Keeping It Classy

It’s no secret that at Georgetown, we play as hard as we work. It’s also no secret that by “play,” many of us mean “party.” I imagine it would be difficult to find a someone who hasn’t been to at least one party where people are packed in like sardines, the walls seem to be sweating, couples are doing god-knows-what on the dance floor and Ke$ha is reminding us that “We R Who We R.” If this situation sounds appealing to you 100 percent of the time, you can just stop reading and move on to the next column. But if you’d like to take a break from the sweat and Natty Light and auto-tuned music, keep reading.

I like to think that all Georgetown students have some degree of classiness in them, though when I’m forced to leave a party because someone got sick on the dance floor, my faith wavers. Equally jarring are the moments when Joe — I mean Bro — Hoya asks me if I’m a freshman, and doesn’t give me a second look when I say no because he has correctly assumed that I’m not a desperate girl looking for an upperclassman. Let’s not even talk about the number of times I’ve seen people grinding to “Gangnam Style.” It’s after nights like these when I lie in bed with my headphones on and try to remind myself that my entire college experience need not be sweaty ragers filled with Top 40 hits. I clear my senses with what I consider to be one of the strongest assets in my iTunes library,  a playlist titled, simply, “Classy.”

“Classy.” is nothing fancy. “Classy.” is the product of my 16-year-old self trying to throw a Sweet Sixteen that was way more formal than it had any right to be. Having accomplished the mammoth task of getting my male friends to wear dress shirts and ties, I had to make the most of the situation and play the classiest music I knew — jazz, blues and anything that most grandpas would approve of. For the duration of the party, a mix of Billie Holiday, Feist, Blossom Dearie, and Nat King Cole kept everyone tame and happy. That is, until we started hanging spoons off our noses and smearing frosting on each other’s faces.

Still, “Classy.” represents good, clean fun, musicians who are true masters of their craft and a faith in humanity I need when I walk on Prospect Street and don’t want to know why there’s a pair of tighty whities on the sidewalk. I’m no expert on jazz or blues, but I know that when I want to clear my head and take a step out of the 2010s, “Classy.” is a damn classy way to do it.

Benny Goodman – “King Porter Stomp”

Miles Davis – “Generique”

Nina Simone – “The More I See You”

Frank Sinatra – “Oh! Look at Me Now”

Ray Charles – “One Mint Julep”

Norah Jones – “Sinkin’ Soon”

Nat King Cole – “Orange Colored Sky”

Count Basie – “Bye Bye, Baby”

Ella Fitzgerald – “I’m Beginning to See the Light”

Feist – “One Evening”

Marvin Gaye – “Couldn’t Ask for More”

Billie Holiday – “Blue Moon”

Michael Kiwanuka – “Bones”

Glenn Miller & the Army Air Force Band – “A String of Pearls”

Ray Charles – “Sticks and Stones”

You can hear a full mix online here: http://8tracks.com/amprescott/classy

Allie Prescott is a junior in the College. AMPLIFY appears every other Friday in the guide.