Editor’s Letters’ “A club for everyone”

During my time at Warwick, I have come across a statement taken too far, that ‘clubbing is all about the music’. Apparently, if you ever find yourself at a funk night like ‘Superbad Moo’, and you don’t actually listen to funk music, you’re doing it all wrong.

Firstly, I do agree that clubbing is about the music, but it is not all about the music. Good tunes make a night out lots of fun; everyone loves it when a song they know comes on. However, it does not always guarantee a good night.

Other factors that are as important or even more important for the clubbing experience are the environmental atmosphere of the room, and for many people, their friends.

I personally love a large crowd and a big room. In ‘Neon’, for example, I love the music on the top floor. On the other hand, while I like the music in the main room without particularly loving it, I do love the more elaborate clubbing experience it offers with the big room and the big crowd.

For those with heads held high in the belief that clubbing is all about the music and that seeking ‘the crowd’ and one’s friends is a pathetic chase for the ‘hip and cool’ place to be, it is really just a condemnation of mainstream-ism.

What they fail to realise is that it really is not about what is ‘hip and cool’, it is about what people personally prefer.

Furthermore, if everyone were to follow the preaching that one should only go on nights out for the music, clubs would be emptier than usual. It would not be quite as much a ‘party’ then, would it?

Don’t forget that not everyone actually enjoys club-appropriate music – there are people who prefer country or 70s music. What is the point of clubbing for them?

Besides, if clubbing were all about the music, why don’t we all just enjoy the music we like at home? Simple – because the point of clubbing is also to seek the environmental experience – the dark room, the crowd, the flashing lights.

Essentially, everyone has their own reasons for clubbing, some go for the music, some go to dance, and some go in for the ‘pull’. I personally do not care if people go solely for the music or not, what I have a problem with is how personal motives for clubbing are turned into universal principles.

No one has the right to judge other people with different or mainstream preferences and motives. Just because it is mainstream does not mean it is worth any less – that’s to all you pretentious people out there.

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