Best Song to Start a Party – All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem
An oldie (well, 2007 seems like a long time ago now…) but a goodie. James Murphy’s bittersweet ode to getting old remains one of the absolute best ways to start a party, thanks to the astonishingly good lyrics and an infectious, jumpy piano line.
Best Song to Sum Up University – Impossible Soul – Sufjan Stevens
You shouldn’t expect to win any friends by throwing Stevens’ 26 minute electric/classical magnum opus on the party playlist, but for those introspective moments (of which you’ll inevitably have many), nothing beats it. It’s more about life in general than just University, but it tracks the way it captures every emotion you’re likely to feel here in the next three years, from utter euphoria to inconsolable misery, makes it pretty damn fitting.
Best Pop Banger – Countdown – Beyonce
If there was any justice in this bleak world, this would have been Beyoncé’s biggest hit to date – scientific tests have shown that it’s twice as effective at getting people to move as Crazy in Love and Single Ladies combined. All clubs should be legally obliged to play it at least four times per hour.
Song you’ll hear EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT – The Killers – Mr Brightside
This is the song that so-called indie-nights across the country are built upon, but Lancaster seems to have a particular fondness for it. The sing/shout-along chorus – ‘DESSTINY IS CALLLLING MEE!!’ -has ruined a million sets of vocal chords, and sure it’s fun… once in a while. BUT FUCKING HELL SUGARHOUSE, THERE ARE OTHER SONGS OUT THERE.
Best Song to End a Night With – Midnight City – M83 –
I’m pretty sure this blew up the way it did because it was the theme tune for Made in TOWIE Shore, but it’s not really a problem because a song this incredible deserves an incredibly big audience. The eminently danceable synth lines and bad-ass sax solo are wonderful, but what we’re really here for is the ‘aah aah, ooh, ooh ahh!’ chorus; that’s up there with the best lyrics of the past two thousand years, surely?
A song to be sick to –Wonderful – Angel
You’ve had a good night, it’s probably a Wednesday, and it’s been a promising start to the next three years of your life. In the immediate future the impact of half a week’s worth of Sugarhouse raving manifests itself in the form of your take away cascading from your mouth over your new best friend’s shoes. Considering this; firstly, if you vomit well, you will come up smelling of roses and unscathed from the horrific battle waged upon your innards and secondly, someone, somewhere will be playing Angel’s, creepy and nauseating, Wonderful. Whether a mocking passerby, a kebab shop stereo, or your very own pal, it will be audible to your sick self.
We hate this song and so should you, it makes us upset. We think it is fair to say that if the physical experience of throwing up doesn’t put you off alcohol abuse for several days then the vivid memory of Wonderful dispersing through the burger-scented night air and assaulting your ear drums whilst you cry and wretch on the hard cobbled ground, certainly will.
A song for last night –I Miss You – Blink 182
Last night was pretty good, right? You got slaughtered and sang along to Feeder whilst jumping on a stage whilst dressed as a lion – now it is over and whilst you’ve got the memories there is a lot of emotion. Hopefully this song will help ease those pains, you can reminisce whilst listening, get upset whilst listening or frantically search Facebook – making full use of both the location and first name filters; I think her name was Poppy – and listen to it. I don’t care, as long as it is playing. I don’t know how Blink’s classic emo ballad relates to you – it might act as some abstraction of the night itself, or it might even be your own personal ode to lost totty (male or female) in the haze of last night – all I know is it definitely does relate to you, and that it is definitely the best song.
A club banger – Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepson
I’m not slating anybody but from previous experience the music scene in the clubs of Lancaster is hardly in vogue. What I mean by this is that the music you heard last time you went clubbing in your home town, you will hear in Lancaster around the start of summer term. Thus my prediction for this term’s dance floor filling, chart smashing, knockout club banger is – Call Me Maybe. Everyone likes Call Me Maybe, which is why it is going to dominate the discotheques of LA1 until at least March. You can’t beat it; you will have to join in. You probably won’t even want to beat it because it is so damn good.
A song to muck around to – Guaglione –Perez Prado
If you are doing Freshers week like Freshers week should be done then no doubt there have been some antics. Some mucking around is an inevitable side effect of continuous drinking and the experience of slightly more freedom than would normally be expected. As long as everything is legal, practices such as these are healthy and should be encouraged. To that end, you will need to sound track your mischief and what better song than the underrated Guaglione by Snr. Perez Prado. You’ve almost certainly heard Guaglione played in some capacity – I think it used to be on the popular children’s art show Smart – but you’ve probably never stopped to ask some knowing individual what it was called. Don’t leave home without it already downloaded on to your phone, it will almost certainly be worth it.
A song for rejection –I Can’t Make You Love Me – Bon Iver
In a similar vein to the logic behind the inclusion of number 7, you’re going to want a song that you can listen to on the way home from a hard nights graft and consequent failure. Luckily for you that grey area between club mayhem and depressing come down not only has a song but in fact an entire genre. This genre is creatively known as ‘Nightbus’ and is sold as the music you listen to when you’re on the bus home, at night, on your own. There is probably a lot of emotion when you get rejected within the first week of university life, a lot of which crops up somewhere during the six and a half minutes of Bon Iver’s, I Can’t Make You Love Me. Of course, you could spend the entire bus journey and a drunken hour when you get home learning this song in order to serenade that special someone the next time you see them in Sugar – which is evidently a really good idea; you can have that advice for free.
