Finals Crashout Playlist
AAGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Edited by Sloane DiBari, with contributions from Edie Carey, Charley Burns, Natasha Dracobly, Rhys Hals, Ebun Lawore, Benjamin Rosielle, Zoe Stern, and Fern Slater
It’s finals week, and you know what that means: FREAKING OUT. You’re running out of 10 Hour Lofi Anime Study Beats YouTube videos to listen to — not that they’re not all starting to sound the same to a genuinely kind of unsettling degree, anyway. You have four papers due and two exams because your professors fucking hate you. Even your favorite one. You can’t make it to office hours or the writing center. You’re still frantically applying for summer jobs. And you’re moving all your shit and all your friends’ shit into a storage unit with one of the stupid tiny EVs.
Finals week is evil. We know how it feels. Here’s what we’re listening to this week.
Shake it Like A - Jane Remover Remix – Frost Children, Danny Brown, Jane Remover
For when you’re trying to lock in on finals but you can only think about Frost Children Solarity. –Zoe Stern
Solitude – Lord Snow
I like to listen to screamo when I study, particularly when I’m working on a computer science lab. To me, the experience of having to complete my computer science lab is best embodied by the image of a despaired little man screaming at me inside my head, which is what it feels like to listen to Lord Snow with headphones on. –Ben Rosielle
Heart Attack American – The Bronx
I’m a person who needs to listen to loud, angry, fast-paced music while I study, which seems counterintuitive, but it works. Perfect song to scream a long to when the stats homework has become too much and anti-establishment enough to fuel you with hate through two more readings. –Charley Burns
Washington on Your Side – The Hamilton Soundtrack
Guys please do not burn me at the stake for this one. This is for when shit seriously hits the fan, when the light at the end of the tunnel has flickered out, all I see is darkness and I’m not sure if I’ll make it through. There’s something about reverting to my thirteen year old self that fills me with just enough vengeance to stick by my thesis, and this song is fast-paced enough to keep me cruising through a problem set, non-stop. –Rhys Hals
Last Minute – kitty ray
Get it, because I’ll be writing my research paper for my seminar at the “last minute”? Haha. Lately, I’ve been listening to dance music while I do classwork. Ideally, this puts me in a trancelike flow state where I pump out thousands of words in mere hours that end up sounding like I slowly cooked to perfection rather than tweaked on (PRESCRIBED AND NECESSARY) stimulants at The Local from opening to closing on Saturday. Other times, I get so into listening to dance music that I look for more dance music to listen to, and then I spend hours making playlists and reading Wikipedia pages and blog articles instead of working. Hey, do you guys remember when Car Seat Headrest wrote that mean song about Kitty Ray when her name was still Kitty Pryde and played it live on William & Mary’s college radio station? And then it started this years-long beef with her and her husband Sam Ray from all those lame, edgy bedroom pop bands? And then he wrote that insane Medium article about how he thinks Car Seat Headrest sucks? Man, I really need to start thinking and writing about another band. Anyway, I’m gonna go read that Medium article again and evaluate our Substack analytics. Don’t ask me about scholarly discussion of emplacement and fragmentation in Zadie Smith’s NW until after I’ve moved out of my dorm room, please. –Sloane DiBari
I Get Lifted (Go To Church) – Barbara Tucker
There’s nothing like a gospel house music induced spiritual awakening to keep you lifted during this exam week. Praise the Lord, shake some ass, and do a couple Hail Marys on that econ exam because at this point that’s the only thing that's gonna save you. –Ebun Lawore
A Summer Wasting – Belle and Sebastian
I don’t know about anyone else, but my current crash out is not over the impending doom of final exams and essays, but over what the fuck I’m gonna do this summer. Any employers out there, PLEASE hire me. I can’t write another cover letter. –Edie Carey
A Better Son/Daughter – Rilo Kiley
The sort of bitterly angsty song that is great at motivating you to lock in out of pure spite. Save me, Jenny Lewis. –Fern Slater
Head Like A Hole – Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor, with various formations, has been my go-to finals music for pretty much all of college so far. Something about the intensity is just what I need during finals – it keeps me locked in on my essays while also staying in tune with my largely crazy and evil feelings. As a control freak, I like that it makes me feel like I’m losing control in a more controlled way. All I can ask for, really! –Natasha Dracobly