New York Dolls – ‘New York Dolls’

Release Date: July 1973 | Producer: Todd Rundgren | Label: Mercury

The spiritual foe to January’s grim shuffle back to reality can likely be found across the Detroit or New York garage scenes, sparking across the early 1970s, the likes of MC5, Alice Cooper, Kiss, and harnessing a slice of fun at odds with the Woodstock residue in the day’s charts. Giving them all a run for their money was punk pioneers New York Dolls.

Adorned with trashy glamour dress-up and smeared lipstick, New York Dolls presented the epitome of exhilarating difference back in the old days of the early 1970s, when much of the early decade felt like January all year round for restless music fans eager for something beyond Yes. Why not honour the glam outfit’s perennial bombast by whacking on their defining debut LP and casting their colourful shroud across the January-stricken planes outside your window?

Derek and the Dominoes – ‘Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs’

Release Date: November 1970 | Producer: Tom Dowd and Derek and the Dominos | Label: Polydor

Sometimes, you just gotta allow yourself to be swept up in someone else’s pain. Take Eric Clapton. As the 1970s arrived, a passionate yearning for George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, prompted the immortal howl of his ‘Layla’, a deliriously urgent hard stomper spiked with one of the most scorching guitar riffs ever committed to record.

Only ever cutting one album under the Derek and the Dominoes moniker, Clapton and Delaney & Bonnie and Friends’ one-off Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs largely detours into a bluesy stroll across its double-LP punch, but the prickly unrequited passions are so red-blooded at all times that the mere anguish emanating from Clapton’s troubled vocals can quell January’s glum in dramatic fashion.

Cheap Trick – ‘Cheap Trick’

Release Date: February 1977 | Producer: Jack Douglas | Label: Epic

A sense of humour goes a long way. When punk had struck its insurrectionary lightning bolt, Illinois power pop quartet Cheap Trick managed to feel a part of the new wave despite being indebted to rock’s old guard due to the multiple-necked guitarist Rick Nielsen’s piquant lyrical pen. Underneath the anthems and arena strut was a wholly unique humour pinging off each member’s disparate personas, be it Nielsen’s goofball shtick or drummer Bun E Carlos’ bored insurance clerk vibes.

January’s grim spectre can be given a kicking from Cheap Trick’s eponymous debut, a crackling slice of eccentric hard rock possessed with a popping freshness and ebullient too giddy and swaggeringly electric to be dulled by the post-Christmas funk.

The Mothers – ‘Over-Nite Sensation’

Release Date: September 1973 | Producer: Frank Zappa | Label: DiscReet

Nobody captured the freak ethos like Frank Zappa. While some found him too elitist and emotionally aloof, the unwieldy world The Mothers of Invention captain orchestrated cut a wholly unique mark on a psychedelic underground full of equally far-out figures. Across his sprawling Zappaverse of records, each comix window into his teeming, multi-media world always contains a nugget or two that can make you laugh while never lapsing into comedy rock.

The skill of taking your art seriously while taking yourself less so could do wonders for the soul as January’s dour fug starts to bite. One spin of Over-Nite Sensation’s schoolboy tales of sex and TV slime should shoot your mind way out of reality for around half an hour at least, kicking the cold month into touch with its bristling humour and cartoon edge.

Sparks – ‘Kimono My House’

Release Date: May 1974 | Producer: Muff Winwood | Label: Island

Sparks are an acquired taste. On the face of it, arch-subversive lyricism, hyper-animated falsetto, and a hectic chamber-pop operetta art-theatre could well spend no time in irking many first timers to the Mael brothers’ unique world. Yet, Sparks’ askance take on glam could just be the comic bluster needed to revive good cheer after the Christmas period is boxed up for another year.

Acerbic songcraft and dollops of irony aside, Sparks indeed pack plenty of rousing, bright, bellicose swagger amid their inventive songbook, shining that bit brighter on Kimono My House. It’s the dazzle that offers a seasonal antidote. Even the immortal ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ opener raises the mood of any room or crowd, but Sparks’ third LP’s gleeful irreverence will stand you in good stead when warding off January’s morose fog.

Motörhead – ‘Overkill’

Release Date: March 1979 | Producer: Jimmy Miller and Neil Richmond | Label: Fly

If no amount of sunny pop cheer can quash those January blues for good, then why not try simply hurtling past the grey month with breakneck pace as to render the year’s opening 31-day blob a distant spec in your rear-view mirror?

Such desperate measures call for the kings of speed rock, Motörhead. Wielding an electric piledrive of hard rock swing and febrile garage punk, any of the first few records would do the trick, but sophomore Overkill might just nudge it. While Ace of Spades stands as frontman Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister’s defining effort, Overkill’s title track alone rides a more dramatic lightning, zapping January’s glum spirit with ferocity into a smoking crater.

T Rex – ‘Electric Warrior’

Release Date: September 1971 | Producer: Tony Visconti | Label: Fly

There’s just something about glam that puts anyone in a good mood. While Roxy Music and David Bowie proved to stand as the most enduring, T Rex was able to conjure singles that stood right up there with the finest pop early 1970s rock had to offer. Like a sugary blast of Pixie Stick rush, Marc Bolan’s preening guitar strut and sweeping balladry sparked and crackled with gripping, comic escapism.

Electric Warrior’s cascading glitter will work a charm in offsetting January’s clammy, dull grip. How could it not? While you’re forlornly moping about the house in a big dressing-gown, dreading heading back to the office, give T Rex’s finest album hour a play and practically feel the satin slacks and leopard-print jacket materialise on your person as Electric Warrior’s peacocking magic works its charm.

The Rolling Stones – ‘Beggars Banquet’

Release Date: December 1968 | Producer: Jimmy Miller | Label: Decca

Heretical, radiating fire glares from The Rolling Stones’ seventh LP within the first few seconds. It’s not just frontman Mick Jagger’s lyrical dallying with Satan, but ‘Sympathy for the Devil’s seductive congas and sly piano set a wholly exotic mood that Beggars Banquet largely follows from then on.

The beginning of the Stones’ golden album run, Beggars Banquet’s potent brew of Americana stroll and rootsy guts dwells in a realm far removed from January’s wintery tundra. Don’t let boxing up the decorations and hoovering the pine leaves get you down, give the Stones’ country blues classic a spin and let its band, girlfriends, and drug dealers hang out give you some company and take the edge off the sudden loss of frivolity that comes with everyone’s most loathed month.

The 13th Floor Elevators – ‘The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators’

Release Date: October 1966 | Producer: Lelan Rogers | Label: International Artists

For whatever reason, sunshine is baked into the hypnotic jug charms of The 13th Floor Elevators. Whether it’s the Texan grit crusted in their garage sound or the buckets of LSD charging their arresting acid rock, the spiritual and healing properties of summer’s solstice energy always gleam on frontman Roky Erickson’s Nuggets trance fevers.

You could pick any of their records, but 1966’s The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators debut perhaps stands the best chance of shooing away January’s cobwebs the best. The cover gives a clue to what to expect, chiefly glowing freak-out rock imbued with the infectious ability to reach inside the soul and dissolve the grey, vanilla, and drab that may be dragging down your mood. With Christmas behind you and the bitter atmosphere hanging in the air, let Erickson and Co’s evocative terrain recharge your fun batteries pronto.

The Beatles – ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’

Release Date: May 1967 | Producer: George Martin | Label: Parlophone

The Fab Four’s psychedelic pop marvel is so ingrained in music lore that the pangs of fatigue following the mere mention of the titular band leader are understandable. Serving as a byword for any artist’s master opus, The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band sits in the classic rock canon with totemic command, worshipped for decades by multiple generations as a cultural landmark that supposedly can never be topped.

Such lofty acclaim began to quite rightly nark music fans, tiring of the heritage industry’s perennial ‘greatest album ever’ bludgeon, doing The Beatles themselves a disservice. However, the doctor couldn’t order a better tonic against the January blues than Pepper’s warm, kaleidoscopic embrace, a spinning top of lysergic joy and shimmering vaudeville set to transport a million miles away from the grey sleet slapping against the bedroom window. Now’s the perfect time to shake off the cynicism and let The Beatles’ glittering gem work its mystical magic.