Five Songs to Get You Through Finals Week

Picture it: you're sitting in Vollum lecture hall, the tremendous walls towering over you as your pencil shakes and you try to write down the answer to the third question. You panic, your vision blurs, and your heart races like it did when you were presented with Wes Anderson's short film masterpiece The Hotel Chevalier. Finally the answer comes to you. There is a heartbeat in your penis. You are coming knowledge. If you're masturbating alone and like me (and you are masturbating alone like me) you're putting on your headphones and bobbing back and forth like a schizophrenic man first exposed to the freak Dali-world inflected folk stylings of Joanna Newsom.

* Silvercrush: "This Time"
Sometimes I am reminded of my younger years: sitting in my room, pontificating on the greater philosophies of the universe, and listening to the greatest musical revolution of the late 90's: Creed. With radio-friendly guitar riffs and thirteenth-generation Eddie Vedder vocals, Silvercrush transports me back to that incredible time in my life when Wes Anderson's Rushmore played on each movie screen and there was nothing in the world but possibility. The lead singer reaches down into the deeply shallow wells of human experience, singing about Jesus like a medieval poet trudging through the muddy fields of Hastings to deliver one last message to his king: "victory."

* Hard Off: "Snogging Horsies"
Forget about sex with people and get back to your paper by thinking about sex with horses instead. Who can resist the call of bestiality when it's encased in such pseudo-glitchy electronica glory? A veritable sonic landscape of beeps, boops, and stunning audial vision will take you for a sexy ride like the infantile incestuous leanings of Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums if they were on shrooms and listening to Ace of Base. The Nine Inch Nails sample not only wants to "fuck [me] like an animal" but also reminds us of the relative size of horse penises. Don't pass this one up!

* The Olivia Tremor Control: "The Sky is a Harpsichord Canvas"
Between the quiet noises and the loud silences like My Bloody Valentine dropped off the edge of the earth into the void, spinning around for decades and considering the human relation to insects before finally finding a guitar and playing the score of Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, this is the most complete song I have ever heard. There is absolutely nothing else to say. The stunningly beautiful chorus shocks me like nothing since I saw the Mona Lisa in person and found out that it was seriously tiny and you're not allowed to take photos. The song is so lonely it's as if you are listening to the shadow of a shadow of a shadow. if you can't rock out, mellow out, dance off, or beat off to this song you simply have no appreciation for the medium of music. And it packs all that into a four second track, too.

* Robert Johnson: "Stop Breakin' Down Blues"
You're in over your head. You're not smart enough for this place. You're channelling the longing and loss of professionally amateur auteur Owen Wilson in Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket. To help you get through the night, put on this song, lean over to the person next to you, and whisper "I'm listening to Robert Johnson, possibly the greatest bluesman ever. What are you listening to? I bet it's not the music that directly influenced the ENTIRE genre of rock and roll. Why not listen to something with a little SOUL? The Decemberists, seriously? Those guys are whiter than a bleached snowball thrown at Pat Boone. You don't belong at Reed." You'll feel much better.

* William S. Burroughs: "Star Me Kitten"
Two words: William Diebold.