When I arrived at MSU five years ago, my freshmen floormates at Hubbard Hall knew exactly what to expect when they walked past my dorm room.

High pitched vocal screeches, vibrant beats, and thumping kicks that wore out my subwoofer beat by beat - qualities that could only be produced by The Diplomats.

How do you review legends?

There are probably few students at MSU who didn't hear R.E.M. songs such as "Losing My Religion" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" while they were young kids running around and playing make-believe.

The late '90s saw a great deal of inoffensive, acoustic guitar-driven pop music by bands following in the footsteps of acts such as Dave Matthews Band and Matchbox Twenty.

OK, I know Taking Back Sunday isn't that old or that revolutionary. I mean, they're still making music, for goodness sake - they released "Louder Now" in 2006 and they're on the last leg of a tour. Many people would mock me for even writing about the band, especially in a story praising their music.

The late Detroit hip-hop producer James Yancey - otherwise known as J Dilla - left as great a legacy as a posthumous 2Pac track listing.

Mick Bassett's music would be innovative, unique, even revolutionary - if it had been created 40 years ago.

It's understandable if The Raconteurs' "Consolers of the Lonely" seemed unexpected.

Sometimes there's nothing worse for a band than releasing a seminal album. For whatever minor flaws it might have had, Gnarls Barkley's 2006 debut, "St. Elsewhere," was a brilliant, scattershot assault on the eardrums - a genre-defying, funk-laced and soul-driven pastiche of four decades worth of pop music.

There comes a time in everyone's life when they want to put away the stress of the day, week or month and relax with a good drink and soothing music. For college students with finals looming, these times are becoming more frequent.

Psychedelic indie band Head of Femur aims for listeners to rediscover the "repeat all" button on their CD players.