What Is Frat Rock Anyway

Update: We got your messages- we realize that the old playlist feature to the right wasn't working well so we replaced it. You might have to restart or change songs because some songs get taken down b/c of copyright infringement. Also please see comments for a list of some of the songs and their youtube url's. We're trying to keep it working and keep it fresh- and fratty. -NFFY

Check out the youtube feature on the right sidebar beneath "Archives" for a fratty new feature. It is a continuous-play videolist of the most fratty music, as carefully selected through informal surveys. (There are controls to move through the list and a listing of songs.)

A fratdaddy or sorostitute takes special pride in their selection of music. Many readers will have non-fratty songs on their personal playlists. Everyone cannot frat all the time. Most of these songs however should register on the common fratometer.

We can all agree, firstly on what is not fratty music. Contemporary pop is rarely fratty. Hippie music is not fratty, nor is world music. Boy bands are not fratty. Art rock is not fratty. As with fratty lifestyle in general, the fratter enjoys American classics rooted in tradition above all.

The frattiest music are jam bands that make their living from tour college towns and fratty bars. Such bands tend to combine the great music forms of jazz's improvisation with blues and rock. They are something that the college and alum fratter alike can enjoy thoroughly, outside with a red cup, inside a fraternity house with a red cup or in a jam band venue with a red cup. We are thinking Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic and David Matthews Band. Some jam bands that blew up a in the past to commercial status are now resting comfortably back in non-commercial fratmosphere- Pearl Jam for instance.

Southern rock and blues-rock in general is a fratty staple. This includes not just the great artists like the Allman Bros, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, CCR, Stones, especially from the 70's. The Allman Bros., a white, militantly Southern band playing electric blues, protesting segregation with the Confederate flag as their emblem is about as American as it gets, and thus has great fratty credentials. We have tried to add the incomparable Bo Diddley, particularly his Mumblin' Guitar though it keeps getting taken down. Ditto with Jimi Hendrix's Red House. Clapton and the Stones both maintain authentic music coming from a place and era when shallow appropriation was common.

It should be mentioned if you had not noticed, that the UK is a reliable purveyor of fratty music. The British have appreciated less commercial genres of American music more than we have at times.

Some of the 70's bluesy rock veers off into hippyishnes- that is something that we struggle with. Zeppelin made it for instance while Pink Floyd is not represented but could be. The 80's added works from the Black Crowes, Georgia Satellites, Tom Petty, (some) White Snake, and other quality artists to our fratty play list.

Eighties' music in general had fratitude, thus the ubiquitous fraternity 80's theme parties. Some of this music comes dangerously close to douchey however. British and American New wave/synth pop in particular engenders a certain amount of irony. Is it psuedo-soul singing douchebags with synthesizers or an interesting interpretation of American R&B with new technology?

There are some fratty-ish songs in the New Wave genre even if the music technology has made the sound dated. Is Duran Duran too jet-set playboy and metro to be fratty? We think yes though we love such over the topness. But we did include music that would make a perfect backdrop for urban or evening fratting despite it being objectionable by other accounts.

Cake and Saul Williams are representatives of music that might be regarded as fratting favorites in some parts of the country and not in another. Both are campus and post grad favorites and neither are commercial so they get the nod.

Music fashioned as irony however is too pretentious to be legitimately fratty. We include Louie Louie, that faux reggae, proto-punk song because it also demarcates where pretentiousness is absent even if irony isn't. Sneering at society and tradition for no discernible reason while benefiting from those social structures and tradition is the antithesis of fratty (music). This explains why emo and goth are so repulsive to fratters.

Another fratty musical type is classic reggae- Toots and the Maytals, Junior Murvin, Tenor Saw, etc. Reggae has been helping us with beer to dance for over 40 years, as the Red Stripe commercial suggests. Classic reggae- ska and rock steady is a exotic but un-commercial and un-pretensious interpretation of the best of post war American music. How could it not be fratty?

"Outlaw" and (Tejano influenced) "Bakersfield" country, are both cousins to Southern bluesy rock also are extraordinarily fratty music. Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels, Dwight Yoakum, Buck Owens to name a few. Jimmy Buffet, while more of a novelty musician is part country, part rock and pure fratty.

Play Hank Williams, Jr. next to a douchebag. It is like tying grenades to both sides of his head and pulling the pins.

Bluegrass revival has somewhat quizzically become a favorite fratty form for live performances. Perhaps it is because younger, uninformed people wrongly see in Bluegrass an age old folk music rooted solely in mountain heritage. Of these revival groups Hackensaw and Old Crow Medicine Show have been working the Eastern and Southern fraternity house party and post grad fratty circuit for quite a while. It could be said that the less hippie genuine article is more fratty- Ricky Skaggs, Del McCoury, Allison Krause, The Grascals, and of course Dr. Ralph Stanley.

One of the frattiest musicians deserves special mention here- Bruce Hornsby. This musician went from a Williamsburg jam band (Bruce Hornsby and the Range), having a number of popular hits, to solo/collaborations with blues, rock, jazz and country musicians (including the Sting, and Eric Clapton and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Hornsby now tours in a bluegrass collaborative with Ricky Skaggs (Skaggs and Horsby/The Buce Hornsby Trio). And it never sounds contrived. More often it is a seamless, uncompromised amalgam of American traditional music. Live concerts in college towns are a fratfest.

There are also a number of remakes and we have tried on several occasions to provide the original as well as the edition most known by fratters if the original is classic enough. Fratters take pride in their musical intelligence. Knowing the ancient blues original of a blues-rock song says something in the fratty world. The highly influential Leadbelly for instance, gets a nod or two on the play list.

Classic soul is also a fratty music form and gets representation here from the Stax artist Otis Redding. Sitting on the Dock of the Bay is a legit day time fratty song but we were more interested in presenting evening possibilities.

For instance, the Panamanian born Brooklyn bred rapper Akinyele's explicit anthem Put It In Your Mouth is a frat party favorite. But we suggest that Otis Redding's Hard to Handle or especially Try a little Tenderness are much more subtle means to the same end.

While most hardcore rap enthusiasts are critical of Southern and party rap this is the sort of rap most popular with fratters, especially when the song has an un-commercial feel. Rap can be fratty but it is also a minefield, filled with douchebaggery. Some Tribe Called Quest productions have frattiness and are viewed postively by critics. (Native Tongues associated artists normally fare well on the fratometer.) Slick productions by T-Pain would not be considered either good rap by critics or fratty during daylight hours but are top fraternity party selections.

James Brown’s guitarist was Bootsy Collins the father of funkadelic, the funk-psychedelic fusion that black fraternities are so attached to, particularly Parliament. They use these songs as the anthems of particular fraternities. Likewise Jimi Hendrix was the guitarist for Little Richard and one of Ike Turner’s bands, the Isley Brothers and a host of other bands before going solo and effectively “crossing over”.

The Isley Brothers gave us the fratty classic Shout, the quintessential piece in a genre called "Frat Rock". Frat rock proper is drawn from many other genres; ? & the Mysterians can also be considered proto-punk, The Isley Brothers can be considered soul or funk, and Cannibal & the Headhunters can be considered brown-eyed soul. There is a considerable overlap of garage rock, Latin rock and proto-punk bands with frat rock. Today the term is misapplied to any jam band popular among college students and recent grads.

The "jump blues" and early rock once used for the Carolina Shag that frattiest of dances, is touched on with Little Richard's Long Tall Sally. (We've heard that a few fraternities in the Carolinas still hold shags- will they please report back to their time machine. Tradition is not an excuse for geekiness.)

That's as far as we can go with retro fratty dance music. Where would we stop- with a Conga line and Cha-Cha-Cha piece?

We are aware that we left out the elegant, polished "Philadelphia sound" such as The Platters and Brenda and the Tabulations that have been traditional choices of the fraternity/sorority formal and mixer. Perhaps we will fix that later.

- Not for Four Years

Watch the marginally douchey O.A.R.'s jaunt around campus prove that UPenn's fraternity system is just one big AEPi chapter (Beware, it's a douche fest):