The music taste behind the masthead
The Daily Trojan’s editors share their current favorite songs this spring semester.
By NATHAN ELIAS
On any given day in STU 402 — the Daily Trojan’s cozy home — you might hear an eclectic mix of Drake, Lil Uzi Vert, soft country music and even smooth jazz. It’s unsurprising that the strange mix of tunes within the newsroom is a common subject of controversy between masthead members. In the spirit of the never-ending musical ambiance in the newsroom, we interviewed six members of Daily Trojan’s masthead to find out what they’re listening to this semester.
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Reo, Associate Managing Editor
“I’m a big advocate for just complete and total chaos,” said Reo, associate managing editor of the Daily Trojan and a sophomore majoring in journalism. “The playlist I was just going through has over 1,600 songs on it. I click shuffle.”
The playlist in question is called “music.” and contains an ever-growing list of songs Reo enjoys that includes Miles Davis and old Grimes. “Purple Rain” by Prince and the Revolution, “Moonage Daydream” by David Bowie and “Late Nights and Heartbreak” by Hannah Williams & The Affirmations are some of Reo’s personal favorites right now.
“Those ones specifically are ones that I’ve added more recently,” Reo said. “Sometimes, I’ll stick to the end of the rotation to keep things new because I can exhaust the newness, and I have to find more new songs. But when I’m moving around in a day — shuffle. Always.”
Kate Cho, Social Editor — TikTok and Reels
“Beach Fossils and The 1975 are two artists I’ve probably been listening to the longest, since I was around a sophomore in high school,” said Kate Cho, the editor for the Daily Trojan’s short-form video content and a junior majoring in public relations. Her favorite songs include some jazz, indie and alternative music.
Cho said “Fallout” by Gus Dapperton, Lil Yachty, Joey Bada$$ and Lyrical Lemonade, “I Remember Everything” by Zack Bryan and Kacey Musgraves, and “New Perspective” by Noah Kahan are three of her favorite songs, though she said different songs serve her at different times.
“Sometimes, if I’m just [editing] b-roll, which doesn’t require audio obviously, I love putting on jazz in the background because it’s mindless and it’s something I can’t sing to, so I don’t get too distracted,” Cho said.
Halo Lyman, Chief Copy Editor
“Walking around campus music is, for me at least, it’s more like ’90s grunge type of music — like [The] Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana,” said Halo Lyman, the Daily Trojan’s chief copy editor and a junior majoring in French as well as comparative literature.” I feel like ’90s grunge — you feel like a bad bitch.”
Lyman said “Range Life” by Pavement serves as a nice song as she walks around campus, one of the few that she’s found in her rotation recently, with “Bluebeard” by Cocteau Twins. She also said she’s enjoying the bluegrass influences in “Spud Infinity” by Big Thief.
“With ‘Spud Infinity,’ it’s just cool because there’s this one instrument that’s used in it,” Lyman said. “[The jaw harp] makes a boingy song [and] it’s really cool, and I don’t really hear it in a lot of popular music. It makes the song kind of whimsical and also draws back to the folk, Appalachia, bluegrass type of thing.”
Jonathan Park, Digital Managing Editor
“I have this playlist — I call it my Joncore playlist — where it goes through all of the music phases I’ve been through over the past four years,” said Jonathan Park, the Daily Trojan’s digital managing editor and a junior majoring in applied and computational mathematics. “Typically, I’m a more indie bedroom pop kind of person. I had my very weird phases in underground rap … And then I had a Coldplay/Radiohead phase.”
Park said his interests in music include R&B and K-pop, but he recently fell into a rabbit hole of early 2000s and 2010s pop — including iconic hits like “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani, “Rock Your Body” by Justin Timberlake and “Starships” by Nicki Minaj.
“I think all of my music phases started out ironically,” Park said. “I started seeing these NBA TikTok edits. Typically, they’re made with some hard-ass EDM edit or whatever, and then people started twisting that into 2000s pop … And then they started indoctrinating me, and I was like, ‘Okay, now I need to make a Spotify playlist of 2000s pop.’”
Joshua Sacher, Sports Editor
“Because of my Dad, [I] listen to a lot of old music and bands — Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones,” said Joshua Sacher, a sports editor and a sophomore majoring in communication. “I also can’t go wrong with the 2010s hits. I’m a big Bruno Mars guy. The only thing I really won’t listen to is smooth jazz — I’m not a big smooth jazz guy. Or really, really deep country. I can’t do that either.”
Sometimes, Sacher broadcasts his music tastes to the entire newsroom, putting in requests to either Anjali Patel, Daily Trojan’s editor-in-chief, or CJ Haddad, the managing editor. Songs in his rotation, like “Revival” by Zack Bryan and “Thought You Should Know” by Morgan Wallen, sometimes make an appearance.
“Anjali, CJ, they’re always doing a great job DJ-ing in the DT room, so it’s always great music, great energy in here and maybe one day I can rise up the ranks and take over on aux.”
CJ Haddad, Managing Editor
As managing editor, Haddad is second-in-command of the newspaper and the aux. Her taste includes soft rock and jazz, which passersby can hear muffled through the newsroom’s glass door.
“I have a weird relationship with music in this office,” Haddad, a junior majoring in public policy. “When I first got here, there was [previously] an editor … [who] would play rap all night long, and it would just fill the room with noise because no one else would really play music. So after he left, I was like, ‘Okay, well, maybe I should do it.’”
As the steward of the Daily Trojan’s music, “Ventura Highway” by America, “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison and “Rich Baby Daddy” by Drake are three songs which are familiar to any member of the masthead. To Haddad, this mix of easy-listening genres reminds her of road trip music.
“I’ve gone through some large life changes,” Haddad said. “In my head, it reminds me more that life is fluid.”
If you want to hear more Daily Trojan music, be sure to apply by the end of today, Friday, Jan. 26.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified social editor Kate Cho as a sophomore. Cho is a junior. The Daily Trojan regrets this error.
