Ask Lemmy

• OutKast - Hey Ya!
• Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message
• Tones and I - Dance Monkey
• NENA - 99 Red Balloons
• The 88 - At Least It Was Here
• The Beatles - Help!
• R.A. the Rugged Man - Legendary Loser
• Theory of a Deadman - Bitch Came Back
• Atmosphere - The Best Day
• Atmosphere - Yesterday
• Gorillaz - DoYaThing (Full-Length)
• Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue
• Foster The People - Best Friend
• The Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright
• Tyler, The Creator - 48
• Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A
• KISS - Detroit Rock City
• Scissor Sisters - Laura
• The Dead South - In Hell I'll Be In Good Company

My Worst Enemy - Lit

Man, who is probably an alcoholic, wakes up the next day from a bender to find his girlfriend has left him.

Bullet by Hollywood undead

The Science of Selling Yourself Short by Less Than Jake

The only 2 songs I could think of, Pumped Up Kicks, and 99 Luftballons/99 Red Balloons were already brought up. So I had to think of some different songs. And I can't. Looked through a bunch of songs on my phone and back of some of my CD cases and I can't think of any right now.

Closest I can think of was just a video of someone reacting to the Japanese vocaloid song 「ごめんね ごめんね」 ( I'm sorry I'm sorry )by Kikuo and not knowing what the song meant until looking up the lyrics. Even then, that's not a very upbeat song.

Edit:

I thought about "Belong" by R.E.M., but I would say it's near upbeat but not quite there. Also, the lyrics are more cryptic and confusing to dissect than depressing in my opinion.

Edit 2:

Wouldn't say it's quite upbeat either, but Mighty K.C. from For Squirrels as well. Not quite upbeat but definitely depressing lyrics considering it's about death.

Hard Times - Paramore first thing I thought of

A good chunk of They Might Be Giants' discography.

Homeless Bleak Despair is about what's in the title.

Don't Let's Start "Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful"

My Man is about being paralyzed.

That just scratches the surface.

Nothing but Flowers by Talking Heads is a cheerful song about post-apocalyptic life.

Vamos a la playa - super catchy totally 80s pop song that was everywhere in amusement parks ..... and it's about nuclear hellscape.

• Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles
• Some Nights by Fun (and the music video really reinforces it)
• I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers
• a bunch of different songs by P!nk
• Weird Al's presidential debate autotune songs ("Bad Hombres, Nasty Women" from 2016, "WE'RE ALL DOOMED" from 2020, and "Deja Vu (But Worse)" from 2024)

Fuck You - The Used

Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People.

A solid majority of Bastille's discography comes to mind, though not as outright depressing as Pumped Up Kicks or Youth of a Nation, most of their tracks tend to be very instrumentally upbeat and lively, with gorgeous vocals, but thematically darker lyrics / topics. Happier comes to mind as immediately fitting the prompt (and having enough radio play to be recognizable), but The Draw, Haunt, and Skulls also fit well (I'd also included their cover of City High's What Would You Do, also long as being a cover isn't a immediate disqualifier).

I feel like they're kind of slept on since they don't get a whole lot of radio play outside of a handful of songs, but all their other work is just so good. Personal top favorite artist, hands down.

pretty much anything by third eye blind

Zero 7 - Waiting to die

https://youtu.be/ge1_eVMO-mU

Snowpix mentioned lots of ska/ska punk I gotta agree, my pick is The Aquabats - chemical bomb

https://youtu.be/Y3fXdcHQY4o

Maybe a bit of a stretch but just running with the musical tone doesn't match the lyrics Ben Folds - bitches ain't shit cover

https://youtu.be/gjFRy8jQ_0U

Polish Dancing Cow song is upbeat and catchy but the lyrics are about a man struggling with his cocaine addiction.

Surprised that people haven't mentioned Yoru ni Kakeru (Racing into the Night) by Yoasobi. It's a Japanese song about depression and commiting suicide.

Specifically, it follows a guy who falls in love with a depressed and suicidal girl. Over time, the guy himself becomes depressed and tired of life and they both decide to commit suicide together.

I always found The Scientist by Coldplay to be a pretty upbeat song about the death of a loved one. And Viva la Vida upbeat, and all about the fall from grace.

Rock-a-bye, baby

On the tree top

When the wind blows

The cradle will rock

When the bough breaks

The cradle will fall

And down will come baby

Cradle and all

We sing that shit to literal babies, what the fuck is wrong with us?

Walking on broken glass - Annie Lennox

You are my sunshine

The other night dear As I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you in my arms But when I woke up I was mistaken so I held my head and I cried You are my sunshine My ONLY sunshine

It doesn't get any better from there

Edit: I will never understand how to format things the way I want them to sorry

Mark Knopfler has quite a few. Postcards from Paraguay. Quality Shoe. Romeo and Juliet. Boom Like That. It's a thing with him - contrasting the music with the theme.

for some reason there's a bunch of upbeat sounding Japanese songs that are actually disturbing if you look into the lyrics (for example racing into the night)

Mmmm Bop

Paul Thorn - Bull Mountain Bridge

Jonathan Coulton - Shop-Vac®

No Sunlight - Death Cab for Cutie

When I was young
Lying in the grass
I felt so safe
In a warming bath
Of sunlight, of sunlight
The vast open sky
Could do no harm
Like an embrace
Of a mother's arms
In sunlight, in sunlight
In sunlight, in sunlight
With every year
That came to pass
More clouds appeared
'Til the sky went black
And there was no sunlight, no sunlight
And there was no sunlight, no sunlight anymore
And it disappeared at the same speed
As the idealistic things I believed
When the optimist died inside of me
No sunlight, no sunlight
No sunlight, no sunlight
It disappeared at the same speed
As the idealistic things I believed
When the optimist died inside of me
No sunlight, no sunlight
No sunlight, no sunlight
No sunlight, no sunlight
No sunlight, no sunlight
No sunlight anymore

I'm Only Me When I'm With You by Taylor Swift. Granted, I have no experience with healthy relationships, but the relationship in that song sounds extremely unhealthy and codependent

the mountain goats - no children https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS27S3mspjU