“Listening to Music Before the Club.”

Appetizer is a word commonly seen on just about every restaurant menu across the United States. By definition an appetizer is the food served before or outside of the main courses of a meal. An appetizer or hor d’oeuvre, as the French like to call it, is the essential starter that gets your taste buds ready to dive into the main dish which awaits the rumblings of your hungry stomach. In the vast world of clubbin’, there also exists such an appetizer before the full meal where bouncers determine if your soul is fed for the evening. Before we reach those velvet ropes of a musical purgatory where pulsating rhythms promote the pouring of drinks, pumping pelvic thrust, and promiscuity, we need that special nightlife nibble that gets our spirits flowing before the real spirits start flowing.

I’m simply talking about music. Besides the ambiance, décor, the crowd, or whatever else, music is the quintessential catalyst that drives the entire club experience. With that being said, it also can serve as the perfect appetizer for a hungry soul which craves the elements of rhythm, melody, and harmony all coming together to form what we call music. As most of us have all heard the phrase, “music soothes the savage beast,” it also soothes, excites, and creates the perfect mood for the avid yet antsy club-hopper. We all know how it is before the big event. You are racing around the house looking for something to where, you are calling everybody to see who is joining you, you may be thinking if you have time to eat before you go, you might want to stop at the ATM before you go, you may even be debating on which club to attend. Whatever the case may be, this can create a stressful feeling before we hit the club and that potentially may carry over into the evening. But somehow, when you are doing all these things with the perfect music playing in the background, all the aforementioned stress inducers don’t seem so bad. Instead of the mayhem, you’re singing in the shower, dancing in front of the mirror, and picturing how the night will transpire because the music has given you a small feeling of what you have come to expect from your previous club experiences. Imagine the drive to the club with your friends when the music is playing…ponder on that for just a quick second. One would tend to imagine you all conversing about the evening to come, singing along to the music, or possibly reminiscing about who you danced with to a particular song.

Whatever it is you may be doing, the experience is that much better because music sparks emotion. It takes us to a place in our minds, bodies, and souls that stimulates all the five senses. When you hear that certain song before you hit the club, you can envision yourself two-stepping the night away, you can smell the cologne or perfume of the person you last danced with, you can feel the bass from the speakers ,or that special sensation when you dance a little bit too close if you get my drift. You can taste that last vodka and cranberry juice you ordered the last time, and most importantly you can hear what the night could and will potentially sound like. By playing music before you actually get to the club, you have created that perfect precursor which temporarily satisfies your appetite for more. So before you sit down at a $300 per bottle V.I.P table to take on the full meal we like to call the club, remember to have a taste of that special appetizer we so affectionately call music.