Death of a frat

As the West campus social scene comes back alive, everyone is quickly realizing the same thing I did— fratmusic.com was shut down in May. For those who never encountered this website, it was pretty much a cornucopia of music at the click of a mouse to which you could dance, grind, bounce or study. There are two fates for pop culture staples—be either overused or become archaic over the years (Kazaa jokes, George W. Bush impressions, Ralph Nader’s ears) or live forever (Bill Clinton jokes, Brodhead’s rhetoric and “Hey Scottie Pippen, why the long face?”). Fratmusic.com will probably be falling into the former category for the general public, though I wonder where fratmusic will still reside in our memories of college five years from now.

It was definitely big for me, especially having a room between Craven and Wannamaker and being able to sit in my room and hear a fratmusic playlist without having to open my computer. It was one of those things that everyone hated, but secretly we enjoyed because there’s nothing more than the adrenaline rush of, pardon my eloquence, booty-shaking music and 75 people dancing in a space designed for 15. It is improbable a dance floor will start with only two people, but it is downright impossible to dance when there is no music. Fratmusic.com was an instant party that was utilized well, as evidenced by its peak of 100,000 page hits per day.

Of course, fratmusic was not without problems, as you would inevitably hear an iTunes Top 10 song every time a new person came to the party and subsequently needed to hear his or her favorite song, most recently, “I Like It” (“OMG he knows EXACTLY what I’m feeling! I like things, too!”). We may complain about how each playlist full of new songs is unique, yet imminently the same beat, but deep down, we like it (come on and give me some more... songs). Perhaps Enrique and the dog wrote their song about how fratmusic changed their lives (and gave Pitbull an audience). Perhaps it was a Chris Brown-esque advertisement project in the form of song. The most likely scenario is a post-modernistic/ neoclassical hybrid of “it” being a metaphor for college life and how everyone enjoys this “it” entity (according to art history majors).

However, despite its many faults, I do have multiple problems with it shutting down. Where am I going to listen to all of my underground music by mashup artists like “Norwegian Recycling”? For a website that has such widespread usage, how could it go down with such a whimper? The phrase “fratmusic.com shut down” (without quotes) when searched on Google returns 198 results (as of yesterday). How can we, as a society, just let a huge part of our lives fall apart like this? In the past year we’ve quickly let go of gems such as Tiger Woods jokes, UNC basketball and using the phrase, “I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” a bathroom-related double entendre. We have to do something to keep it alive.

For now, we’ll have to go back to our building genius playlists from the ’90s. We’ll have to bring back fantastic bands such as Third Eye Blind, Green Day and Red Hot Chili Peppers. We won’t enjoy the lack of dancing, but we’ll be singing and screaming like never before in college. We might dislike the fact that the Backstreet Boys have completely sold out, but isn’t it awesome to hear people belting out the lyrics after not hearing them for multiple years? Hopefully this retro trend will continue until a new fratmusic.com appears in our lives, at which point we can continue doing what we did in the first place.

Unfortunately for my old soul, another one has popped up. Collegeplaylists.com, which has a nearly identical page layout and music player, has reared its beautiful preset music selections at frat parties, thus giving frat music back to frats. Now we can all continue shouting it out, screaming it out and letting me hear you go.

Jeremy Steinman is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.