Music Critic Archie Marks shares his essential listening for the winter months

English Lit & Creative Writing student at UoB. Enjoyer of pop music and pornstar martinis.
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Images by Alex Muromtsev
As the days get shorter, the trees barer and the air colder, many of our listening habits will adapt accordingly. Some of us warm up with inviting singer-songwriter fare; some of us bask in the quietude and reflection that winter provides; some of us yearn for an escape to warmer times. Whether staring out the window at the snow, avoiding puddles on the way to lectures or cosied under a blanket with a cup of tea, here’s some of my favourite music I turn to every winter.

No matter if you celebrate Christmas or not, I’m sure you’ve already had your fill of Wham and Shakin’ Stevens. (Not you, Mariah. They could never make me hate you, Mariah.) If, like me, you find the festive season stressful and even isolating, I invite you to consider the Joni Mitchell of it all. Of course, her orchestral version of ‘Both Sides Now’ soundtracks the best scene of the best Christmas film – ‘Love Actually’ – but a tune of hers that I have on repeat every Christmas is ‘River’. Steeping the opening chords of ‘Jingle Bells’ in a minor key, Mitchell is filled with dread and regret amidst a lonesome piano. ‘It’s coming on Christmas,’ she sings, ‘they’re cutting down trees’ – unable to celebrate as she wades through an swamp of grief induced by a breakup.

In fact, Mitchell’s album Blue – from which ‘River’ is taken – is an ideal soundtrack for the stillness and solitude that seems to settle over January and February like a thick fog. Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell also invites listeners to sit in their feelings, its guitar-led instrumentation evoking a lonely poet strumming away in a log cabin (Bon Iver’s For Ever, Forever Agoand Adrianne Lenker’s songs were actually both recorded in this exact fashion). Calico by Ryan Beatty weaves around a tapestry of knotty feelings while making its way through a snow-covered forest; much of Taylor Swift’s Evermore dwells in a similar contemplative space. On ‘Marjorie’, she eulogises her grandmother, reminiscing a memory of ‘long limbs and frozen swims’ before admitting ‘I should’ve asked you questions / I should’ve asked you how to be’. It is a cocktail of guilt, grief and existentialism whose effects pair most naturally with winter’s unforgiving cold.

Mitchell’s album Blue … is an ideal soundtrack for the stillness and solitude that seems to settle over January and February like a thick fog.

There are also those songs that burst forth from chilly acoustics into more expansive production – as though the artist is tiptoeing on an icy pond before descending into the chilly depths. Reneé Rapp’s ‘Snow Angel’ simmers with rage before exploding like a hot kettle in its bridge; Lucy Dacus’ ‘Night Shift’ leaves an ex-lover in the dust before Dacus realises the depth of her loss; Ethel Cain’s ‘Strangers’ spins a tale of a woman who looks from beyond the grave after being cannibalised by her lover. ‘Am I making you feel sick?’, she begs to know in the climactic bridge, imagining holding a knife to her killer’s throat while bitter in the knowledge that she could never wield that power.
As a salve to winter’s bitter harshness, I try to spin cosier, more inviting records, pairing them with a hot drink and a book. Maggie Rogers’ Don’t Forget Me, Arlo Parks’ Collapsed in Sunbeams, and Clairo’s Sling all combine diaristic lyricism with lush, warm production, the richness of plucked guitars and lilting drums forming a comfort blanket in audio form. On his song ‘Angel Baby’, meanwhile, Troye Sivan shelters from the cold and dances in the kitchen with a lover, in a power ballad so stirring it begs to be played at a beachside wedding.
Though, it’ll be at least four months until it’s warm enough to visit the beach, and so as I mourn summer I love returning to music that shares my craving for a different time. Pandemic albums in particular capture the isolation and longing of winter impeccably well. Charli xcx’s How I’m Feeling Now finds the restless artist staying optimistic amidst trying times; Fetch the Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple also expresses a feeling of being caged in, capturing the yearning and angst of staying indoors.

…diaristic lyricism with lush, warm production, the richness of plucked guitars and lilting drums forming a comfort blanket in audio form.

If none of these picks help you either process or get over your winter blues, then maybe reminiscing on BRAT summer will do you some good. Failing that, then reach for the Bailey’s.

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