SNAPS Music Appreciation Club is equal parts social and music club, and students aren’t likely to find a more laid-back student organization than this one. In fact, the club used to meet in the Capstone room of second-year history major Andy Ferguson, the club’s founder.
The basic format of the meetings is simple — Ferguson and the rest of the club’s small executive staff choose an album that’s culturally significant, they give a short presentation about the historical context of the album, and then they play it through. Then, a club member’s name is drawn out of a hat, and that member gets to choose a second album for everyone to listen to.
There are only two rules: neither of the albums can be a greatest hits album, and both must be full albums. SNAPS refers to this as the primary album system.
“We listen to all sorts of stuff,” said Ferguson. “We have an element of music discussion and an element of music history.”
SNAPS also hosts special events such as MTV SNAPS, which focuses on music videos, Halloween SNAPS, Christmas SNAPS and Guitar SNAPS. One meeting took place at Cool Beans, where the coffee shop let SNAPS play a Bob Dylan album over the sound system.
“[That was] when we went on this blues kick, and we listened to a whole bunch of blues albums and learned a lot about it,” said Khiry Rheubottom, first-year computer science major and longtime member of SNAPS. “You get exposed to all kinds of different music that you wouldn’t really know about otherwise.”
The club stemmed from a habit Ferguson has had since high school — listening to full albums.
“iTunes has changed how music is done — everybody just buys singles,” said Ferguson. “I just wanted music friends, really. So, I just kind of created a club where I could meet like-minded individuals who loved music."
The main purpose of SNAPS is to expose members to new music. The unofficial slogan is “Bring a friend and an open mind.”
“It’s usually twentieth century [music],” Ferguson said, “but we do play twenty-first century stuff, and we even did an orchestral suite a few weeks back. We play all genres, really. We’ve done reggae before, we’ve done jazz, we’ve done hip-hop.”