Songs Like Hoppípolla by Sigur Rós
By Dan Cohen · Published 2026-09-05
Most songs that swell as far as Hoppípolla does are sad about it. This one is not, and that is the unusual thing our measurements pick up: a dynamic range of 8 — a long climb from quiet to loud — carrying the mood tag joyful alongside calm and contemplative. It reads intensity 46 at 90 BPM, layered, softly sung, shifting only mildly.
The swelling-but-happy band
- Reckoner — Radiohead. Intensity 45, dynamic range 8, 80 BPM. The only other song here that climbs as far as the seed.
- Heaven or Las Vegas — Cocteau Twins. Intensity 45, dynamic range 7, 118 BPM.
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World — Tears for Fears. Intensity 44, dynamic range 7 — and one of the few that shares the joyful tag.
- Deacon Blues — Steely Dan. Intensity 45, dynamic range 6, 92 BPM — nearly the seed’s tempo exactly.
- Enjoy the Silence — Depeche Mode. Intensity 44, dynamic range 7, 113 BPM.
- Everything In Its Right Place — Radiohead. Intensity 50, dynamic range 7 — the most intense on this page.
- Djam Leelii — Baaba Maal. Intensity 42, dynamic range 7, 90 BPM. The gentlest here, and the seed’s exact tempo.
Note how few of these are quiet all the way through. This is not a list of calm songs; it is a list of songs that go somewhere without turning bleak on the way.
Hoppípolla appears on Sigur Rós’s 2005 album Takk.... Figures are our own measurements, read from the public API at build time. The genre and era spread is a consequence of measuring sound rather than style — it is not a claim that these artists resemble each other in any other way. No lyrics are reproduced.