SpringFest artist better than last

Amber Matha, Editor in chief

In the March 22, 2017, issue of the Merciad, I wrote a strongly worded opinion article under the headline “SpringFest artist is lackluster,” upon hearing the selection of Mike Stud as last year’s SpringFest artist.

His selection angered a few students across campus and the show that he gave proved vulgar and was the opposite of the values Mercyhurst tries to promote in its students.

I anticipated this year’s selection — and to be honest, I was quite worried.

Although I voted in the fall survey for my preferred music genre for SpringFest, I was not sure what to expect.

The fact that there was no hype for the SpringFest artist this year was mildly concerning to me.

Last year, I recall promo teaser videos that left students guessing as to who the artist was.

Last year, even President Victor got involved.

There were no such videos this year.

On March 16, I got a notification that the Mercyhurst Student Government had posted that the SpringFest reveal would be an hour following that post.

I anxiously waited the allotted hour, and sure enough, at noon that day the video was posted.

Unlike past years, like in 2015’s reveal of T-Pain, and last year’s reveal of Stud, which featured live people announcing the artist, this video contained only computer-generated graphics laid

over top of footage of students enjoying SpringFest in years past.

Part of me wondered why that was but I quickly brushed it off as I saw the headlining artist selected was a duo called Timeflies.

I immediately opened up Spotify to look into their music.

This initial search would tell me if I was even going to SpringFest this year.

I tapped on their most popular song according to their Spotify profile that was titled “Raincoat.”

I was pleasantly surprised by their sound.

They have an upbeat pop sound combined with techno beats.

This appealed to me and I decided to look into their music further.

Despite some of their music being explicit at times, it comes nowhere near the vulgar content of Stud and is quite catchy.

I enjoyed how they combined the pop vocals with more hip-hop sounding verses in their music, specifically in their song “Once in a While.”

DJ Drama, the opening act for Timeflies, definitely appeals to the students who enjoy listening to hip hop/rap tunes.

The Student Government Facebook page later posted a music video for the song “My Moment,” with the caption, “Hmm … wonder if DJ Drama will bring another artist with him?”

I think it would be really cool to have a surprise artist like 2016’s surprise of having Cassio Monroe as an unannounced opener for Daya and MKTO.

This year, I think that MSG tried their best, in light of the controversy last year, to appeal to as many musical tastes as possible.

Based on the music that I have heard so far by the headliner, the student turnout for the 2018 SpringFest concert should be pretty successful.