I know you're thinking of passing this post by without listening to any of these songs. If you like rock, I can almost guarantee you're gonna like my first recommendation, and if you live in the US - I'm willing to bet you've never heard it. So give the the song a listen on youtube and if you like it, try the rest.
In the US, people have heard of Big Wreck but they typically haven't heard anything off of their final album - and there's a ton of great stuff there. If you've never heard these songs before, do yourself a favor check these out:
Big Wreck - Ladylike
Big Wreck - Blown Wide Open
Big Wreck - Prayer
Apologies to folks in other countries who might know these songs backward forward and upsidown. They were never big here. Another really fantastic song that nobody seems to know about is this one:
Pilot Speed - Melt into the Walls
Another really really really underrated guy that I'm not sure how many people are familiar with is Ian Moore. I know he was big in Austin, but I think lots of people haven't heard his stuff. You might have heard Satisfied or How Does it Feel, maybe even Float Away, but there's so much more.
Ian Moore - Leary's Gate
Ian Moore - Morning Song
Ian Moore - Please God
Ian Moore - Time of Dying
Ian Moore - Today
Ian Moore - Magdalena
Ian Moore - Closer
Ian Moore - Blue Sky
If you live in Austin, I apologize because I'm sure you know those songs backward, forward, and upsideown.
Other good songs you might not have heard:
Podunk - Dashboard Mary
Bedlight for Blue Eyes - Midnight Symphony
Alter Bridge - Open Your Eyes
Cracker - Everything
Spacehog - Shipwrecked
What Made Milwaukee Famous - The Jeopardy of Contentment
Chris Rea - Texas
Daniel Lanois - Sonho Dourado
Ok, that's gonna conclude my Rock/Blues suggestions.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Röyksopp, you should really get familiar with them. They've got a ton of great stuff.
Röyksopp - Poor Leno
Röyksopp - Triumphant
Röyksopp - What Else Is There (I've seen this mentioned elsewhere in this thread)
Röyksopp - Only This Moment.mp3
Röyksopp - 49 Percent
Röyksopp - Röyksopp Forever
Röyksopp - Alpha Male
... of course there's more. Along the lines of those last two, I've found some really fantastic electronic groove music like these:
Groove Armada - Edge Hill
Delerium - Tectonic Shift
Ratatat - Kennedy
Ratatat - Loudpipes
Ratatat - Seventeen Years (skip first 7 seconds)
Benassi Brothers - Light
Massive Attack - Angel
Gabriel & Dresden - Tracking Treasure Down
Late Night Alumni - Empty Streets
Last but not least, if you've always lived in the US you might barely know who Kylie Minogue is. If that's the case, check out her latest album "X". There's a lot of great stuff there.
If you like heavily instrumental, orchestral, music with an epic sound (epic is actually meant as descriptive there rather than simply meaning "cool"), check out E.S. Posthumus and Globus.
If you try any of these suggestions, give me a response. I'd like to know whether I wasted my time with this post.