{"id":868025,"date":"2025-12-01T21:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=868025"},"modified":"2025-12-01T21:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:15:00","slug":"the-feel-good-songs-getting-vogue-staffers-through-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=868025","title":{"rendered":"The Feel-Good Songs Getting Vogue Staffers Through Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The \u201cDopamine Songs\u201d Seeing Vogue<\/em> Staffers Through the Darkness<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Emma Specter<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Collage by Vogue<\/em>; Photos: Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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We at Vogue<\/em> have nothing but admiration for people who thrive in winter. It\u2019s easy to be in a good mood when it\u2019s warm out and the leaves are green, but how do you summon cheer when it\u2019s freezing, the trees are bare, and every subway ride is a jam-packed sauna of people in bulky coats?<\/p>\n

Well, if you\u2019re a Vogue<\/em> staffer, keeping one great song on repeat sure helps. Below, find a round-up of the songs giving us crucial, hard-to-source dopamine as fall officially gives way to winter. Happy listening!<\/p>\n

\u201cRoller Girl,\u201d Anna Karina<\/h2>\n
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\u201960s French pop is reliably good at getting me out of bed when I\u2019d much rather sleep the day away (yes, seasonal depression eventually comes for us even in Los Angeles), and this 1967 hit by Anna Karina, the Danish-French actress and director who embodied the French New Wave in Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s films, is the perfect sexy-yet-upbeat soundtrack for a quick shower, a hot cup of coffee, and a long drive to some random part of Southern California to pick up a vintage dinette set from Craigslist. \u2014Emma Specter, culture writer<\/p>\n

\u201cMore Than You,\u201d Anita Baker<\/h2>\n
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Unfortunately, many of the songs on Compositions<\/em>\u2014arguably Anita\u2019s masterpiece!\u2014aren\u2019t on Spotify, so accessing the mood-altering effects of this one, or \u201cPerfect Love Affair,\u201d or \u201cFairy Tales\u201d requires me to first open YouTube<\/em> and wait through an ad.<\/em> (Ugh!) But the payoff? Anita Baker at her swoony, croony best. I single out \u201cMore Than You Know\u201d for a few reasons: the lyrics are beautiful word soup (\u201cWasting my time \/ Everybody says I\u2019m wasting my time \/ I must reply \/ That the time I waste is certainly mine\u201d); the Spanish guitar is so<\/em> 1990 (complimentary); and near the end, Anita ad-libs this grunt-y sound on the beat that simply sends me into orbit every time. \u2014Marley Marius, senior editor, features and news<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Girls at the Party,\u201d The Beaches<\/h2>\n
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\u201cLast Girls at the Party,\u201d is adrenaline in sonic form. I remember thinking this would be the song of my\u2014if not the<\/em>\u2014summer, and turns out it\u2019s a song for fall, for the darkening days of winter, and beyond. As my four-year-old daughter will tell you, this ode to partying just works, even if your bedtime is 9 p.m. \u2014Chloe Schama, senior editor<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Not Part of Me,\u201d Cloud Nothings<\/h2>\n
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What does it say about you if a noisy, emo-adjacent\u00a0midwestern indie anthem from 2014 about breaking up with someone lifts your mood more reliably than any controlled substance ever has? Probably that you\u2019re above the age of 35, male, and dealing with hearing loss. Whatever: Cloud Nothings is a perfect rock band, and their ferocious fourth album, Here and Nowhere Else,<\/em>\u00a0and especially\u00a0its closing single,\u00a0is an instant mood lift. \u2014Taylor Antrim, Global Network Lead & US deputy editor<\/p>\n

\u201cI Found My Smile Again,\u201d D\u2019Angelo<\/h2>\n
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I\u2019m a longtime D\u2019Angelo fan, but his untimely death earlier this year sent me back into his catalog, and I\u2019ve really latched on to \u201cI Found My Smile Again\u201d from the Space Jam<\/em> soundtrack (which, per Questlove, was a Brown Sugar<\/em> reject!). The bouncy bass and D\u2019Angelo\u2019s falsetto never fail to put a spring in my step. \u2014Hannah Jackson, fashion writer<\/p>\n

\u201c7,\u201d Dean Blunt and Elias Bender R\u00f8nnenfelt<\/h2>\n
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Not all dopamine hits are rainbow-colored bursts of sunny energy. What gives me a boost is a beautiful, soothing voice; hence my obsession with Dean Blunt and Elias R\u00f8nnenfelt\u2019s collaborative work. It\u2019s a match made in heaven that has yielded many jewels\u2014\u201dSeven\u201d being top among them. The synchronicity of Blunt\u2019s guitar and the scratchy depth of\u00a0 R\u00f8nnenfelt\u2019s voice is hypnotic and happy-making in a sweet, melancholy kind of way. \u2014Laird Borrelli-Persson, senior archive editor<\/p>\n

\u201cYou Gotta Be,\u201d Des\u2019ree<\/h2>\n
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This song is everything to me\u2014my go-to karaoke hit, my uplifting song when I\u2019m sad, my instant 1990s nostalgia kick. I have vivid memories of hearing this song on the radio (like, every day?), and whenever I listen to it, I can\u2019t help but get a serotonin boost. I read a YouTube comment recently that said listening to it feels like getting a warm hug, and I have to agree. \u2014Christian Allaire, senior fashion and style writer<\/p>\n

\u201cChequeless Reckless,\u201d Fontaines D.C.<\/h2>\n
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I sincerely cannot think of another modern-day band that embodies the unapologetic yet poetic, don\u2019t-give-a-fuck attitude of Fontaines D.C.\u2014which is refreshing, given the performative, apolitical state of music today. When I\u2019m internally fuming and need a dopamine hit to level out my feminine rage, the lyrics of this song hits like no other. It\u2019s the equivalent of being at a poetry reading and wanting to snap in approval, while simultaneously kind of wanting to mosh. \u2014Concetta Ciarlo, commerce writer, Vogue Beauty<\/p>\n

\u201cDaydreaming,\u201d Harry Styles<\/h2>\n
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\u201cDaydreaming\u201d by Harry Styles consistently lands in my top 10 songs every year. The intro alone makes makes me want to have a good day every day (or at least turn a bad one into a good one). And even though it\u2019s more of a spring\/summer song, putting it on on a cold, winter day will always boost my mood. \u2014Kylee McGuigan, associate production manager<\/p>\n

\u201cLady (Hear Me Tonight),\u201d Modjo<\/h2>\n
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This song is an injection of joy from the very first chords, which have the added bonus of instantly inciting dance moves. It\u2019s youth and freedom transformed into sound! \u2014Laia Garcia-Furtado,
senior fashion news editor, Vogue Runway<\/p>\n

\u201cCustody,\u201d Paul St. Hilaire<\/h2>\n
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Music that specifically makes me happy is usually music that gets me off the grid\u2014something that\u2019s not locked into a 4\/4 beat; something without a cynical, saccharine hook\u2014and the voice of Dominican-born singer and techno dub artist Paul St. Hilaire (reminiscent, in the best ways, of the legendary Horace Andy) never disappoints. The genre of this is pitched somewhere in the gorgeous intersection of dub, techno dub, and lovers rock, with dashes of all sorts of other things thrown in, and evokes an eternal sunshine, even from the depths of a cold and damp New York winter. \u2014Corey Seymour, senior editor<\/p>\n

\u201cNever Enough,\u201d Turnstile<\/h2>\n
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This was the song I played most this year whenever I needed a mood boost\u2014something about those euphoric synths giving way to a thundering electric guitar riff just really gets me going. (Not coincidentally, it is also perfect music for stomping down a busy train platform or crowded street, a sub-genre I should really make a specific\u00a0Spotify playlist\u00a0for.) \u2014Liam Hess, senior lifestyle and weddings editor<\/p>\n

\u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d Zara Larsson<\/h2>\n
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In the height of Swedish summer, the sun never dips below the horizon. The prospect of never having to experience the pit in your stomach when the revelry feels like it\u2019s waning, or the anxiety you (I) experience when papering up the windows of an after-party for fear of the sunrise, because the sun never set in the first place<\/em>. Scandi pop girl of the year Zara Larsson captures that voracious, thrill-seeking feeling in the Grammy-nominated banger \u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d percolating with trance-y production and her earth-shattering E5 note. I have mastered around six (6) seconds of the viral TikTok dance that accompanies it, and that makes me feel invincible. \u2014Anna Oliva Cafolla, news editor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/vogue-dopamine-songs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music The \u201cDopamine Songs\u201d Seeing Vogue Staffers Through the Darkness By Emma Specter December 1, 2025 Collage by Vogue; Photos: Getty Images We at Vogue have nothing but admiration for people who thrive in winter. It\u2019s easy to be in a good mood when it\u2019s warm out and the leaves are green, but how do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":868026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-868025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=868025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/868026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=868025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=868025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=868025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}