Mood Ring Radio
New Year, Same Chaos
January 2025
Every month, Mood Ring Radio curates a playlist that reflects the mood of the moment—whether it’s the shifting seasons, cultural waves, or the energy of major events.
Co-curated by Tricia Chérie and Reilly Marie, this column bridges generations, mixing the new, the nostalgic, and the unexpected. Unlike algorithm-driven lists, we go beyond trends, pulling from any era to fit the vibe.
Because when it comes to music, feeling is everything.
Glass Half Empty: The Playlist for Pessimists
by: Tricia Chérie
The whole ‘new year, new me’ trope just isn’t going to fly this year. Hope for change feels like a scam when wages stagnate, rights disappear, and we’re force-fed hollow optimism while billionaires play kingmakers. For all our technological breakthroughs, 2025 still isn’t the future comic books promised—no utopias, no flying cars, just sleek screens training us to scroll past instead of speaking up.
If you feel vacuum-sealed in existential dread, locked inside a Black Mirror rerun, yeah—same.
These songs won’t inspire you—they’ll sit in the wreckage with you, scoring the feeling of running in circles, watching the world burn, and wondering if things were ever meant to change.
“Digital Silence” Peter McPoland
You swear you’re finally unplugging—no screens, no noise, just a peaceful walk in nature—but the internet has other plans. It grabs you by the collar, shoving a trending topic in your face, whispering (then screaming) that you need to document this moment, check the weather, look up that actor’s name before it drives you insane. Peter McPoland gets it, and Digital Silence is the soundtrack to that exact unraveling.
A chaotic, glitchy fever dream for the hyper-online generation, Digital Silence mirrors our self-inflicted descent into digital dependency. Fueled by distorted vocals, frenetic synths, and a beat that collapses in on itself like a system overload, the song captures the feeling of drowning in artificial noise—anxiety-inducing, inescapable, yet addictively familiar. It’s the sound of knowing the internet is eroding you and still logging back in, unable to resist the pull of the algorithm, even if it takes us all down with it.
“It’s Okay to Punch Nazis” Cheap Perfume
When Cheap Perfume released It’s Okay to Punch Nazis in 2017, it was a blistering, unapologetic middle finger to the hate Trump made mainstream. Straight out of Colorado’s femcore punk scene, they sounded the alarm—screaming about fascism before most took it seriously.
Eight years later, that warning hasn’t just become reality—it’s metastasized. Trump is back, and the rot never left. “Never thought that it would happen,but now look where we are / We’d rather have a rapist than a woman in power.”
If The Donnas and Le Tigre had a riotous love child, it’d sound like Cheap Perfume—sharp, snarling, and feminist as hell, fusing hardcore grit with bratty early-2000s alt-pop defiance. Like a storm alarm before disaster, Cheap Perfume’s message is impossible to ignore: ‘We’ve had to say a lot of stuff we thought was fucking obvious, like yes, it’s okay to punch Nazis.’ We fought, we thought we won, but history keeps clawing its way back from the grave.
Lorn’s Acid Rain feels like a slow-motion sonic descent into an inescapable abyss. Its droning synths and shadowy production create a creeping sense of dread, like a recurring nightmare.
Known for his dark ambient sound Lorn builds sonic worlds that feel both cinematic and apocalyptic. Acid Rain, released in 2017, is an end of times love story—a realization that the battle is lost, but at least you’re facing the end with someone who matters.
Like its namesake, Acid Rain represents slow, inevitable destruction. Real acid rain, fueled by pollution, corrodes forests, poisons water, and accelerates climate decay—a fitting parallel to the song’s themes. The horror-tinged music video, which won Best Dance Video at the UK Music Video Awards in 2015, visualizes this decay: bloodied cheerleaders emerge from a car crash, staggering through a neon-lit diner like ghosts in their final performance. Their hypnotic, synchronized dance mirrors the inescapable collapse—whether personal, environmental, or existential.
Sola Guinto’s Armageddon feels like a distorted transmission from a future already in free fall. It drops listeners into 2045’s smoldering ruins—where petrified forests, dried-up oceans, and acid rain are just another Tuesday. Over Faffi’s chaotic, glitch-soaked production, Sola delivers each line with deadpan humor and manic urgency, guiding us through a world where humanity has lost control—so why not dance in the fallout? “Look up at the fire in the sky / It’s alright, we’ll make a human sacrifice.” It’s bleak, absurd, and uncomfortably close to home.
Born in the SF Bay Area and now based in Manchester, Sola thrives on sonic chaos, crafting music like a dark-web fever dream wrapped in distorted pop. Armageddon runs wild with that ethos, colliding hyperpop, punk, and electro-anarchy into a dystopian thrill ride. Faffi’s jagged synths and pummeling beats only amplify the song’s unhinged energy. The result? A soundtrack for the end times—part satire, part party anthem, part existential crisis. If this is a preview of what’s ahead, Sola Guinto isn’t just making music—she’s broadcasting warnings from a future we may not escape.
“Flirt With A Gun” Dews Pegahorn
Dews Pegahorn’s Flirt With a Gun is a confession wrapped in a trap beat—a slow spiral of addiction and loss. Over brooding basslines and hypnotic percussion, Pegahorn’s weary delivery captures a cycle of destruction where escape is fleeting and the past lingers. “I lost my sun; I hope one day it’ll shine again,” he admits, but hope feels like an afterthought. The gun isn’t just a symbol—it’s a voice, murmuring bittersweet promises of release that refuse to be ignored.
A rising force in Stuttgart’s hip-hop and trap scenes, Pegahorn thrives in the tension between numbness and desperation. His seamless flow and dark, immersive production make Flirt With a Gun more than a breakup track—it’s a love song for ruin. In a world where escape is an illusion, Pegahorn doesn’t soften the fall—he makes it impossible to look away.
Glass Half Full: Soundtracking New Beginnings
by: Reilly Marie
Every year January comes in sharp—cold air, fresh starts, and that quiet pressure to reinvent yourself. The calendar’s been wiped clean, but have we? Whether you’re chasing big resolutions or just trying to shake off the past, these five tracks are here for the ride, soundtracking the messy, unpredictable journey of change.
“Yes I’m Changing” – Tame Impala
“There is a world out there and it’s calling my name.”
Tame Impala has mastered the art of dreamy psychedelia, and Yes I’m Changing is a perfect example. The track sways between hazy synths and introspective lyrics, wrapping listeners in a trance-like reflection on growth, loss, and renewal. It’s a song about outgrowing past versions of yourself—painful but necessary—as you step toward something new. Change isn’t just inevitable; it’s essential.
“Anything Could Happen” – Ellie Goulding
“But I don’t think I need you.”
When Anything Could Happen dropped in 2012 as the lead single from Halcyon, it was a big moment for Ellie Goulding.
With its shimmering production and ethereal vocals, the song felt like pure possibility—big, bright, and a little otherworldly. Some critics weren’t sold on its structure, but its delicate harmonies and soaring chorus made it a festival favorite and a go-to anthem for self-discovery.
Over a decade later, its hopeful energy still hits. A TikTok trend gave it new life, soundtracking major life transitions and proving the song’s staying power.
“I wave goodbye to the end of beginning.”
Djo (the musical project of Stranger Things star Joe Keery) delivers a nostalgic yet hopeful meditation on endings and fresh starts.
With its shimmering indie-synth production, End of Beginning captures the bittersweet moment of closing one chapter and stepping into the next. The track feels like the soundtrack to a late-night drive, reflecting on everything that’s passed while looking ahead with quiet anticipation.
“The people are talking, people are talking, let ‘em talk.”
Starting over can be lonely. Lorde’s A World Alone gets that—when everything feels uncertain, and the noise of doubt is impossible to ignore, the one person you can always count on is yourself. The track moves between smooth, introspective verses and pulsing beats, capturing the push and pull between fear and resilience. A stark reminder that carving your path is hardly ever easy, but it’s always worth it.
“I’ll be fine on my own, own.”
Mac Miller’s Missed Calls dives into the messy side of change—the kind clouded by regret and what-ifs.
Soaked with hazy guitars and low-burning melancholy, it lingers between nostalgia and inevitability, caught in the push and pull of moving forward while the past refuses to let go. The lyrics linger on what’s been lost, but underneath the sadness, there’s quiet acceptance: sometimes, growing means letting go.
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