Hope discussion is allowed, this place seems like mostly link spam.

What’s something that gets you every time? Like a genre trope? A well-timed amen break? Hi-gain on drums in post-punk/new wave? Wow and flutter in a lofi sample in a Current Joys or Teen Suicide type lofi song?

For me it would be acoustic guitar accompanied by a piano melody below, like: https://youtu.be/9FCF2Y4lIWk And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZuIMcmNZnU

Never can quite tell if it’s actually playing the same/accompanying chords in the bass clef or if it’s just EQ frequency cuts to give the guitar space to breathe, and never could figure out how to make it myself, trying to put guitar and piano together just ends up with mush whenever I try it, but nonetheless as a listener it always really underscores any drama so well, I love it, no matter how tired or how often I hear it, it never doesn’t work.

Close second would be really stripped down instrumental electronic or synthwave songs that are just arpeggios in a few chords with no percussion, really gives me that feeling of refreshment and a new dawn at the end of some story, or perhaps a deserved break.

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYLP1pB7xBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9obW0GNyYbU