“Apocalypse” by Cigarettes After Sex

"Apocalypse" came out in March 2017 as the second single from Cigarettes After Sex's self-titled debut, and it's Greg Gonzalez's song through and through: he wrote it, produced and recorded it, sings it and plays electric and acoustic guitar, with Randy Miller on bass, Jacob Tomsky on drums and Phillip Tubbs on keyboards. Rocky Gallo mixed this slowcore slow-burn.

He wrote it about two women he'd dated back home, all three of them full of big plans and stuck in a town that felt impossible to escape. He got out to New York; they stayed. He's called it a small, affectionate message to them about showing up for people when they're on their own. It took five years to catch fire, going viral on TikTok in 2022 through a trend built on childhood photos and being kinder to yourself, and it has since passed 2.3 billion Spotify streams.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.