Things I like right now

A broadened version of my "feel good hits." Because right now I am mainly interested in listening to three types of things:
•Classical music on NPR - Am I getting old? I don't even know most of these pieces but there's something enjoyable (refined?) about driving around in the summer with classical strings cranked to 11 (well, more like cranked to 3...my care stereo is loud)
•Alt country — I'm officially a sucker for all things that involve twangy guitars. Uncle Tupelo began me on this righteous path, and I have been smiting everything in its wake. Recent purchase Whiskeytown is perfect highway/ backwoods driving music (can you tell that's when I listen to a lot of my music?), and the Jayhawks are, well, what would happen if the Byrds were from the Midwest and rocked out a little more with Graham Parsons. A.k.a. awesome. There's a YouTube playlist of them doing a live set in Germany, I suggest you check it out. It has a lot of material from Blue Earth, the album I've been spinning.
•Power pop — Power pop, indie pop, call it what you will. I currently have a taste for lots of power chords and big hooks. Matthew Sweet satisfies this need nicely— that solo on "Girlfriend" kills. Also found an affection for the Fountains of Wayne (I never thought they were that good...but they actually kind of are) and another band I randomly found called the American Princes. Also, the New Pornographers and A.C. Newman...how did I ever get out of the habit of listening to them? (If Elliott Smith were happier, I might include him here too...he shows some hooky brilliance when he's got a full band...but that self-titled solo album, the only one of his I actually have and have been listening too, can be really fucking depressing).
•Then there's XTC, which doesn't really fit into the power-pop category but they're still notable as a weirdass post-pop (kind of a combination between power-pop and post-punk, I guess?) band I've also re-discovered. I always knew a song or two but never delved deeper. Good thing I did. I always heard lots of Kinks comparisons, which might be true if only the caveat: Kinks songs as covered drastically by the Talking Heads. Maybe a bit much. Thematically, though, English Settlement and Skylarking remind me a lot of Village Green Preservation Society.