By Samira Nematollahi // DJ Sam Sam
Sadly, my time at WUSC is coming to an end. It has been the single most formative experience of my college career, and I will forever be grateful for the people – both listeners and DJs – who have made it what it was. I am very lucky to have served as the Station Manager this past year, and I know that I am leaving the station in good hands with the new executive staff. I want to take some time to reflect on my time at WUSC through the evolution of my music over the years. I wouldn’t say that WUSC has changed my music taste, but rather the station has allowed me to further explore the genres that I had already liked and grow a taste for genres that I had not listened to before.
There have been several distinct waves that I have gone through in terms of music taste and you can follow along with the playlist below to see the songs that I love that came out of each of those waves.Prior to college, the music that I listened to had largely been from top-40 artists, and that was primarily because I did not get exposure to music that was outside of the mainstream radio. Joining WUSC, however, I was immediately introduced to a world of music that I had not known existed. Hearing DJs throw around names of artists and songs that I had never heard of before, I knew that I needed to step up my game.
The first wave I went through was R&B and Hip Hop. If you are following on the playlist, this wave spans the artists Abhi//Dijon to BADBADNOTGOOD. This was the genre that I came into WUSC loving and wanting to only play. Listening to these songs now take me back to when I would sit in the common room of my dorm and quietly play my music hoping that someone passing by would ask me what I am playing. Am I an attention seeker? Maybe, but that is neither here nor there. One of my favorite songs from this time was “Crew” by GoldLink. I was so obsessed with this song that I wanted to play it every week on my show. I then got to experience what every WUSC DJ both loves and despises; the song became top-40. I couldn’t play it on my show anymore, but I got to be pretentious and say that I “discovered” an artist – what more do you expect from a college radio DJ?
As the host of a free format show, I had to play from the station’s rotation which features a wide variety of genres. Oddly enough, with all of that variety, I used rotation to feed my newfound love for indie music. On the playlist these songs are from Car Seat Headrest to Julia Jacklin; these artists are the staples of indie college radio. I reviewed Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers when it came out in 2018 and immediately fell in love with it – “Motion Sickness” in particular always gets me. Crushing by Julia Jacklin is an album that I will never get tired of and I can easily say it is on my list of no skip albums.
A bonus wave of just one artist is Rosalía. I could group her with the other queens of pop, but honestly, she deserves her own category. I was (and still am) obsessed with her ever since I listened to El Mal Querer in 2018. After that, she released banger after banger throughout 2019 and into 2020. She does not stop! Rosalía helped lead into my transition to the pop and genre-bending music wave.
The artists for this wave on the playlist are from Grimes to 100 gecs. Ask anyone and they will tell you that I am a huge Grimes fan, but I only started liking her after I heard “We Appreciate Power” in 2019. This song isn’t technically pop, but my categories don’t have to conform to your standards. I had heard of Grimes before, but I did not know her music or have any desire to listen to her. After the listening to “WAP” and the later released “Violence” I fell in love with her and began exploring her other music. I liked pop music before, but only top-40 pop. I had not previously considered the existence of non-top 40 pop music, but now I get heated when people try to lump together top-40 music and pop music. Pop music exists outside of the top-40 realm! They are not equivalents!!
Now in my current wave, I am finding myself wanting to explore big name artists with cult followings that I never got into. Most of these artists are ones that we cannot play on WUSC because of our music policy, but they are like the older siblings of the artists that we do play on air. The four that I feature on the playlist are Gorillaz, Death Grips, Sufjan Stevens, and Fiona Apple. My only memory of Gorillaz was singing “Feel Good Inc” on a Guitar Hero-type game as a 10-year old – and yes, I crushed the rap part. Listening to them now, I am amazed at the variety in their discography. Also, are they real people?? How many people are in Gorillaz?? There are many things I still don’t know. Death Grips is a group that I have known about for a while, but I was hesitant to listen to because they seemed too intense for me. I should have known that after my screamo phase in middle school, nothing was too intense for me. But wow, they kinda slap.
So yeah, my music taste has developed and expanded dramatically from my time at WUSC. This playlist is nowhere near comprehensive of all of the artists and genres that I have come to love, but it is a sample of the songs that remind me the most of my time at the station. I am going to miss by time as a DJ, but I look forward to listening to WUSC as an alumna to find my next favorite songs.