Living in a global pandemic leaves you with little to do to keep yourself entertained. To help combat impending boredom, The Prospect has launched a series in which our Staff recommend content and creative outlets to keep you occupied while you’re stuck in your home. This week, our writers and editors curated some fabulous playlists for you to jam out to during studying. Here are the songs we recommend that you listen to during quarantine.
“Chill Soft Pop/Folk”
Playlist Curated by Prospect Writer Annabelle Duval ’23
In quarantine, I’m not always looking for super-happy music that will make me miss better times, and I also don’t want anything too sad. Soft pop and folk music have the perfect combination of nostalgic but uplifting lyrics, chill vibes, and relaxing rhythms. This playlist has everything from new hits to oldies. It features Maggie Rogers (a personal favorite), Hozier, The Lumineers, Wild Rivers, Fleetwood Mac, Vance Joy, Adele, and many more. Enjoy!
“JPFG’s Prospect Playlist”
Playlist Curated by by Prospect Writer José Pablo Fernández García ’23
It’s summer, 1983 — seventeen years before I was born — in northern Italy. It’s a formative summer for the characters of “Call Me by Your Name”: the inspiration for this playlist. Starting with six songs from the movie’s soundtrack which were all originally released in the early ’80s, I followed this carefree, ’80s summer vibe mostly with other songs from the ’80s but also with a handful of similar, more recent releases. This forms “Side A“ of the playlist.
Lorde’s “Green Light” (from the album “Melodrama,” which merits a recommendation on its own) functions like a pivot as I shift gears for “Side B” of the playlist, dropping the ’80s theme while focusing more on fun summer vibes. I played many of the songs from Part B on loop throughout the summer of 2019, and they bring back some great memories since I was fortunate enough to travel for most of that summer. Along with these songs, I’ve included a number of my favorite songs that I started listening to during this academic year and that matched the playlist’s general vibe.
If you want to jam out, have some fun, and maybe even have a solo quarantine dance party, this playlist is for you. And for those who are curious, these are the six songs from “Call Me by Your Name,” which provided the inspiration for this playlist:
- “J’adore Venise” by Loredana Bertè
- “Paris Latino” by Bandolero
- “Lady, Lady” by Giorgio Moroder & Joe Esposito
- “Words” by F.R. David
- “Radio Varsavia” by Franco Battiato
- “Love My Way” by The Psychedelic Furs
“Know Your Place”
Playlist Curated by Prospect Writer Sreesha Ghosh ’23
I spend a lot of time compounding my sadness in quarantine by listening to even sadder music. But every so often, I like to remind myself of the things I want to look forward to. I created this playlist a fairly long time ago, derived mostly from Instagram edits (a guilty pleasure), but I try to update it as much as I can. It’s mostly contemporary hip-hop/rap music (though I’m not great at identifying genres) ranging from Arizona Zervas to Rae Sremmurd to Chase Atlantic — basically, songs you can sing to whilst feeling incredibly formidable. I’m especially fond of it because it reminds me of Princeton and all the times my friends and I would pregame to this playlist before hitting the Street — but even without those memories, it makes for a fun, animated listen. Every time I hear it start, I feel untouchable. And frankly, that’s not a bad way to dispel the quarantine blues.
“Nighttime Show Tunes for Dreaming”
Playlist Curated by Prospect Editor Paige Allen ’21
I’m a big theater nerd, but show tunes aren’t always the most relaxing songs. This playlist collects a variety of show tunes I listen to when I’m trying to wind down at the end of the day and I want to let my mind wander. I began curating this playlist over the summer when I was living in New York City, and I would often lie in my apartment in the dark before going to sleep, just listening to the music. Listen with the lights out, your eyes closed, and the volume set low, and put the playlist on shuffle with a fade between songs.
“phantasmagoria”
Playlist Curated by Prospect Editor Cammie Lee ’22
I usually build my playlists around two factors: one, temporal situation and, two, genre, but more specifically the kind of atmosphere or mood a particular song evokes. The impulse which sparked “phantasmagoria” corresponds with the latter of the two. Overall, the dominant genre is probably “psychedelia” or psychedelic rock, although the playlist also includes smatterings of French pop with the group L'Impératrice, as well as Zamrock represented by the Zambian group Amanaz. The songs included in the playlist feel hazy and elusive, with lazy beats that seem to stretch time, reminding me of the dream-like worlds that I’ve begun to rely on heavily to escape the monotony of quarantine. Music, in a way, has become a kind of psychedelic trigger that transforms the numbness of repetition and the blurring of the days into something dynamic, pointy, and perhaps a bit aspirational.
“sick beats 🦠”
Playlist Curated by Prospect Writer Monique Legaspi ’22
I’m not particularly good at making playlists; I like to listen to songs in the order in which I first heard them, which tends to be either (a), the pre-established tracklist of the album from whence they came, or (b), the order in which YouTube’s recommendation algorithm reveals them to me. But I tried very hard to compile a playlist of some of my favorite songs, in an order that would sound pleasing to a normal human being. Here, I have purveyed a vast selection of veritable Bops, ranging from the melancholic warbles of Mitski, to the bass-thumping bars of Doja Cat, to the unrestrained bubbliness of Carly Rae Jepsen. Experience such intensely specific and topical moods as:
- the simultaneous gut-wrenching inadequacy and heedlessness that accompanies the loss/nonexistence of a summer internship (“My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars”)
- the yearning for a fleeting young-adulthood as a once-promising spring and summer slip away (“Wasted Youth”)
- the unflinching resolve to commit to self-improvement after being alone with one’s thoughts for a good few weeks and realizing that one does not have one’s shit together (“I Wanna Get Better”)
- bovine flatulence. (“MOOO!”)
You will be taken hostage by my erratic taste in music, and by god, you will love it. (Or skip through 90 percent of the songs. But hopefully love it.) It has all of the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of… perhaps not high school football, but something even greater: surviving quarantine with a good jam stuck in your head!
“Sounds Like Middle School”
Playlist Curated by Prospect Writer Caroline Hana ’23
During quarantine with nothing much happening and long days at home, I find myself going the more nostalgic route. I’ve been down a rabbit hole of revisiting some of my old music memories to make this “Sounds like Middle School” playlist. If you want to listen to some throwbacks from the good ole days hopefully you’ll find that this playlist has some classics from your tween experiences. With songs by Avril Lavigne, Nickelback, The Black Eyed Peas, and Kesha there is really a mix of your 2010s techno pop and angsty teen anthems. Don’t feel guilty about singing along!
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