Japanese Breakfast
A song written in the voice of a wealthy, self-justifying man who frames his hoarding and moral compromises as acts of devotion.…
late capitalism and wealth hoarding toxic masculinity and possessiveness climate apocalypse
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash, in his final recording years, builds an apocalyptic vision almost entirely out of scripture, particularly…
judgment and reckoning mortality apocalypse
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A climate-grief anthem that frames ecological collapse as an inherited catastrophe, addressed both to a failing planet and to a…
climate anxiety intergenerational blame powerlessness
Bill Callahan
A closing statement for an album called Apocalypse, this song imagines departure as both a literal ride into open country and a…
mortality departure and retirement personal apocalypse
The Shins
A survivalist's bunker monologue set to an oddly buoyant melody, this song imagines nuclear or environmental apocalypse as a…
apocalypse and isolation denial and coping through routine loss of a loved one
Black Sabbath
A doom-laden vision of nuclear apocalypse rendered as a kind of blackened hymn, cataloguing the literal physical destruction of…
nuclear annihilation dehumanization/mechanization environmental collapse
Phoebe Bridgers
A road-trip through American landscapes and personal apocalypse, where the singer's private exhaustion with a relationship and a…
apocalypse (personal and national) homesickness and rootlessness burnout and exhaustion in relationships
Steely Dan
A supermarket-style PA announcement becomes the herald of an apocalypse, as Steely Dan stages consumer culture's final…
consumerism as religion apocalypse/end times American decline
Patti Smith
This is a cover of the Rolling Stones' 1969 apocalyptic ballad, and Patti Smith treats it less as a rock anthem than as an…
apocalypse and dread the fragility of shelter violence versus tenderness
The Rolling Stones
A song built from apocalyptic weather and violence, treating storm, fire, flood, war, and rape as a single continuous threat…
apocalypse and dread violence and its proximity the search for shelter/refuge
Bob Dylan
Dylan turns a real Mississippi highway into a corridor where biblical myth, seedy commerce, and apocalyptic farce all converge.…
American mythology and violence commodification and exploitation absurdist apocalypse
Nina Simone
This is a short, incantatory hymn of hope written by Nina Simone (music by her, lyrics credited to Simone and Gene Taylor) that…
utopian hope collective liberation religious apocalypse
Pixies
A hallucinatory apocalyptic chant built from disconnected images and a mysterious title figure, 'Mr. Grieves' plays like a…
apocalypse/deluge faith and belief without content death and mortality
Laura Marling
This is a cover of Bob Dylan's 1963 apocalyptic ballad, structured as a call-and-response between a questioning parent and a…
apocalypse and prophecy witness and testimony social collapse
Beck
A hypnotic, blues-inflected chant built around a single image—a lightning strike—that expands from a personal vision into a…
apocalypse/environmental collapse revelation and being struck down spiritual surrender
Weezer
A breezy, synth-pop surface hides a set of oddly bruised, disconnected images -- loss, isolation, and a relationship that has…
emotional avoidance loss and grief digital-age isolation
Joan Baez
A surreal farewell built from disconnected, dreamlike images that escalate toward apocalypse, with a refrain that keeps…
departure and urgency apocalyptic imagery refusal of blame
Thom Yorke
A hypnotic, half-sung meditation on environmental unease and emotional distance, built from mechanical urban sounds and a flood…
environmental dread urban alienation emotional distance
R.E.M.
A torrent of disconnected images—natural disasters, media noise, Cold War figures, cultural detritus—gets fired off at…
information overload apocalyptic anxiety played as comedy media saturation