Elevate your day with Abbie's playlist, filled with heartfelt and energetic indie-rock tracks guaranteed to make you smile!
Hometown: Johnston, IA
Year: Junior
Field(s) of Study: Cinema and Journalism and Mass Communication
SCOPE Position: Gencomm - Marketing Committee
Spotify Playlist
SCOPE Selects: Abbie McLaren on Spotify
The Deep Cuts
Lately I’ve been listening to artists’ discographies more than playlists, so this is a collage of songs from several of my favorite artists— mostly upbeat and modern indie rock/pop with a smattering of groups from the past. I went through a Talking Heads phase after seeing the restoration of Stop Making Sense in theaters last fall (love to learn a new song from a movie), so you will witness the ramifications of that here as well. I ended my playlist with three songs that don’t really fit the vibe but deserve to be included: Christmas Wrapping, the greatest Christmas song ever. Dance on the Porch, because the Little Women (2019) soundtrack is actual crack for writing essays and my GPA would tank without it. And to finish off, Epilogue from La La Land to carry you off into the existence where you are no longer listening to this playlist (tragic).
Three Favorite Albums
LP3 by Hippocampus
Infinitely Tall by Charlie Burg
Is This It by The Strokes
Favorite Concert Experience
The first real concert I went to was the Hippo Campus show in Minneapolis in the spring of my freshman year. In retrospect, it was probably the worst concert experience I’ve had - lots of pushing, 2+ hours of standing and waiting before the show, and I didn’t have a great spot in the crowd. I went with my brother and after a lot of research to find a hotel you could book without being 21, we had booked one online, but we showed up and they said you had to be 21 to check in, so we ended up having to drive back to Des Moines after the show. Also, for some reason, all the restaurants near the venue were closed on a Saturday night, so I had a matcha latte for dinner.
Despite everything that went wrong, I genuinely had the time of my life at this show, and it got me hooked on live music. It was so special to see a band I’ve been a huge fan of for a long time at a sold-out show with my brother for my first concert experience. Also, the singer smashed his guitar and Hippo Campus is not making the kind of music where you need to be smashing guitars, but I’m still very glad I was there to witness that.
Hobbies / Interests / Fun Facts / Campus Involvement
I’m the museum programs intern at the Stanley Museum of Art and an events co-chair for the Presidential Scholars Program. You can also find me running, cooking, making videos, taking photos, and spending too much of my SMA paychecks seeing movies at FilmScene. A fun fact I often never manage to tell people is that I’m a triplet.