By Melanie Nava Urribarri
It’s that time of year again: midterms season. Instead of fantasizing about the next $5 meal you’ll buy for $35 on Uber Eats or falling down a TikTok rabbit hole for hours like Alice in Wonderland, it’s time to stop spacing out—pull out those notes you definitely took in class and get studying. But what’s studying without some good music that gets you in the mood? Check out these five essential tracks to get you through the five stages of midterm grief.
Heat Waves by Glass Animals
Midterms? As if! This is the perfect song for that first stage of delusional denial to help you forget about studying and place you back in the ‘middle of June’ with your summer fling. Reminisce about the good times where you didn’t have overdue assignments or a midterm looming over you. Oh, what was that? Not a new email notification from your professor, surely—sounded more like the melodious ring of an ice cream truck.
You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi
Click click, tap tap; your fingers type away furiously while the WhatsApp group chat is as dry as the Sahara Desert the moment you need answers most. ‘How could no one be on their phones right now?’ you start thinking. ‘Are they doing this on purpose? After everything we’ve been through?’ Whether or not you get those answers with panic settling in, You Give Love a Bad Name will have you singing (or yelling) out your frustrations at the utter betrayal from your classmates. Remember, letting out your anger can be healthy after all.
Love Me More by Mitski
All can’t be lost, right? Maybe if you give up watching that new episode of Love is Blind (USA or Japan, or probably both), the universe will reward you with good karma. While you push through the bargaining stage and scroll desperately through weirdly-formatted PowerPoints, what better artist to work through it all with than Mitski? Poetic genius Mitski’s song Love Me More will capture your pleading and praying to all that is good and holy in the hope that you make it through this year’s midterms. You’ve done it before, why not now? You just ‘love enough to drown [the doubt] out.’
Watercolor Eyes by Lana Del Rey
Have your eyes begun to water? Do you have more comfort snacks out on your desk than textbooks and open tabs combined? Let’s be honest, that special relationship with procrastination wasn’t meant to last forever. For the depression stage, open up one more tab and add Watercolor Eyes to your midterm study playlist. Who else can sing your woes like Lana Del Rey? This song will bring back past feelings of heartbreak, desire and make you miss that person you should hate while those words you’re supposed to be memorizing get all blurry. But really, it’s time to let go. You should have started studying earlier to get that dream grade.
Mount Everest by Labrinth
The cage of depression cracks, the smell of fresh air hits you and you reach out to the light as you finally see the end. You’re free! Or, almost free. It’s time for acceptance. Now that you’re out of tears and remembered how genuinely resilient you are, this song will have you feeling like you’re ‘on top of the world,’ setting the mood for when you’ve convinced yourself you’ve done all you can to study, even if you’ve only skimmed over the last few pages of the notes and haven’t taken a look at the final chapter just posted by your professor. It’s all in the mindset, right? How could you possibly fail those midterms now?
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