TOP 7 ALBUMS FOR COLLEGE LISTENING

UL’s Eoin Devereux offers a soundtrack to your college days (and nights)

WHILE student life has long been associated with an increased social and political awareness, there has never been a more pressing need for students to engage in activism and to question everyday assumptions about the world in which we live.

College life offers you the time and opportunity to increase your social and political awareness, so get involved! My selection this year includes post-punk classics, shoe-gaze and, most importantly, a strong emphasis on songs of social protest.

The politics of class, gender and ethnicity link many of the albums listed here. My selection includes the debut album by The Boomtown Rats. The Boomtown Rats stands as a document of how paralysed Ireland was four decades ago.

Damien Dempsey’s Seize the Day contains the now classic songs ‘Negative Vibes’ and ‘Celtic Tiger.’ Described by Damien Dempsey as “Irish soul”, Steo Wall’s debut album Where I’m From is well worth a listen. Social protest is also a strong theme in the work of the British post-punk band Idles, whose Joy As an Act of Resistance is released this August. The politics of gender and gender inequalities are to the fore in the work of the British/Icelandic pop-punk band Dream Wife. Their eponymous debut album interrogates our assumptions about gender roles through a selection of manic pop thrill songs.

Make sure to also check out the emerging work (Denture Adventure and Buzz Buzz) by the Limerick alt pop band Pow Pig.

And after all that, when you are tired of protesting and in need of some sustenance and self-reflection, top of my recommended list of albums is Slowdive by the band of the same name. From Reading, Slowdive regrouped to produce one of the finest albums of the decade. Listen, in particular to ‘Slomo’ and ‘Sugar for the Pill’.