ZenTunes: Music to make you supremely totally outrageously happy.

1. Thievery Corporation
These dudes are groovetastic to the nth degree. Lots of instrumentals, but each song is very different. One track will feature reggae beats, the next will be electronica, then there’ll be psychedelic Portishead-type hooks. You’ll feel like an aviator-wearing Terrantino-film extra who just got back from a month chilling out in Costa Rica, finding yourself and hang-gliding and whatnot. Check out the sweet-stylin groups Bonobo and Supreme Beings of Leisure, too. You simply can’t be stressed listening to ’em.

2. MGMT
If “Electric Feel” does not make you exuberant in the first 8 bars, then you have no serotonin left in your brain. These hippie-haired Brooklyners will get you feeling ultra zen. Plus, I want to permanently live inside their surreal Fern Gully-esque music video:


3. Slightly Stoopid
Can you say beach music? Can you say beach music with an 18-pack of beer and a Frisbee and some illegal substances? You bring the acoustic guitar, I’ll bring the bongos, we’ll start a bonfire and watch the sun go down. See you by the pier, dude.

4. Vampire Weekend
Finally, the upper middle class has a soundtrack! Rock your Ray-Bans and rock out to these fun tunes, Belvidere vodka in hand on the way to your Columbia University banquet. The dean will totally not know you’re wasted.

5. Jack Johnson
Surfer? Check. Soulful music? Check. Energy independent music label in Hawaii? Triple check. Jack, if you’re reading this (which I’m sure you are), call me. I’ve loved you since Mud Football and Bubble Toes.

6. Animal Collective
Wacky electronica and guys singing up-tempo, mildly nonsensical lyrics? Yes please! Happiness is pouring out of my speakers!

7. Bob Marley
Do I need to explain? Go. Listen. Now.

8. Gypsy Kings
Listen to that Spanish guitar and just tell me you don’t feel alive. Tell me you don’t want to go jump in a fountain, dance on an outdoor café table, and watch the stars splay across a mountain-ridged stretch of sky. Who cares if you can’t understand a lick of what they’re saying? It’s beautiful and pulsing with pure energy. Bamboleo.

9. Phoenix
Musical elation with a French twist! Sounds so delicious you’ll think your iTunes was making you a Nutella crepe with whipped cream and strawberries.

10. Marvin Gaye
The Prince of Soul for a reason. Sure, everybody wants to get it on with some sexual healing, but have you checked out “Mercy, Mercy Me?” or “Right On” lately? Righteous tunes with some soul-stirring lyrics. Listen and love one another my babies.