That Can Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open

Have you seen the new Liberty Mutual ad where everyone is being nice to each other and it's kind of a pay-it-forward type thing and it has the beautiful, haunting music in the background? Yeah, you've seen it. Even if it's not ringing a bell, I'm sure you've seen it. I'm sure I could find a link to the ad and post it here, but I'm lazy about linking stuff.

I recently got sorta obsessed with this ad. I saw it for the first time at work last week when some of my coworkers and I were watching the big screen TV and killing time while we were waiting to actually have some tables and something to do (I'll sometimes spend a whole hour at the restaurant just killing time, which is a big pet peeve of mine, but whatever. The restaurant is always either really dead or really busy, there's no in-between. But that's every restaurant in the world, isn't it?) Anyway, my friend was like, "I love this ad!" and we turned the sound up and watched it, and the song stayed with me for days. I kept wanting to find the song and download it, but I kept remembering it at weird times, like in the car or in class, so I didn't actually get around to it until just now when I saw the ad while I was actually here at the house sitting at my computer.

The song is by a group called Hem, and I loved it initially just for the tune and the singer's voice, but then I found the lyrics, and now I'm more in love than ever:
I am holding half an acre
torn from the map of Michigan
and folded in this scrap of paper
is a land I grew in

Think of every town you've lived in
every room you lay your head
and what is it that you remember?

Do you carry every sadness with you
every hour your heart was broken
every night the fear and darkness
lay down with you

A man is walking on the highway
A woman stares out at the sea
and light is only now just breaking

So we carry every sadness with us
every hour our hearts were broken
every night the fear and darkness
lay down with us

But I am holding half an acre
torn from the map of Michigan
I am carrying this scrap of paper
that can crack the darkest sky wide open
every burden taken from me
every night my heart unfolding
my home

We can't escape the heartbreak or the fear or the darkness. That's always there and it's not going to go away. But home makes it okay. If you're lucky, the same past that hurt you is the very thing that can save you and make you happy. That's what I took from the song, anyway.

In the sake of full disclosure, I will say that after I downloaded this song I listened to it about six times in a row until eventually I made myself cry. But it's been one of those rough emotional weeks and I needed that release. And it was crying in a good way, not a bad way. It's kind of like the time I got obsessed with Finley Quaye, or "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star, or "Landed" by Ben Folds or any number of highly melodic and vaguely melancholy songs. My latest kick prior to this one was when I discovered Carrie Rodriguez a couple of weeks ago and bought an entire album based off one song, which is something I haven't done since I was about eighteen. The album is Seven Angels on a Bicycle and I bought it based off the title track and then realized afterwards that I already knew about half the album because the public radio station here plays a lot of her stuff. I like it a lot. My mp3 player insists that it's "country" and I suppose it is, but it's a very mellow album and overall has more of a blue grass feel, if anything. And I bet that's something you never knew about me: I am not a fan of country music, especially country ballads. It's very rare that I like a country song enough to actually want to listen to it over and over again, and the only country songs I do like are more dancing, get-wild songs than anything else. But deep down inside I sort of love bluegrass. The more banjo, fiddle, and general twang, the better.

I was in the car with my brother recently, complaining about his choice of music. I don't know how to describe Shane's choice of music other than "high school rock that's sort of indie but not indie enough to ACTUALLY be indie". I realize that makes no sense as a genre, and I have no real reason for disliking many of the songs Shane likes, especially since there's a very fine, blurry line separating a lot of the music he likes from the music I like. For example, for me, Panic! at the Disco is generally a yes and Fallout Boy is generally a no, even though I'm aware that they're both pretty much the same thing. Shane is the opposite. I recently decided I'm okay with liking Snow Patrol, even though I was wary at first. My Chemical Romance is still a big, fat no, etc., etc. Don't ask me how I decide these things, I just get a feeling for songs and I know what I like and what I don't like, even though I can't usually articulate why, for example, I like my "indie but not indie enough to ACTUALLY be indie" music but not Shane's. Part of it is that I don't want to do anything that can remotely be construed as "indie" or "hipster" or "emo" because I just don't get the scene and I don't want to fit the scene. The problem is, I still to this day can't figure out what exactly makes something indie or makes a person a hipster so I'm trying to keep myself from falling into a category that I don't particularly know how to classify. It's confusing being in my head sometimes. Whew.
The point is, Shane and I can very rarely agree on music. Chelsea and I agree much more easily, mostly because the music she legitimately likes is my "guilty pleasure" music (think Pussycat Dolls, gangsta rap, cheesy 90s pop, etc.).
So lately I've been wondering how the heck someone would classify my listening habits. Maybe you all should decide for me, because so far all I have to go by is Shane's description of me, which was "So basically you like music that is good but fucking depressing." And while it's actually kind of true that the majority of my favorite songs in the world are at least vaguely sad, I think a lot of my music is cheerful and uplifting. I think...
So how should I classify myself, anyone-who-knows-more-about-music-than-I-do?

Here are the facts:
1) Probably 20% of the space on my mp3 player is devoted to show tunes, but I also have to be in a particular mood to want to listen to said show tunes and I wouldn't claim that as my favorite type of music. I also tend to prefer sexy/sultry or very dramatic/depressing musicals to cheesy pop musical love stories. I don't know why it's important for you to know that, except to say that I know I wouldn't classify myself as a show tunes girl.
2) I spend most of my driving time listening to the public radio station here. Here's a link to their weekly Top 60. It really is a mix of everything, so maybe that doesn't help.
3) If I do change the station, it's because I'm in the mood for rap and dance/pop music. This is kinda rare, but pretty much always happens when I'm on my way to a party or a night of drinking and bar hopping and I need to be in an upbeat mood.
4) I put my mp3 player on random and listed the first 25 artists that came up, not counting show tunes since, as I've already declared, I like show tunes but I'm not a show tunes girl. Here they are:
1. Talking Heads
2. Sufjan Stevens
3. Belle and Sebastian
4. Eva Cassidy
5. Robert Plant
6. The Shins
7. Fiona Apple
8. Neil Young
9. 10,000 Maniacs
10. Tool
11. Dave Matthews Band
12. The Kinks
13. Imogen Heap
14. Old 97s
15. Rod Stewart
16. Madonna
17. Fatboy Slim
18. Kanye West
19. Johnny Cash
20. Simon and Garfunkel
21. Chamillionaire
22. Frank Sinatra
23. Michael Jackson
24. Journey
25. James Blunt

So, what kind of music DO I like?