When I went to college in the fall of 2024, I was exposed to a lot of new music. During the New England winters, I listened to a wide variety of music with my friends and family. Amid personal, political, and global turmoil, music is a way to connect with each other, and get through the winter.
I write this now, at home for “spring” break, sitting cross legged on a yoga mat next to my college friends; “Telekinesis” by Travis Scott, SZA, and Future is playing in the background. Big Thief is next in Spotify the queue.
Two weeks ago, I was here for the weekend and there was a blizzard. Yesterday, it was 60 degrees. Time passes, winter passes.
“Streets of Minneapolis” by Bruce Springsteen
For the past few months and years, all of our lives have been set against a climate of political unrest and violence. Music and other art forms are not separate from politics and world events. Even if you do not agree with an artists stance, you can learn something from their music.
This new song by the legendary Bruce Springsteen is a great listen for this winter, and also an engagement with political issues through art. It is a direct response to the events in Minneapolis and a call for the abolishment of ICE. If you heard “I’m On Fire” on TikTok this summer and were intrigued, I urge you to check out this recent track.
I grew up listening to Springsteen, as he is one of my fathers favorite artists. I talked to my dad about this song, and he says he loves the vocal inflections and fry, as well as the choral element of the song. He told me that he’s “tickled by the fact” that Springsteen is still making music, and that people from all walks of life are enjoying it and being challenged by it.
“The Hardest Part” by Olivia Dean
I first heard this song in January of this year, while home in Massachusetts for Winter Break. One of my friends from high school played it on New Years Eve. “The Hardest Part” is off of Dean’s 2023 album “Messy”. Olivia Dean was the queen of Summer 2025, though I personally did not get into her music until more recently. This song was my introduction to her joyful, warm, and vulnerable discography.
Winter break is a strange time. This song feels like looking in the mirror in my childhood home and realizing that I am no longer 18, and that time has passed. My life is entirely different, the set of people I loved has changed and expanded.
I once imagined becoming an adult to be an abrupt, instantaneous change. Sometimes you often do not realize the potency of change until it is already passing through you. This song presents change in a way that is freeing.
“White Keys” by Dominic Fike
This previously leaked song was released officially in November. It felt like a magical day when I opened Spotify and it popped up in my recommended. Divinely catchy and witty, this single has a nostalgic feel and a great beat. It is great for chilly morning car rides, with a positive but reflective quality. This song feels like the thought of summer, warmth, and having the entire world as your oyster.
In an interview with the magazine coupdemain Fike mentioned that he had forgotten about the song, which was originally made in 2020. In the interview, he says that the song reminds him of a universe he was once apart of.
This song echoes the bustle and excitement of being young: it sounds like looking back fondly, or listening to a familiar sound with older, wiser ears.
“Snow Angel” by Renee Rapp
This song begins delicately like a snowflake. A snowflake that is falling during one of the violent Blizzards which have hit the Northeast recently.
“Snow Angel” rises and falls, with Rapps voice pulling your emotions up and down along with it. After the most recent blizzard, this song came on from my liked songs as I was trying to drive my car out of a snow bank. I felt as though it was taunting me, but also that it had found me when I needed it most. Renee Rapp’s voice is soothing and smooth; this song sparkles like the sun hitting the snow.
Her 2024 SNL performance of this song is one of my favorites of all time. I often feel like laying on the floor and belting during the winter. The chorus “I’ll make it through the winter if it kills me” is a good affirmation that I think many people can relate to.
Winter can be a paralyzing emotional force. This song highlights the effort of trying when you feel frozen and hurt.
I love the quiet, accepting lyric: “If I went back, I would do the same” at the end of the song. It captures the inevitability of nature, pain, cold. If you had the chance to do anything over, whatever change you make, doing the same is to get through it.
“Whateverrr” by Spacey Jane
This song is sort of angsty and self indulgent, but not in a bad way.
Spacey Jane is a great band for when I feel especially meh in the winter. The song “Whateverrr” is an incredible mix of rhyme, great rhythms and production elements. This song reflects on time passing, seasons changing, and small moments with great meaning. It also reflects on the age 18, and how memories and moments are woven together through the seasons.
“Wake up in the dark, I don’t wanna do this tonight… September, you watched me come undone as you said, remember “the backyard sprinklers getting me wet” ” is one of my favorite lyrics ever written.
The timeframe of song is very specific. Summer blends into September, which blends into whatever. And then all of time eventually blends into forever. It is decidedly a great listen, groovy, and creative.
“Anthem” by Leonard Cohen
This refrain zooms us out; to a song which deals poetically with hope and peace in the wider, non-personal world. It also meditates on the relationship between humaity and hope with a world that may not be encouraging of these qualities.
This is a famous, beautiful, and influential song that I think Gen-Z should pay attention to. Leonard Cohen is one of the greatest singer-song writers to ever live. Cohen highlights universal hope and perseverance, a theme we can all attune to for ourselves and the wider world this winter.
“Mind over Matter” by Young the Giant
In 2024 this 2014 song was very popular on Tik-tok. In the winter of 2020-2021it also had a social media resurgence. People loved to lip-sync and make thirst traps to it. This song is about seasons and situations changing; but also about movement and carrying ourselves through different experiences.
I often feel very sedentary during the winter. Songs like this are fulfilling, nostalgic to a mid 2000’s sound, and thematic. It feels like a visceral description of an unspoken understanding.
“Don’t Smile” by Sabrina Carpenter
This song is incredible to listen for when things are just not going your way. It is sad with a fun beat, without being overly serious. This song is off the album “Short and Sweet” which has been major for me this winter. Carpenters style of pop music is raunchy, smart, and her voice is the perfect modality for her songs.
“Already over” from “Emails I Can’t Send” is another honorable mention and favorite this winter. Fun and upbeat, this song helped me get through February. A great gym listen, and also a fun song for when you are sad about someone but cannot wallow in it.
“Baby Don’t Hurt Me” Emma Ogier
Emma Ogier is one of my favorite singer song writers. This mellow, catchy, song came out a few weeks ago and I have been extremely excited about it. I have been listening to this song since I bought her demo CD at a show in October.
This song feels like saying “fuck it”. It almost feels like throwing the towel in, dragging your feet, but continuing, even though you don’t know where you are going. It’s heartbreaking, but infused with whimsy and love and fun, like all of Emma’s songs.
It is reflective and spunky. The line “Baby I don’t wanna go backwards” follows “Should’ve known sooner, but its backwards, I’m back first”. These lyrics are a sort of circular reflection towards complicated and jaded feelings.
“Come and Get It” by Norah, Walking Intrusive Thought, Lyrical Brat
My friend Van introduced me to this song in January while I was visiting him in LA. He is a DJ of WSLC’s Yin and Yang Radio station. “Come and Get It” borders hyper-pop, and is not something I would have ever discovered on my own.
This song is energetic, fun, and the vocal production is awesome. I took a trip to LA to visit Van and another friend at the end of winter break. The trip was a wonderful escape to escape the cold and go on adventures with my best friends.
Van told me that he’s drawn to music that invokes feeling creatively. “I’ll listen to classical music, and then I’ll listen to something like “Come and get it”. I like music that makes me happy, and satisfies my brain, and that I can make art to.”
Van has introduced me to some songs that are remixes, collaborations, or which only can be found in the depths of sound cloud. This song made my winter brighter. I like the repetition of a challenge or question, it gets your energy up. I associate it with singing along in the car with the people I love, coast to coast.
“Plastic Cigarette” by Zack Bryan
This is another song I loved before it even came out. All summer, me and my co-workers listened to and sang along to the leaked snippet. “With Heaven on Top” came out early this year, and this song with it.
It is is reminiscent – summery, soft, and melodic. “Plastic Cigarette” is about swimming, letting go, and different methods of ingesting nicotine, in perhaps the most poetic ways possible. If you have elements of your life which are changing and/or ending this winter, this country ballad captures the feelings of letting go as the seasons change.
“Final Song” by Bassvictim
This song is soaringly gritty, electric, and has a great balance of vocals and production. I love the creative, satisfying, and narrative beat throughout. It is longing, but also fun and a song you can genuinely dance too. The beats never lose potency or character, as they break down and warp throughout.
The repetitiveness is high energy, and the production and effects create beats of their own. In a way, it almost has a muffled, static quality.
This song makes me feel like getting home from a place where loud music had been playing. It feels like burying yourself under the covers where you are warm and safe, or the ending credits of a movie.
As winter and my fight against the “Seasonal Scaries” comes to a close, I have and will continue listening to all of these songs. I listen to them in different places, with different people, at different times and in different moods.
Allowing for the season to be as it will be: to be cold and also happy. warm and also sad, and anything else. The earth continues to turn. Music keeps playing.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes