7/5 edit: See comment below for current playlist

Almost a month ago we wrote about what kind of changes we would make to the game night atmosphere. (If you haven’t read that post, you can see it here.) One part of that post, and the companion tweet on Twitter, got more attention than the rest: the music. Now, the point of that post wasn’t to impugn the job that has been done so far at the ShoWare Center but rather how we think it could be better. That is being said because the music that is played now isn’t, for the most part, bad but rather lacking in variety. So when people say that the music needs to be improved, it would seem that means to augment what is currently played as opposed to completely replacing.

So what makes good arena music? Well, there are a few criteria:

• It has to have energy. This isn’t to say it has to be a techno song or be a non-stop drum solo but it does need to keep the energy up. Some slow(er) songs do accomplish this.
• It needs to have a good 20-30 second hook. You aren’t going to hear the whole song so it needs to have a catchy snippet that grabs your attention. For the most part, this is the first few seconds of a song.
• It should be fairly mainstream. There’s room for rap, rock and roll and a small amount of country but they need to be in the middle of the spectrum of those genres. You won’t necessarily alienate people by going hardcore but it won’t help.
• Along with the previous one, it needs to be mostly clean. Any swearing beyond a PG movie is going to need to be edited. The theme of the song isn’t as important as you aren’t going to hear the whole song. A breakup or hookup song may not sound like one in a 30-second clip.

For a little while now, we have been compiling songs that are currently played at TBird games, songs we’ve heard at other rinks and songs we like that we think would make good arena music. Having gone through that list, we present some selections that we think fit the criteria. But we don’t want it to stop there. We’re very curious as to what kind of music you would like to hear at the arena. Please leave your suggestions in the comments.