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Charles Bradley - This cat just dropped his first album only a few years ago. He performs with the Menahan Street Band and together they capture a wonderful sound. It's not the 60's, but it sure sounds like it.

Arthur Conley - is another awesome guy that is overshadowed by his once mentor Otis Redding. Conley is probably best know for his song Sweet Soul Music. He does not have a large catalog of music, but of what there is I like.

Luther Ingram - Great voice and a great sound, this man sings heartache like no ones business. I'm pretty sure the song I linked If Loving You is Wrong (I Don't Want to be Right) is his biggest song, also one of my favorites.

Teddy Pendergrass - I'm going to assume you know who this guy is, but if not enjoy, he's been around a long time and has some real good songs on his own and with his old group The Blue Notes.

William Bell - He's got quite a lot of music and started to record with the legendary label Stax. His stuff is kinda hard to find outside of Best Of's, he does have a re-release of my personal favorite Bound to Happen.

Gil Scott-Heron - Awesome and depressing at the same time is how best to describe this genius of a man. He talks a fair amount about poverty, struggles, abuse, and "the man". Pieces of a Man may be his best known album, but I'm partial to 1980.

I'm going to suggest one group here that gets overlooked by a lot of people. If you ask a hip-hop producer everyone of them will agree that they are a greatly kept secret due to the drum loops taken from these cats.

Skull Snaps - they are a good mix of Bobby Womack and Curtis Mayfield.

I threw in Bobby Womack as well. I assumed since you mentioned Curtis you would know him as well, but why leave it up to chance.

Lost in Translation and Blade Runner are two of my favorite films, so I think I feel you. If you want urban, nocturnal and dreamy you can't do much better than David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, and also Lost Highway. (Not as good of a film, but definitely has that kind of mood.)

I think because you like Blade Runner, you might also enjoy Until the End of the World. it's one of my favorite movies of all time. It's very dreamy and contemplative (dreams are a central theme). It ends up in the Australian outback, but before that there are a lot of European "city at night" scenes. It's by German director Wim Wenders, and if you like it, I'd recommend the rest of his body of work, especially Wings of Desire. Unfortunately you can't get the DVD in North America, but there are some European versions, and you can rent it on Amazon. It also has an amazing soundtrack. Another good one in this kind of vein is The City of Lost Children, a French film. I'd also recommend Terry Giliam's Brazil, especially if you like dark humor and surrealism. (I'm a big Gilliam fan personally; I also like 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King and the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus as well.)

You might also like the late 80's - early 90's "yuppie noir" subgenre typified by such films as Bad Influence, Bright Lights Big City and Less Than Zero. Bad Influence specifically is one of my favorites, and the soundtrack definitely has that "dark urban" feel to it. The movie American Psycho was kind of an homage to this era/subgenre, ten years later, though obviously a lot more violent.

Trainspotting, Magnolia and Requiem for a Dream are all nocturnal, dreamy and urban, but they will also fuck your shit up, so fair warning there.

As for music, I'd strongly recommend Morphine, The The, Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry, Jane Siberry, Portishead, Massive Attack, Tricky, Mazzy Star, the Cowboy Junkies, and Zero 7. Some of Depeche Mode's stuff would fit the bill as well, I think - "I'm Waiting For the Night To Fall", "One Caress", "But Not Tonight", "Sweetest Perfection", and "Death's Door" (which not coincidentally is on the Until the End of the World soundtrack).

TV shows are a bit harder. The only thing that comes to mind at the moment are both short-lived scifi shows - Brimstone and Max Headroom (the drama, not the talk show). You might like Six Feet Under as well. I'm eagerly anticipating Frank Darabont's L.A. Noir TV show, whenever it comes out.

EDIT: Something else occurred to me: You might enjoy The Crow if you haven't seen it already. It's violent, but also dark, urban, moody, and contemplative. (And the soundtrack is awesome.) Also, The Crow 2: City of Angels was savaged by the critics and it is of course an inferior film to the original, but if you can shut off your brain and forget that it's essentially a rehash of the first film, visually it's a beautiful, gothic, dystopian take on L.A. at night (it was directed by Tim Pope, who directed many of The Cure's videos).

"Simmer Down" is ska from about '64. There are a bunch of 60's ska CDs out there but be careful because many, especially the compilations, have overlapping tracks. Here are some examples:

• Island Records Presents Ska
  
• Treasure Isle Records Presents Ska
  
• Prince Buster - Fabulous Greatest Hits
  
• Bob Marley & Wailers - One Love at Studio One
  
  "Harder They Come" is early reggae from about '72. Between ska and reggae was a style called rock steady that was sort of like slow ska. Most ska CDs will have at least a few rock steady songs mixed in too. It's a little later than the time period of "Harder They Come" but the best selling reggae record of all time is Bob Marley - Legend and it's worth checking out if you're not familiar with it. Here are some examples of early reggae:
  
  
• Original Labour of Love Collection
  
• Harder They Come OST
  
• Jimmy Cliff - Jimmy Cliff
  
• Desmond Dekker - 007, Best of...
  
• Toots & Maytals - Pressure Drop

This is probably way out there, but I couldn't help but think of this pop-rock musical/concept album (score is by the two guys from ABBA) I love called Chess. Inspired by the hyped 1972 World Chess Championship between a Russian and American player (the infamous Bobby Fischer), the musical is basically about how these two guys become celebrities and political figures just for being really good at a board game. (It's been revised and staged and rerecorded countless times over the years but it originated with this concept album.)

I'm buying Zone One for Christmas for a friend. We both really loved WWZ. But I haven't read it and it just came out a couple months ago.

I really like post-apocalyptic books but read zombie books to get my fix. Here are some P-A things you might enjoy. However no zombies.

One Second After

Y: The Last Man

Maybe Slaughterhouse-Five? It's also got elements of comedy and sci-fi, but it's a lot darker.

https://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Five-Novel-Modern-Library-Novels/dp/0385333846/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3IYA7H4BZ0NYU&keywords=slaughterhouse-five&qid=1551131451&s=books&sprefix=slaughterhouse%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C284&sr=1-1

I've never had time to read the whole thing, but Time Travel Hotel by Clive Birnie seems kinda sci-fi and quirky in a similar way to Hitchhiker's, but the humour is more offbeat.

https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travel-Hotel-Clive-Birnie/dp/1909136522

The Things they Carried by Tim Obrien is basically exactly what you described.

I love Slaughterhouse Five!

House of Leaves. When I first heard about the book I didn't know anything about the plot - just that people who'd read it would report feeling that the walls around them started to shift and move as they were reading it, while others claimed to have weird dreams about the house even months after they'd finished the novel. Not a scary book, necessarily - but it will give you the creeps.

The typography is also insane, but it's thankfully not used in a gimmicky way, and serves the story very well as a narrative device. So far I've never read anything like it.

nellie mckay i think fits the bill. plus she's done a tribute album to doris day 'Normal As Blueberry Pie'

also, seth macfarlane has made 4 albums of this type of music. i know what you're thinking, but no, they are not jokes. seth has always loved this style of music, and he has the voice to pull it off

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: We


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|
|China|amazon.cn|




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Check out the book: We

George Orwell got his inspiration for 1984 from this book. Short read but damn good.

House of leaves, one of my favorite books in the horror genre.