Hip-hop and house music share one major character trait: they find their primary audience among young people.

At Syracuse University, University Union has long had the power to highlight musical trends with artist selections for major on-campus concerts like Juice Jam and Block Party. Thanks to generous funding from the Student Association, UU usually lands its top choices for both events. Beginning with Lupe Fiasco for Juice Jam in 2010, these choices have been rappers and DJ’s.

The headliners for Block Party 2013 will be announced at the end of March. UU should take this opportunity to reign in a new trend waiting in the wings: folksy rock alternative.

SA gives its most generous financial grants, collected out of a mandatory student fee, to UU. According to SA comptroller Stephen DeSalvo, UU receives between $600,000 and $700,000 annually to finance its concerts and comedy shows.

Juice Jam and Block Party command the highest earmarks. SA allocated $218,344.64 for Juice Jam this past September. The organization has set aside $260,914.47 for Block Party in April.

Kid Cudi headlined Block Party in April 2011. B.o.B. and Avicii came for Juice Jam five months later. Kaskade headlined Block Party last April. Calvin Harris and Childish Gambino were the main attractions for Juice Jam this past September.

Factor in Ludacris and Rick Ross for the one-time only “Rock the Dome” concert last February, and six straight major concerts on-campus have featured a rapper, DJ or both.

UU has a strategy for its biggest shows. “We try to bring in popular artists right before they really hit it big,” said UU President Lindsey Colegrove.

In the past three years, rap and EDM played into this strategy. EDM was a genre on the rise and rap was trying to burnish a cleaner image. SU became a pioneer campus for both initiatives.

Avicii and Kaskade performed the first campus shows of their careers on Skytop Field and in the Carrier Dome, respectively. Lupe and B.o.B., both known for less jagged lyrics than their wrathful hip-hop ancestors, performed months before releasing new albums.

But, there’s been a dearth of homegrown rap talent since the Lupe-Cudi-B.o.B wave and EDM is not a major attraction beyond its frontline stars.

Luckily for UU, according to its student surveys, the other most popular genre among college students is rock alternative. Which is blooming again after a cyclical lull.

Rock alternative was fading in 2010. Old stalwarts like Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were still popular on the radio, but the genre had no new stars to prevent it from growing stale. That April, veteran Ben Folds was the last alt-rocker to headline a major concert at SU when he came for Block Party.

Now, up and coming bands like Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers are putting the latest spin on the eclectic genre: a folksy indie sound that originally proliferated in the 1960s with pioneers like The Byrds and Bob Dylan.

The Lumineers debut album, The Lumineers, and Mumford & Sons’ second album, Babel, entered the top 20 on the Billboard 200 chart in mid-December and have remained for 12 straight weeks. The Lumineers peaked at number two in February. Babel reached the top spot in early March.

The rock renaissance is reflected in the most recent UU surveys conducted in February. The same amount of students said rock alternative was their favorite genre as EDM.

By keeping its index finger on music’s cyclical pulse, UU makes the most of its bountiful funding. That’s why SA keeps it coming.

But, variety is necessary for UU to avoid alienating music fans that pay the student fee and do not have crossover tastes.

For the first time this decade, rock is in vogue. With this year’s Block Party, UU again has a chance to use its financial muscle to usher in a burgeoning trend.

Jarrad Saffren is a junior television, radio film and political science major. He can be contacted at jdsaffre@syr.edu or on Twitter @JarradSaff. 

Published on March 20, 2013 at 2:01 am