Fraternity Music

Justin Smith
Lambda Chi Alpha

There’s a lot of music in existence right now.  As a society, we’ve been able to accumulate a large portion of music written back in the 17th and 18th centuries as well as all of the music recorded in the last one hundred years.  Every day, more and more music is recorded and all of that becomes easily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.  iTunes has made it easy for anyone to listen to any type of music.  But what type of music is most closely stereotyped with fraternities?

The music I’m going to be writing about isn’t the end-all be-all of “frat” music.  It’s simply a small fraction of what’s available, the type of music that has become known as the music that fraternity guys listen to.  I, for example, listen to bands like The Hives, Disturbed, The Killers, Bullet For My Valentine, Against Me!, and Five Finger Death Punch.  These aren’t the bands that are most closely associated with fraternities, but they are bands that I, a member of a fraternity, listen to.  A few of my fraternity brothers also listen to all of these bands, and have a very wide and sometimes eclectic taste in music.

The most recent trend of music to have taken over frat houses across the nation is the phenomena of “dubstep.”  If you’ve heard any of this type of music, you know it.  The first time you hear dubstep, it’s an experience.  The hard beats, the drumlines and the bass, if played correctly (through a large woofer and good speakers), will reverberate your brain.  It’s music you can really feel, it’s an experience and a mood setter more than anything.  Bands known for dubstep music are Skrillex, Chase and Status, and DJ Fresh, although variations of dubstep can be heard in a lot of modern music, including music from singers such as Britney Spears and Rihanna.

Other types of electronic music and techno are also quite stereotypical of fratnerities, and for a reason.  These are the types of music that get played at clubs, and thus the types of music that are played at frat parties. If you want to throw a good frat party, you’d be crazy not to include some type of electronic music, whether it be dubstep or simply the classic house music.

Hip-hop and rap are also acceptable, as long as there is a good beat to dance to.  Songs like "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem featuring Rihanna may not be the most uplifting music for your party, but they’re catchy and people know them, so they’ve become popular at parties, depending on what people are going to be doing at them.

Essentially though, if a song has a great beat and is catchy, it will probably be considered by someone to be a quintessential “frat” song.  Chances are, at some party somewhere in the United States, that song is being played and people are enjoying themselves along with it.  If you want to learn more about frat music, you can visit fratmusic.com.  The site has tons of songs and playlists for all of your “fratting” needs.

Justin is a junior studying creative writing. You may contact him at smithjs@muohio.edu.