As finals week approaches with no sign of stopping (unfortunately), here is a list of curated study music. Rather than the usual Spotify playlist, however, I’ve chosen to recommend a list of my favorite study music YouTube channels. They’re all gems filled with a whole curation of study music of their own to explore, and I’ve linked to the channels as well as my favorite video/playlist of that channel. Instrumental music has been immensely helpful for my own studying, and I hope these channels can help you out too. 

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Playlist: Lofi Music for “Hifi” Studying

Library visits, earbuds in, crackling radio stations, fresh textbooks, the sound of pencils, warm candles, iced coffee, productive work.

ChilledCow

If you’ve never seen this video, then you’ve probably never heard of lofi either, in which case, how do you even study? (By the way, if you didn’t know, “lofi” stands for “low-fidelity,” which is for music that appears to have a lower quality recording, and might include sounds such as vinyl crackles.) ChilledCow’s “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to” is famous for the “study girl,” who’s definitely accompanied me on a few late study nights of my own. The entire ChilledCow YouTube channel (and Spotify account, for that matter) is worth checking out.

The Jazz Hop Cafe

I love the concepts on this one, and the lofi always matches the concept/mood of each video really well. For example, of their videos is called “midnight aura,” and it makes me feel like it’s the middle of the night, during those calm times when it feels like nothing or no one is awake. My top three favorite videos are probably “side streets,” “breakfast,” and “metro mix,” and The Jazz Hop Cafe is probably my favorite lofi channel right now. 

130mood

I actually found out about this channel because I was following her journaling account on Instagram when she made a YouTube channel. I checked it out thinking it would be a journaling channel, but it turned out to be lofi (which is even better). So I can reasonably say I was around since 100 subs? That’s pretty cool. I really like her videos themselves; although these lofi channels are here to provide music, I think having an aesthetic visual helps, and this channel is definitely up there.  

Fantastic Music

Out of all the lofi channels I follow, I think Fantastic Music probably has the most jazzy lofi curations, which I love listening to while studying, since I’ve found that most songs on this channel don’t have a very strong drum beat. In fact, this was my go-to study music channel for quite a while.

Cafe Music BGM channel

If you’re more into “jazz jazz” rather than lofi jazz, this channel is perfect. A lot of the music on this channel is in the bossa nova genre, and as the channel name suggests, most, if not all, of the curations offer a cafe ambience. My personal favorite is the Studio Ghibli music jazz curation.

Ambition

There’s a lot of variety on this channel, but the cute lofi curations from Ambition always get recommended to me by YouTube. Those videos always make me feel better, and the music is just so wholesome.

the bootleg boy

This channel’s “R A I N I N G” lofi series is probably my favorite lofi curation to exist. Ever. I just love the rain. Sometimes, when I’m trying to do some very focused reading, I just play rain sounds if the music gets too distracting. But this playlist is a perfect balance, and I think it matches almost any situation that necessitates lofi. (Need to study? Check. Need to sleep? Check. Need to lay on your bed and just stare at the ceiling? Check. Need to clean your room? Check. Need to have an existential crisis—wait, what?)

cribblingdepression

I love how nostalgic the music on this channel feels, and a lot of the videos start off with lofi that has a little bit of talking, and the dialogue always matches the theme of the music so well. Some of the songs do tend to have strong drum beats which I personally don’t like while studying, but the playlists overall are really nice.

Chillhop Music

This channel has the best lofi livestreams. A cute raccoon working, studying, napping, walking the streets at night, listening to vinyl, and drinking coffee? Yes, please. 

relief

This is the channel that introduced me to lofi study music, and I still remember the video I first watched. The channel was actually called “R L I F E” back then. I haven’t listened to a lot of videos from this channel, but from the videos I have listened to, I think the curations tend to have lofi with a lot of texture (with non-music sounds such as leaves, springs, and such), which makes it sounds really cute and wholesome.

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By the way, don’t forget to check out your 2019 Spotify Wrapped! If you’d like to know a bit about your blogger’s music taste, here’s a link to my top songs of 2019: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1Ethki9o5fX5oy?si=x8k7l9e2Qfq_bhZPbT5REw.  

Hopefully, you were able to discover a couple of new lofi channels to help with some high-quality finals studying. Less than ten days until winter break… you got this!

On this blog, Shruthi Ravichandran and Grace Xu provide monthly curations of all types of arts and media, from TV shows to music to novels and even YouTubers. On top of mood-oriented playlists, there’s also the occasional rant-filled review. They hope readers will always leave with a new piece of media to muse over. Click here to read more from MUSE.