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Students ‘turn down’ for the music in ASC

By Nora Molinaro, For The Miami Student

It's 9:39 a.m. on a Monday morning. You just failed your linguistics exam and all you want is to crawl back into your warm bed that you had to rudely depart from two hours ago. It's already raining and so a detour into Armstrong is necessary. You hide your face and hope you don't see anyone you know.

All of a sudden, the obscene audio for "Turn Down For What" by DJ Snake and Lil John jolts you out of your daydream and back to the present. You can't help but do an eye roll and pick up your pace to get out of the Armstrong Student Center and wonder who in the world is in charge of the music in this establishment.

Students at Miami claim to be annoyed by the music in Armstrong but little do they know the administrators of the building think that they are accommodating students with the music choices, not distracting them.

Because Miami is ranked 11 on Spotify's list of top university listeners, the administrators of Armstrong bought the analytics to view what common genres students listen to. After viewing pop music is 53 percent and EDM is 23 percent of the overall genres picked by Miami students on Spotify, the music was set to those two genres at Armstrong.

"The music that is picked to play is what we assume makes the most amount of people happy from looking at the data," Assistant Director and social media specialist for Armstrong Student Center Adam Leftin said.

In the Shade Family Room, classical music is played at all times, according to Leftin.

"I tend to study in the Shade Room of Armstrong because it's a prime location to Miami Ice for coffee, but also away from what sounds like Brick Street in the dining area," first-year Grace Moody said.

A couple of footsteps later in the dining area, that pop music and EDM are continuously being played.

Senior Hannah Wheeler, and sophomore Sundial Pizza employee Collin Ernst both agree that the music in the dining area seems to be out of place.

"It's always a little uncomfortable when I hear 'Turn Down For What' while serving people bread sticks," Ernst said.

Up the stairs and into the Mporium Market, the current Top 40 pop songs are played on repeat. The market serves as a convenient store for students to make quick stops with only 10 minutes in between classes. Therefore, students briefly hear one or two songs in the market while they wait in line for a coffee and Chex Mix.

Mporium employee Emma Boch said "Bang Bang" by Nicki Minaj and "Chandelier" by Sia are the two most commonly played songs.

Across the way into Pulley Diner, one could barely hear the cashier yell, "Do you want cheese on that burger?" over the incoming words of "Cruise" by Florida Georgia Line ft. Nelly. The diner is supposed to feel like an upbeat version of a 50s diner with bendy straws in a milkshake. Junior Pulley Diner employee Joey Barton said that there is no consistent type of music in the diner and sometimes no music is played.

Complaints and concerns have been heard and tallied and the leaders of Armstrong are making moves. The Armstrong Student Center Board holds events to get feedback from students. The hub sends out regular surveys regarding the student center.

Chair of the Armstrong Student Center Board and senior Jim Bennett proposed the idea of finding an online radio station that provides a combination of three genres to hopefully bring variety to the tunes being played in Armstrong.

"We want feedback like the problems in music selection and such because our job is to make sure students are happy and the building is accessible to students to get the most out of it," Bennett said. "It's the students' center and we want to make sure that comes first."