Whether you’re going through a break-up/hard time or you’ve just been through a lot, I hope these albums will help heal your wounds as they did mine.

1. Relient K – Forget and Not Slow Down

This album is one of the most beautiful, real pieces of music I’ve ever heard. The songs range from lit road-trip music to songs to cry uncontrollably to.

2. Joni Mitchell – Song to a Seagull

This was Joni Mitchell’s debut album. She had been through a lot; she contracted polio as a child and was no longer able to be the athletic girl she had been in her younger age. Because of the polio, she had a hard time playing guitar because she couldn’t get her fingers to move the way she needed to, so she began devising her own tunings and created the unique style that got her the qualification of “the most important female recording artist of the late 20^th century,” according to Allmusic [Wikipedia].

3. Owl City – Ocean Eyes

This album was my saving grace in middle school. Originally self-produced and self-started, Adam Young is an absolute legend in my eyes. This music is heart-felt, emotional, and raw.

4. John Mayer – Born & Raised

This album makes up for everything you missed out on in your childhood; it is the definition of healing. Mayer combines beautiful acoustic melodies and gut-wrenchingly, tragically, hauntingly beautiful lyrics to close all your wounds.

5. Taylor Swift – Red

I couldn’t write this article and not include this album. Red epitomizes taking a broken heart and turning it into something beautiful. And she’s not afraid to call out the people that broke her in doing so.

6. Rusty Clanton – Calm & Normal EP

This isn’t a full album, but god, is it healing. Clanton says everything you wish the person you love would say to you, and he sings it in the most endearing way possible. His guitar playing is also beautiful and inventive.

7. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

This is some of the saddest, sweetest music you will ever hear. NMH settles your athazagoraphobia by destigmatizing it and making beautiful songs about it.

8. Nevershoutnever – Harmony

A pacifist and lover of all, Christofer Drew seemingly wrote this album to be a tribute to everything and everyone he loves, and a call-out (although not a mean-spirited one) to those who have done him wrong. He even calls himself out in the song Sellout, providing a clear and honest view from his perspective. And sometimes, you just need good, innocent fun like the linked song here epitomizes. Take these 35 minutes to think like Drew and maybe earn a new, loving, healing point of view.

9. Sleeping at Last – Atlas: Year One

This album combines film-score-esque, classical-esque beautiful instrumental music with lyrics that you really just need to hear. It’s a long album, taking inspiration from Holst and having a song for each of the planets, but not only that, the oceans, and cardinal directions as well as many other songs. Seriously, if you’re feeling ignored, listen to this music.