hardly modern, having died nearly 30 years ago, but Kevin Gilbert's Song for a Dead Friend still brings tears to my eyes every time.

Heilung hits me really hard. It's become my annual "cleansing" seeing them live. It's transformative to me.

Green Bird by SEATBELTS/Gabriela Robin is a fantastic example of music that's a bit inherently moody but nearly everyone familiar with it has a strong emotional tie...

Julia...

I think your question is a difficult one - the common answers are likely to be tied to shared media moments as a multimedia experience creates a much stronger memory than sound alone.

Did the radio happen to be playing "Little Green Bag" as you pulled into the parking lot of the church for your father's funeral? Well then "Little Green Bag" might make you break out in tears. When my partner's mother was passing away she was listening to Dancing Queen on loop by request... my partner has difficulty listening to Abba now.

So we've got three ways (maybe) songs can get emotional - they can be inherently emotional, they can have a curated multimedia experience or they could have a personal multimedia experience. The last factor is absolutely where you'll find the strongest emotional ties - the middle factor inherently produces softer associations but ones that are more likely to be shared experiences (and dip into personal experiences... i.e. I was watching Cowboy Bebop when my girlfriend was growing more distant and I associate it really strongly with loneliness)... as for inherently moody music, I'd argue that's just a more vague form of a curated experience. We have cultural associations with instruments and chords and those "written to invoke X emotion" songs are playing into those associations.

Anyways, I did want to clarify that it's still super interesting to see other people's emotional associations. That dive wasn't meant to lessen the question or be dismissive in anyway - I just find the why extremely interesting.

Streetlight Manifesto gives me goosebumps, especially With Any Sort of Certainty and The Littlest Things.

If You Wanna Start Again by The Trews makes me cry, especially watching the video, because it brings back bad feelings from a horrible breakup I had back in December.

John Prine and Bonnie Raitt: Angel From Montgomery.

Sigur Ros.

Not the newest songs but Eric Bogle's "And the band played waltzing Matilda" and "No Man's Land" are very powerfully emotional songs. I also do enjoy Mike and the Mechanics "The living years" and some songs by the German singer/songwriter Reinhard Mey like "Viertel vor sieben" and "Zeugnistag" among others but all of them share that the lyrics are what matters.

The song that ends Call Me By Your Name, as Elio sits staring into the fire always tugs at my heart strings. It's "Visions of Gideon" by Sufjan Stevens. But "Leaves From The Vine" from Avatar: The Last Airbender always rips out my heart, hearing the anguish of a man who lost his only son to a war he regrets ever fighting in.

I don't have any musicians that consistently make me feel that way, so have a list of songs instead:

• The Price of a Mile (Sabaton)
• Doomed (I Prevail)
• Let Me Be Sad (I Prevail)
• Soon You'll Get Better (Taylor Swift ft. The Chicks)
• Wildest Dreams (Taylor Swift)
• Tess-Timony (Ice Nine Kills)
• When the Party's Over (Billie Eilish)

Steampowered Giraffe reminds me of a friend who died a couple years back because she really loved them.

Aurora.

• The River
• Everything Matters
• The Seed

As cheesy as it may seem, travelin soldier, by the chicks (when they were still the Dixie chicks) gets me every time.

Patience, sung by Chris Cornell. Makes me want to cry that I'll never hear anything new from this incredible singer even again.

Also, Johnny Cash's cover of NIN's Hurt.

Tool

Quite a few.. First that comes to mind is Skinshape - I didn't know. Also Tame Impala has a few, like Feels like we only go backwards

Not sure how far back we can go..

Portishead - SOS

For current songs in the past month.

Mareux - Roses

Twin Tribes - Cauldron of Thorns

Ween - Fluffy (live)

Citizen Soldier is a rock band that has a lot of songs about mental health issues. A lot of the songs have hit me hard and made me bawl because someone finally put how I've been feeling into words.

My favorite of theirs so far is Scarecrow and I highly recommend it.

Emmylou by First Aid Kit

I open this to mention Fred again, but you already did.

Elvis singing Unchained Melody close to the end of his life: https://youtu.be/61-RycNKdJk?si=F3qiMGhfhyCLSX_M

Since there are so many bands and music that made me cry, I'll share a recent one that made an impression and was the album of the year 2023 on me was Blue Rev by Alvvays. Give it a shot if you love indie rock

A song called “Paper Wings and Halo” by Lori McKenna always makes me teary-eyed. I hadn’t heard it for years - just played it. Still works.

Also, “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell. Apparently, songs about years and life passing by are what really choke me up.