Celebrity Playlist: GUSA Candidates Matt and Emmanuel

In addition to our Modern Mixtape column, Fridays will alternately feature Celebrity Playlists or a feature called "iProf," where we get to check out what Georgetown University professors, visiting guests, and other major campus presences are listening to. For the inaugural week of this column, we were lucky enough to hear from GUSA candidates (pictured above) Matt Wagner (SFS '11) and Emmanuel Hampton (COL '11). GUSA elections are in full swing, and you can check out their platform at their website.

Matt's Presidential Picks:
1. "Life Less Ordinary" by Carbon Leaf. Whenever I listen to it, I feel like someone must have written it knowing how I see life. It calms me down every time I hear it, and it makes me miss this place in the mountains in California where I went with my family every single summer of my childhood. I am also a sucker for acoustic music and syncopation just because they sound so chill.
2. "Crazy Ever After" by The Rescues. There's a real story to this song which is something I always love, probably largely because of my background as a musical theater kid. I first heard this song done by an acapella group on Youtube (The SoCal VoCals from USC in Los Angeles) and then I found the original and loved it even more. I will confess I have a habit of singing along particularly loud to this one in my car back in San Diego when nobody else is around.
3. "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. I've seen them in concert three times, but hearing this song always reminds me of the second time, when my best friends and I saw them for free (sort of) in high school. They played a show on the San Diego Bay, and we found this hill that overlooked the concert venue so we could see and hear perfectly the whole time but never officially went to the concert. It was awesome - I'd almost say it was better to be able to look out and see all the boats and the whole bay while hearing this too. It was like a shot from a movie, it was the best.
4. "Who Loves You" by The Four Seasons. I know it's an oldie, but it reminds me of my grandfather and I think about him and take a second to pause in his memory whenever I hear it.
5. "If My Heart Was a House" by Owl City. Say what you will about Owl City selling out (which it seems like it's sadly in the process of doing), but I love this song. It's one of those idealist type situations I think, where you wish the story in it was your own and kind of hope that someday it will be. I also find the sound really relaxing, like you can just sit and listen to it in the dark and feel totally relaxed.

Read about Emmanuel's favorites and listen to the playlist after the jump!
Emmanuel's Tunes:
1. "A Woman is a Sometime Thing" by Louis Armstrong. I love the song musically and it always makes me laugh a little about my luck when it comes to dating. Haha.
2. "Silent Night" by the Temptations. The Temptations are my favorite all-male band of all time, and they're the benchmark I use to measure other all-male groups like Boyz 2 Men or even stuff like the Backstreet Boys. Plus, this song sounds allright with the acoustics in my bathroom in Village A.
3. "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. This is one of the only songs my parents and I all really like, so it's always fun to jam to it with my whole family. It was also the first music video I ever saw, and I still remember seeing it for the first time.
4. "Don't Have to Change" by John Legend. This song reminds me of the family reunions my extended family has every year in East Texas. It's the only time I ever get to see my family all in one place, and this song brings me right back there just to think about it.
5. I had too hard a time picking between Stevie Wonder songs, so I am gonna go ahead and say Stevie Wonder in general has never let me down. He also reminds me every time I try to sing exactly how far I am from a good singer, but he's good enough for the both of us.