At the risk of a) exposing too much about my browser history and b) appearing a deeply sad individual, it must be acknowledged that my YouTube algorithm consistently pushes a very specific type of content: study playlists. More specifically, dark academia study playlists. Frequently overlaying the sound of rain onto popular pieces of classical music, whilst slowly cycling through dramatic, vaguely Gothic shots of ancient libraries, these playlists romanticize long study sessions and burning the midnight oil (literally). Whilst dark academia as a genre certainly has its faults, these playlists are often necessary for providing motivation in the face of your second 2000-word essay this week. Indeed, I have a lot of affection for them.
Despite this, I was still somewhat taken aback when the following playlist popped up on my feed: You’re Studying in an Oxford Library at Night. With almost two million views, this is just one of many dark academia study playlists available across platforms like YouTube and Spotify. Yet, this “playlist for studying in an Oxford library” got me thinking – surely there’s another, more realistic, angle these playlists could take? Where are the playlists that actually capture the feeling of studying in an Oxford library right before exam season?
Beautiful renditions of Saint-Saëns’ ‘The Swan’ from The Carnival of the Animals or Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata are all very well, but surely a playlist for studying in an Oxford library should evoke some slightly more…energetic feelings than those suggested by these pieces. Songs such as ‘Stressed Out’, ‘Help!’, and ‘Under Pressure’ all spring to mind – and yet, at least for now, they will be rejected as being slightly too modern to be considered ‘dark academia.’ Instead, I shall attempt to compile a list of more classical pieces. Music students, please be nice. I’m doing my best here.
So, without further ado, I would like to present The REAL Dark Academia Playlist for Studying in an Oxford Library. It’s finals season, the Rad Cam is full, and you have revision to do. What would be the perfect dark academia playlist to accompany you as you wade through past paper questions and try to uncover what on earth you meant by “huisic of sorrow”, when you scribbled it on that one lecture handout? Well, look no further (and perhaps brace yourself)…
‘Infernal Dance of King Kastchei’ from The Firebird Suite – Igor Stravinsky (1919)
What better way to start a morning of revision than with a nice reminder of how incredibly stressed you feel? From the opening bars of this piece, the shrieking sounds of wind instruments create an appropriate current of unease, if not outright panic. You wobble across the unnecessarily protuberant cobbles all around Radcliffe Square, ducking out of view of as many tourists’ photos as possible. Despite your best efforts, you suspect you have ended up as a background extra in at least three of them. You wish you were listening to something a little more calming, but given that Stravinsky has also written a ballet where people dance themselves to death, you suppose you’d be just as unlikely to find solace in his other pieces.
Night on Bald Mountain – Modest Mussorgsky (1867)
You’re barely late to the Rad Cam but there’s already a queue. You dash up the stairs, as violins quiver aggressively in your ears. Oxford’s aesthetic harks back to earlier days, and whilst the Rad Cam was admittedly built over one hundred years before the composition of this specific piece, you hope the statue of John Radcliffe will forgive your pitiful attempt at embracing the aesthetic of an earlier generation. You look up hopefully, only to see him glaring down at you. The violins shriek – unforgivingly.
Enter Ghost – Judith Bingham (2002)
As though heralded by the piece’s blaring trumpet, the fresher crashing his rucksack down next to you brings an overpowering smell of Lynx along with him. He thwacks a Loeb edition of some important works by Tacitus down on the table and promptly ignores it, opening Instagram Reels instead, all the while chomping on a piece of gum with an unnecessary amount of relish. The chomping noises are disrupted by repeated snorts of laughter as he scrolls through his feed. You hate him instantly. Mostly because he reminds you of those fond days in your youth, when you had no exams darkening your precious Trinity, and you were not staring at LinkedIn with sunken eyes. Oh, to be a first year Classics student wearing a 2024 Leavers’ Hoodie!
‘Lacrimosa’ from Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1791, incomplete)
Someone sneezes and the sound echoes around the Rad Cam. Someone else seizes the opportunity to indulge in the kind of cough that would make a plague victim proud. The fresher next to you is now sniffling. Oh, great. Now you’re going to get sick, on top of having finals. You direct mental curses at all of them as you inwardly mourn both your finals and your immune system.
‘Movement I’ from String Quartet – Ruth Crawford Seeger (1931)
This piece of music is uniquely stressful. The violins are not happy, and neither are you! What a perfect time to tackle a past paper, you tell yourself. You can feel your fear response ramp up as the violins wail in an increasingly tortured manner. You grimace and open the past paper.
‘No. 4: Passacaglia’ from Partita for Eight Voices – Caroline Shaw (2012)
Wonderful. You are trying to write your essay but nothing whirring around in your brain resembles anything remotely essay-able. The singers break free from their (extremely) resonant notes and start feverishly muttering, as you begin to wish you had selected a piece of music that was slightly less odd. But it’s also extremely interesting. You’ve got to hand it to her – Shaw certainly “displays evidence of original thought.” Oh, fantastic. Now you’re quoting the mark scheme back at yourself.
‘Flight of the Bumblebee’, An Interlude from The Tale of Tsar Saltan – Rimsky Korsakov (1900)
Finally! Inspiration has struck. A good thing too – you don’t have much time left if you want to complete your past paper in time. Time to type that essay out as quickly as possible. Somehow, through a bleary haze, you manage it and shut your laptop down. At last.
‘Mississippi River Suite – Excerpt’ from the Mississippi River Suite – Florence Price (1931)
At last, it’s almost time to leave the library for a well-deserved coffee break. You can feel the tension melting away from you as you listen to this instrumental soundscape of a flowing river. You look down at your flashcards to refresh your memory on just a couple more things. You look back at the handout. Frown at it. Turn it upside-down. “Huisic of sorrow?” It’s probably something Derrida came up with. Or maybe Spivak. One of the two. Something notoriously difficult and resistant to interpretation, no doubt. Oh well – it’s a problem for the afternoon. You turn to leave the Rad Cam. You’ve listened to enough music of sorrow for one morning. There is an abrupt crash of symbols, and you stop in your tracks. “Music of sorrow?” Huisic. You can’t read your own handwriting.
Listen to The REAL Dark Academia Playlist for Studying in an Oxford Library here…