Ariane de Gennaro

My personal frat party success is music-centric. The ultimate guide to a good night lies with the hard and fast numbers. Ask yourself these questions:

How many elevated surfaces have you found yourself dancing on? All tables, chairs, ledges, staircases and speakers are fair game.

How often does your Apple Watch ping you and say, “It looks like you’ve been working out?”

How sweaty are you? Wring out your hair onto the pavement while walking home, and measure in droplets or puddle size.

Of course, such vigorous dancing is not possible without an immaculately curated playlist. I remember scrolling through TikTok and Spotify during my senior summer, familiarizing myself with party classics such as “No Hands” by Waka Flocka Flame and “Wasted” by Tiesto. Both risqué songs are heavily autotuned and extremely danceable. My friends and I would quiz each other on the lyrics and would rate one another’s dance moves on a scale from middle school boy who shouldn’t be doing the worm to Zendaya’s stellar performance in Shake it Up. 

Based on this extremely sound research, I expected Greek Life to share a hive mind mentality, maintaining a common list of frat bangers all across campus. Orientation week came and went, and I did recognize some of the songs I expected to hear. But I found myself surprised to see that each fraternity exhibited a different personality when it came to music choice.

I went to every frat disguised as an unassuming party-goer, with the sole focus of collecting empirical data. I spent all my free evenings researching the controversial question that academia has been too afraid to pursue: What is the ideal frat party playlist?

Here are hand-picked selections made to represent each frat’s unique energy — in alphabetical order so that everyone is clear that this is not a ranking.

ADPhi – Expect to find house music at the LAX house

Coincidentally, we’re kicking off this list with the first frat I ever attended. I remember wandering around the backyard shoulder to shoulder with fellow partygoers, utterly disoriented by the boisterous and — at this point — mildly intoxicated crowd. But I kept my unevenly winged, mascara-coated eyes on the prize: a speaker — any speaker. I sensed the vibrations, wandered into the basement and entered a dimension of dance beats. One of the brothers I contacted brought up “I Think I Like It” by Fake Blood and “Hooked” by NOTION as tried and true ADPhi classics. But electronic songs with no lyrics and repetitive beats can get old quickly, so their playlist goes back to the original classics. Their quintessential throwbacks are an EDM remix of ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” by GAMPER & DADONI and the wonderfully joyous “Runaround Sue” by Dion DiMucci. The ADPhi basement blurs the line between the present and the past, but there is a heavy skew towards the modern.

AEPi – ’00s and ’10s Pop with a Side of Cultural Pride

Keep in mind that I am Jewish, and thus I have a personal bias in favor of this frat. The normal distribution of genres skews towards pop and club hits, the best of which include “Everytime we Touch” by Cascada and “Stay the Night” by Zedd. Expect to recognize almost everything you hear if you’ve listened to the radio in the past 20 years. Songs like “Tel Aviv” by Omer Adam are notable exceptions. Those who know these rare gems will be losing their minds, and everyone else will have just discovered their new favorite song. AEPi does a tasteful job of sprinkling references to the Israeli club scene throughout their playlists, which is something you can’t get anywhere else. 

Chi Psi – More to Chi Psi than Meets the Eye

On the surface, this frat seems like any other, and the music they play most often reflects that. Walking into their backyard, you’re most likely to hear fast-paced songs like “Losing It” by FISHER and “Scream & Shout” by will.i.am ft. Britney Spears — free Britney! But when I reached out to some of the brothers to ask what songs their parties would be incomplete without, I realized that the music they play on Friday nights is just the tip of the iceberg. “The assembled Brothers of the Fraternity” — direct quote — provided more insight into the secret, accurate and highly coveted playlist that includes: classical music’s “Gymnopedie No. 1” by Erik Satie, children’s music’s “Clean Up” by Barney and adult music’s “WAP” by Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion. I’d encourage you to request these songs the next time you drop by so that you can get the full Chi Psi experience.

Edon – Various Fruits from the Tree of Knowledge Music Genres

The Shubh party — thrown for a random, but very deserving first-year by The Yale Record — might not have counted as a real Edon event, but nonetheless, this all-gender group has a raucous playlist with a diverse selection of jams. There is an element of the newer female influence that shines through on tracks like “Need to Know” by Doja Cat and “The Night is Still Young” by Nicki Minaj. The hip hop and rap influences continue on “Plain Jane” by A$AP Ferg, and there is also an element of club hits with “Alors On Danse” by Stromae. And we shouldn’t forget headbanging throwbacks like “Come on Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners. With Edon, you never know what you’re going to get, so if you want to appropriately bust a move, make sure to prepare for every possibility. 

Leo – The Expat Frat

I hadn’t been to Leo since before I knew I was writing this article, so take this with a grain of salt. Their international identity really contributes well to producing a varied playlist. I have no real songs to speak of, since none of my contacts came through. But that reflects the amount of wordless EDM songs, back to back, that I wouldn’t have recognized the titles of anyway. When their songs did have lyrics, though, they were reminiscent of a European or South American dance club. I can’t say much definitively about Leo’s actual playlist, but I do appreciate the fact that I can enjoy music from around the world when I’m there.

Sigma Chi – Crowdsourcing at its Finest

I recently missed a Sig Chi event, where I was planning on gathering my intel. But earlier in the year, I remember enjoying the warring bubblegum pop — think Hannah Montana — and the hardcore rap — think Pop Smoke — in my unreliable memory, I’m pretty sure there was nothing in between. I can’t recall any tracks in particular, but I do remember that when the crowd booed at certain songs, the brother on aux would skip to the next one immediately. My friends and I went up to him and started to make requests, and miraculously, one of our songs did make it onto the queue. Sig Chi’s interactivity and responsiveness make up for the gap between their two divergently different and favored genres. 

Sigma Nu – It’s All About Who You Know

My time at Sig Nu was quite brief, unfortunately, so I’ll do my best with the data I gathered. Hanging out under the tarp and dancing in the middle section was a definite highlight, especially when “Magic” by B.o.B and “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey — definitely a remix version — were playing. But other than those two, I just bopped along to a couple of EDM songs I didn’t recognize. I’m still waiting on the brother I contacted, since he said he’d send me the playlist a while back, but never has. He’s a friend of a friend of a friend, but if I can’t get into Sig Nu next weekend and they ask me if I know a brother, I will definitely be using his name — it’s the least he can do.

Zeta – No Touchdown at the Football house

I was on my last leg this past Saturday, trying my best to rally and to power through so you don’t have to. But when I got to my last destination, it was unclear if a party was even going on. Maybe we were too early — even though I’m always fashionably late — or maybe the get-together was exclusive. The Zeta guys were somehow immune to my infinite charm and wisdom. So I’m still unclear whether it’s worth walking 15 or more minutes down Main Street and far off campus to get to the football house. Shoutout to Zeta — please let me in next time so I can review your playlist!

Let’s not talk about DKE. 

Listen to all the songs mentioned in the article here, in a comprehensive playlist.