December Listening

December arrives and you’re sick of Christmas music before December even starts. Ladyhawke’s been my antidote—there’s something about that production, the cold precision of it, that matches the way winter actually feels. Clean, austere, a refusal to perform emotion. Lykke Li does something similar but from deeper inside, all that weight but never melodramatic. The Ting Tings bring pure momentum, no apologies.

The rest fall into the same category. The Script, Mandi Perkins, The Submarines—artists just doing their work without trying to fit or reject the season. Maybe that’s what December needs. Not music that’s aware of itself seasonally, just music that sounds good when everything around you is trying to tell you how to feel.