When I think about my past nights out on campus, my cherished memories are accompanied by a musical soundtrack. There’s a reason why I had LF System’s “Afraid to Feel” stuck in my head all last winter, and why this year I can’t stop singing the main chorus from the NOTION remix of Chrystal’s “The Days.” These rhythms served as the backdrop to nights spent in a sweaty fraternity, packed into a room dancing with friends or a now-gone situationship. Whether bringing on a wave of nostalgia, releasing negative emotions, building shared bonds among friends or becoming incessant earworms, the sounds of Dartmouth — particularly those playing in fraternity basements — never seem to quiet themselves.
I’ve set out to categorize the various musical genres one might encounter on a Dartmouth night out. Whether blasting from the instruments of a student band or blaring from your friend’s speaker, each type of music brings a distinct emotional experience.
1. The typical “college night out” music at a fraternity
We must start by discussing one on-night phenomenon: when seemingly the entire student body mobs the same fraternity, especially at the end of the night when “tails” — or themed parties — end. I’m not sure it’s the music that attracts us, but rather the shared memories and feeling that we are part of a larger culture. My friends and I still talk about freshman year parties like “Tackiez” or the first time we attended “Reds” and “Techno Tuesday” — events that, at the time, felt overcrowded and subpar but still became significant parts of our collective college memories.
Perhaps these parties might best be remembered for their playlists. We’ve all heard those generic frat basement tracks like Cherub’s “Doses & Mimosas” or Pitbull’s “Hotel Room Service.” But, have we all enjoyed them? A fraternity pledge is probably DJing, and that’s okay! The popular music encountered on a typical “college night out” evokes friendships, young love — all the cliches. It’s reliable, it’s carefree, and I honestly can’t complain much.
There’s a reason why my friends and I, even after our freshman year, so often end our nights back at our old haunts, no matter where we started — our innate desire to hear those well-worn tunes and travel back to our roots. Basking in such nostalgia never gets old, and I understand now why my parents get so excited when Duran Duran or The Police come on the radio. Inevitably, I will one day hear one of these Soundcloud-esque remixes and tell my kids, “Back in my day, your dad and I used to dance to this!”
2. Heart-pounding, floor-vibrating techno
You’ll primarily find this kind of music playing during a night at Panarchy undergraduate society.
This music facilitates the absolute abandonment of all concerns. The bass infiltrates your body and kicks out all that upsets you, leaving space for nothing but beats, head nods, dark lighting and sweat. Who knows when the next beat drop is coming or what the next transition will be? Not me. I am left in awe every time.
These are DJ sets for the students who need to completely forget what happened the week before. If you want to be liberated, cleansed and baptized — this is the only option.
3. Nostalgic pregame aux
If you were to ask me how I made my closest friends during my freshman fall, I would credit the aux in my friend’s humble Fayerweather Hall dorm room. A playlist that is 19 hours and 35 minutes long defines my best friendships here. This is the music you scream to, the music that you sing along to so hard that your face turns red. Kendrick Lamar, Clairo, One Direction, The Smiths, Alanis Morissette — these artists might seem as if they have nothing in common, but they do. These are the songs that play in the background every Friday and Saturday night as my friends and I debrief the week’s events. This is the soundtrack of my life and the score to all of my craziest stories.
4. Silent disco
I recently attended a silent disco at Psi Upsilon fraternity where every attendee wore headphones and could switch between three genres — pop, rap and house. Watching everyone listen to different music encapsulates why I am never spotted without my headphones: the contagious emotion that artists bleed into their music, an inexplicable amount of energy transferred directly into my ears.
Taking my headphones off at the disco, I was greeted by the sounds of shoes squeaking and tone-deaf singing. But no one cares when they’re immersed in that different world — singing their hearts out, they try to convey their emotions and the feelings that they haven’t been able to articulate. Nothing else is as simultaneously individual and collaborative as this listening experience.
5. Student bands
I saved the best for last — student bands, a music scene that surprised me when I first arrived on campus. Just when you get tired of techno and house, Dartmouth’s bands are there to provide a fresh, energetic live music set. As much as I personally enjoy listening to bands, I also imagine that their musicians are singing because of an innate yearning to be free of emotional stressors.
This could be a projection of the release I myself feel when spending hours in a Sudikoff practice room playing “Swan Lake” on the piano or singing mediocre but enthusiastic karaoke at Sawtooth Kitchen. Nonetheless, I feel as if I hear that same desire for release in the raw emotion in the band singers’ voices. The student musicians seem to be letting something out that has previously been trapped and, in doing so, are helping the audience members process their emotions, too.
Anyway, this is my formal request for Shark to play at my wedding.
Honorable mention: Foco Late Night aux
There are many reasons why someone may find themselves in the surreal space of Foco Late Night after midnight. Maybe the guy you like left with another girl and you need a pick-me-up or maybe you just got in a fight with one of your closest friends. Perhaps you are shoveling a buff-tender-queso into your mouth because you didn’t have time to eat before your 6B or maybe you danced so hard you absolutely need a bottle of water and a dry bowl of cereal, no spoon. No matter the scenario, one thing is constant — Foco will be playing aggressively irritating pop with the occasional reggaeton or house banger from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., without fail.
The other night my friends and I had an extensive debrief after a night out, ending in tears and emotional distress — yet just the same, Sabrina Carpenter continued her perky “Please Please Please” chorus in the background. There is some irony in this — Dartmouth never stops, life never stops, and as we venture through this wide range of emotions, the music never stops.
The beauty of music is that we can all experience it differently. While some prefer the solace of a solitary listening experience on the walk to class, others want to bask in the melodies with their friends at a Greek space. Personally, I have found music capable of producing an intimacy enabled by its shared experience. When a song you first heard a novice DJ play on a Wednesday night comes on in your Spotify shuffle — sans the questionable transitions and exaggerated bass — it reminds you of the company with whom you shared that first experience. Even when you listen to it alone, music fosters community. It helps us put a name to the feelings we have left unspoken and forges a bond over the shared rhythms defining our lives.
