Neutral Milk Hotel, "Song Against Sex"
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is a record that sort of became a shibboleth among indie dorks, the sort of thing you had to pledge allegience to in order to fit in among certain crowds. Or make fun of, to piss off those indie dorks. But mostly, people don't talk about the first Neutral Milk Hotel record, On Avery Island, which to my ears is pretty comparable. Sure, the second album is better, but I don't think it's so MUCH better to explain the different reputations.
Queens of the Stone Age, "I Never Came"
Lullibies to Paralyze stands out a bit from the QotSA catalog to my ears. It's sort of the mildest record, and it ends up being a bit unmemorable as a result. It's certainly a good record, but it just doesn't have enough of the crunch that I expect from them.
Sannhet, "Invisible Wounds"
Instrumental metal out of Brooklyn, this is from the first Sannhet album, Known Flood. Like a lot of instrumental metal, they move around among genres pretty freely, but tend towards post-rock and black metal themes more than anything else. It's a decent record, but I think their next two are a bit more adventurous an interesting.
Joy Division, "Insight"
I think Joy Division falls squarely in that zone where they kind of sound like a cliche these days, even though they're the ones who created a lot of these moves in the first place. And that's even to me, even though I've been listening to them for decades.
Andrew Bird, "Giant of Illinois"
This is from Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of..., an album where Bird plays nothing but covers of The Handsome Family. I'm not familiar with them, but Bird always sounds great, so this is a nice album, but probably for completists.