When I was attending an event in the admissions building during Admitted Students weekend, I noticed an advertisment on the screens in the building to follow the college on their social media accounts, including Spotify.
As soon as I heard this, I immediately had to scan the code and critique their Spotify profile.
The profile picture is a shot of the Red Devil photoshopped onto the cover of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” by Taylor Swift, recognizable because it was cropped in a way that I can still see the borders on the side of the photo.
The Dickinson Spotify account sensibly follows big names such as Beyoncé, Mitski and The Weeknd, which fits with the music students listen to. The only artist who sticks out in terms of ‘vibes’ is Morgan Wallen, who is also a big artist but just really does not fit the rest of their following.
Then, I checked the most important part of anyone’s Spotify account, their playlists. They have three playlists on their profiles, which includes “Fall at Dickinson,” “POV: Dickinson in the 80s” and “DSON LAX HYPE SONGS.”
“Fall at Dickinson” is a 48 song, three hour long playlist that opens with two songs from Taylor Swift’s “folklore,” “cardigan” and “august.” It also features groups like The Neighbourhood, girl in red and Arctic Monkeys. This playlist is the strongest and most unique. I can picture myself hanging around campus next semester listening to these songs. A big chunk of the playlist is made up of Tame Impala songs. While they are good songs, such a big part of the playlist being Tame Impala in the middle felt weird.
The next one, “POV: Dickinson in the 80s,” is a 63-song, four hour long playlist. The playlist starts with songs by artists such as Paula Abdul, Donna Summer, Madonna and Salt-N-Pepa. While all the songs are good, it feels like any other 80s playlist on Spotify, without anything that feels unique to Dickinson.
The final playlist is “DSON LAX HYPE SONGS.” The playlist is made up of 15 songs, and is 58 minutes long, much shorter than the others. I don’t know if any players had an input on this playlist, but I can’t picture the lacrosse team listening to most of these as hype songs. Some, such as “Lose Yourself” by Eminem or “Stronger” by Kanye West make sense, but “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” by Beyoncé and “can’t leave without it” by 21 Savage aren’t the kind of “hype” I would expect the lacrosse team to enjoy “New Romantics (Taylor’s Version)” and “Lips are Movin” by Meghan Trainor also seem very out of place for the more rap-centric vibe that the playlist as a whole is going for.
The account should make more themed playlists along the lines of “Fall at Dickinson,” whether that be playlists for certain vibes or events coming up on campus. Whoever is running the playlist should take input from the wider student community to foster a sense of musical community.
Overall, I think Dickinson Spotify account is good, but has room to grow.
