With the release of this year’s Spotify Wrapped on Wednesday, many music lovers have taken to social media to share their favorite artists, songs and genres of the past year. However, one student group at the University of Minnesota takes the idea a step further.
The Music Sharing Club (MSC) at the University is a weekly meeting of students with an open-mindedness for new and different music.
“I want people to explore some music that they don’t usually listen to,” said MSC president Lief Johnson. “That’s kind of what I’ve been doing myself. I would never have listened to some of the things that I’ve listened to without going to this club.”
Each week, members pair up to exchange albums or have the option to send any album to the group’s discord channel and receive a random album in return, Johnson said.
Johnson said the MSC even holds a “bad album exchange” each semester where members intentionally share music that they think is low-quality, goofy or stupid.
Since Friday’s meeting was the final MSC meeting of the semester, the club decided not to share any new albums. However, members did review albums shared during previous meetings.
These included music from a wide range of artists such as Frank Sinatra, DJ Khaled and even an album released by Waffle House, which showcased music from jukeboxes at various locations of the restaurant chain.
The club’s final meeting of the semester also included discussions about upcoming concerts, the theme for the MSC’s December playlist and tier lists created by members of the albums shared with them over the semester.
Johnson said the group typically releases two curated playlists over the course of each semester. These playlists are later published on the MSC GopherLink page.
The first playlist has each club member add three songs they have frequently listened to that month.
The second playlist is chosen through MSC’s monthly curation contest where each member creates a playlist based on a chosen theme, with November’s contest winner being an “Intro to Rush” playlist, introducing new listeners to the rock band, Rush.
The club has an intimate and consistent number of members, according to Johnson, with the largest meeting of the semester including more than 20 music sharers.
“I want a sense of friendship,” Johnson said. “We’re a pretty tight-knit group of people. It is a friend group in that way as well. The general goal is to listen to good music that you might not have listened to before and feel included here.”
MSC member Nabil Hussien said he transferred to the University this semester and joined the club because he wanted to meet people on campus who shared his interest in music.
“At first, I didn’t really know what it was going to be like,” Hussien said. “The first time I came here was a little weird, just because I expected a bigger group, but I like the smallness of it. I know everybody here and it’s better actually because you don’t have to really introduce yourself, you know, just being here is just enough.”
Hussien said the way club members exchange music is a great fit for this group size because it allows for more in-depth conversations about weekly album choices.
MSC meets weekly on Fridays from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Amundson Hall and is open for any University student to join in the sharing.
