Exam season is among us. Can you hear the collective cry of anxiety, panic and desperation? It sounds a little something like 'FUCK!'
I've always been more of a person who can thrive in their own time (usually during all-nighters in the library) through coursework, so I counted my lucky stars that my degree was completely exam-free. That's not to rub it in - by that point I'd been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and ruined it during one of those unnecessarily snotty crying sessions.
Now I'm back at college for my journalism diploma, I'm back in the exam rooms and I'm once again trying to shift my anxieties. It's tough, I get it. I'm not here to 'do a Jacob Sartorius' (the little twatface), I'm just here to remind you that there's no music that can get you more psyched before entering that deathly quiet exam hall than pop-punk.
Songs about love, songs about the summer, songs about your friends, songs about your hometown, songs about getting out of your hometown with your friends, in the summer no less... The tiniest melody or shortest lyric just does something to you that makes you want to jump around like every early-00s pop-punk band you watched on Kerrang! (Remember: it's hop-hop-tuck jump-hop, repeat...)
I was inspired to make an exam season edition of THE RR PLAYLIST after a friend told me that the pop-punk playlist I had made for myself on Spotify (appropriately titled Pre-Exam Posi Vibes) helped him out too before we sat the same exam. Below are 10 pop-punk songs to invigorate your very best feels, be it in a cathartic process or an all-out burst of positivity. After a blast of this, you'll be ready to go 'OH YEAH? WELL FUCK YOU TOO, EXAMS.'
I'm not going to say anything more on the featured tracks as I have previously done with The RR Playlists, because let's face it, you've got better things to do than hear me wazzing off about how good New Found Glory are. There's plenty of opportunities for that on the other side of exam season. Instead, here are 3 lyrics from the playlist to give you a quick burst of the happy feels...
"ONE STEP AT A TIME, ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER, I'M GONNA GET THROUGH THIS, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER"
- Alan Day & Dan O'Connor Four Year Strong - 'One Step At A Time'
"THIS FEELING WILL ONLY GET BETTER, I'LL JUST HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER"
- Eddy Brewerton, Moose Blood - 'Honey'
AAAAND my personal favourite:
"IN THIS VAST NETWORK OF SHARKS AND MINNOWS, WHERE THE MINNOWS OUTNUMBER THE SHARKS A MILLION TO ONE, WHY IS IT THAT WE HAVE YET TO CONVERGE? TO TAKE ON THE UPPER HAND? WHY HAVE WE BEEN SO SCARED? WELL NOT TODAY, NOT ANYMORE, THIS IS US GROWING UP, STILL YOUNG BUT NO LONGER OPPRESSIONABLE, WE HAVE COME TO PILLAGE, WE HAVE COME TO BURN, WE HAVE COME TO INCITE THE RIOT, WE HAVE COME TO TAKE IT OVER!"
- Jordan Brown & Matt Wilson, Set Your Goals - 'Mutiny!'
(If you don't feel like you could fuck the sky after hearing that, then you need help)
Think of the summer. Think of festivals. Think of warm cans of cider. Think of the fact that I managed to graduate from university, and look at me, I'm a wreck.
And if that doesn't help, here's Bill Murray with the final words...
Danny
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