If you’re looking for obscure, but good, I really liked Ai Yori Aoshi and Happy Lesson. Nothing too remarkable about them, but they were still good. Oh, and one of my top recommendations on the off chance you haven’t seen it already, The World God Only Knows is the purest example of harem I’ve seen. It boasts a very different take on the genre, in that the hero is FORCED to make all these girls fall in love with him. Basically, The God of Video Games teaches you how to save the world by bagging chicks using the power of TROPES.
And what about FLCL??? one of the best anime from Gainax studio 
WOW, its been a over a year already. Yeah I’ve seen Shuffle already. Thanks for the recommendation. Harem is and probably will always be my favorite genre for better or worst. XD So yeah I’ve seen ALOT and read alot of harem manga. If its obscure, recommend it to me. I’m gonna try out some visual novels, which many harem anime are adapted from and usually not so well.
To go along with the themes here, Shuffle!hits the mark pretty well. It’s got the very basics of any harem, with the sexy girl, shy girl, childhood friend, token loli, and energetic friend turned romantic. Like many harem animes, it was based off a dating sim. So what’s special about it? If anything, it’s the feelgood energy of it all, with a nice blend of situation comedy and a bit of romantic drama, but not enough to get you down, like some. But that doesn’t mean it can’t take itself seriously when it needs to. Shuffle! is a great show to watch if you just want to watch an upbeat harem comedy, spiced up with basic harem drama.
You mention a couple of notable titles. Nodame Cantabile certainly has good music with scores from legends such as Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart with one of their albums peaking at #7 on the Oricon albums chart. I did not intend to discriminate against classical music, but at the same time I didn’t want to overwhelm people with a huge list.
Musically Inclined Anime… What about “Nodame Cantabile”, “Nodame Cantabile: Paris-Hen” and “La Corda D’Oro: Secondo Passo”? Or classical music doesn’t count? I understand you wanted to focus on j-pop/j-rock, but your title is misleading.
Hey, Nichijou should be up there!
You also forgot Ruby Gloom.
Kreiyu… just because you liked it doesn’t mean it’s something that people who don’t usually watch anime would like. A lot of those anime you suggested are incredibly old, and some have nudity and fan service which is something that people not used to anime might not be willing to tolerate.
Another thing… you don’t need to make a list full of stuff everyone has heard about or that has appeared on a major tv station like Cartoon Network.
Azumanga is hilarious. Death Note and Haruhi are also good. K-ON, Bleach, and Naruto go down hill admittedly but who cares, it’s good to watch a little of everything.
