Winter is my favorite season. The weather is crisp and the scenery is beautiful. Not to mention it’s Oscar season. But what I love the most about winter is that we slow down our lives and reflect. We can look back on the year, reminisce about the good times and try to see what we did wrong during the bad times. It’s also a time to look ahead at the year that awaits.
And, with the inability to do so much, we really enjoy what we can do. We don’t go on big truck-haulings with our families. Instead, we just sit around the fire and make a genuine connection with each other. It’s funny how much we can do when we’re stripped of all our social media.
These albums don’t contain any radio blasting, fly-through-the-highway anthems. Some only use two or three instruments throughout. But these albums are detailed, character-driven, and essential to the thoughts and feelings of winter.
1. Kid A - Radiohead
Released: 2000
Even the cover shows it’s winter. Kid A is the experimental magnum opus of Radiohead, ranked by Rolling Stone as the best album of the 2000s. The album feels like a hail storm through and through, from the calculated synthesizers in “Everything in it’s Right Place” to the icy breeze of “Treefingers.” Hom York and Co. discuss dark themes in this album such as loneliness, sadness, and fear for what the future has to offer.
Best track: “The National Anthem”
2. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver
Released: 2007
The summer fling is over and all you can do is think about what went wrong. Following the breakup with his girlfriend, singer-songwriter Justin Vernon moved to his cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin for the winter of 2006, looking to hibernate. What came out was a nine song record, consisting of not much more than Vernon’s soft voice and a guitar. Without an overload of instruments thrown at them, the listener can focus on each careful note the guitar makes as it is strummed, sometimes soft and melodic, like in “Blindsided,” and sometimes loud and cacophonous like in “The Wolves (Acts I and II).” This album is primarily about Vernon’s breakup and what it’s done to him since, something that most of us can connect with.
Best track: “Lump Sum”
3. 808s and Heartbreak - Kanye West
Released: 2008
Get ready for the “coldest story ever told,” Kanye says on his track “Heartless,” another breakup album. After finishing the college trilogy (The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation), Kanye West threw everyone off with this sad, autotune-filled record. Following the death of his mother and breakup with his fiancé, Mr. West gave us his struggle through song. This was a huge departure from his first three albums, which often gave old-school jams and big social statements. 808s brings a toned down Kanye that doesn’t criticize the world but instead himself, giving time to reflect on what he’s become and where he is to go in a vulnerable, unKanye-like way. To open the record is “Say You Will,” a dark track that has instrumentals resembling a heart monitor, with a patient (West) almost taking his last breath. Originally panned by critics, 808s and Heartbreak has slowly become one of the most influential albums of the twenty-first century through infusion of R&B into hip hop, influencing artists like Drake and the Weeknd to be what they are today.
Best track: “Amazing”
4. Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend
Released: 2013
Although looking ahead for the new year can be exciting, it can also be horrifying. Vampire Weekend’s third full-length Modern Vampires of the City touches on the horror of the 20-something, looking for stability, a career and a purpose in life. Disengaging from the normally lighthearted tone, City is Vampire Weekend’s most mature album. The lyrics are exquisite, talking about the afterlife in “Unbelievers,” relationships in “Hannah Hunt,” and God in “Ya Hey.” But, despite the maturity and angst of the album, it ends optimistically, saying “you take your time, young lion,” to not worry about the future and just let it come when it does.
Best track: “Step”
5. Comedown Machine - The Strokes
Released: 2013
The Strokes are known for their summertime garage rock anthems in their debut album “Is This It?”. While the following three tried their best to recapture that sound, Comedown Machine flips it on its head, and what comes out is a sleek, sexy, and short record. It’s very 80s, judging that the song most resembling the album title is “80s Comedown Machine,” with synth pop dominating, and lead guitar and the trademark screaming filtered vocals of Julia Casablanca taking a back seat, or, essentially, coming down. This isn’t a sad record actually. It plays around a lot, like the lyric in “Welcome to Japan,” “Didn’t really know this/What kind of asshole drives a Lotus?”. This record is a reminder that opportunities can be lost in rock and roll with instrumentation, and sometimes, the quieter we get, the better we can hear.
Best track: “Call it Fate, Call it Karma”
