“Like a book club, but with albums,” is how one of Album Club’s founders, senior Greg Neppl, described their club, which began this year. The club has given students with a passion for music at South a space to discuss a wide range of genres and styles of music, according to Neppl.

The club started with a Tiktok, senior Danny Quirk said. After seeing a video with the idea of a music book club and sharing it on his own social media, his fellow founders Neppl and senior Maya Mladenovic reached out to him, and the club took shape from there, Quirk explained.

And take shape it did — the club’s first meeting, held in early October, was attended by nearly 50 students. Quirk explained that this was an unexpected success, but one that he and the other founders were happy to see.

“To get other people who are also passionate about music and want to talk about it, and [to get people who] will wake up early to talk about it, that’s pretty exciting,” Quirk said. “Especially with something you created.”

At club meetings, members fill out a Google Form to choose which album they would like to listen to and talk about the following week. Neppl said he aims to create discussions about peoples’ first impressions, their interpretations of songs, and what pieces stood out to them. In addition to these discussions, members fill out a Google Form in order to choose which album they would like to listen to and talk about the following week.

“The way we are intending on choosing music is mainly through the club members; we want to be able to cater the club towards them,” Neppl said, “We want this to be a great listening experience for everyone in the club, so we want to have a variety of different genres including pop, rock, hip hop, rap, folk, indie — anything that you can think of, we want to be able to have.”

As a club created out of a love for music and a desire to talk about it, Album Club appeals to students such as junior Yemisi Olujare. She first heard about the club last year when it was just an idea from the founders themselves, and has attended some of the meetings, where she found interesting discussions and an opportunity to engage with others on their perspectives on music.

“I’m a really big fan of music,” Olujare said. “Even though I don’t make music, it’s a big part of my identity. I really enjoy listening to new things and sharing my opinions on music that I like.”

Daniel Rhoades, Album Club’s sponsor, appreciates the work put in by the founders to create meaningful, in-depth discussions about music, where students can critique and unpack the albums they listen to.

“We spend all of our time in schools telling students what to be interested in,” Rhoades said. “But in the club setting, [we get] to see students that are engaged with and excited about something that is really interesting, but maybe not something that we teach in the normal curriculum.”