Meet the genius behind Spotify’s ‘Songs That Get Drunk White Girls Excited’

One brilliant man is being hailed for creating the ultimate Spotify party playlist: Songs That Get Drunk White Girls Excited. 

Pregaming the club with shots of Smirnoff? Chase with some dancing to Usher’s iconic “Yeah.” Already wasted from shotgunning eight Natty Lights? Shotgun your ninth to some vintage Kanye West like “The New Workout Plan.”

The genius behind it is Sean Branton, a 23-year-old who works at an advertising tech startup. He originally came up with it two years ago, while he was still at school at University of Pennsylvania, for a Flag Day party.

“I like to think that if Betsy Ross were still alive today, these are the songs that she would be partying to while filling up on vodka sodas,” he tells the Daily Dot.

Branton’s piece of melodic art started gaining steam a few months ago when it was posted on Reddit. It went from a couple of thousand followers to more than 15,000 in just a couple of weeks.

A thoughtful curator, Branton knows better than to pigeonhole the stereotypical drunk white girl into just being into one style.

“I definitely try to mix up the genres. There’s some rap, country, and EDM, along with some oldies. Pretty much if I hear a song and immediately start boogieing, it’s in,” Branton says about his creative process. “If I hear a song that makes me want to shove a knife into my ear, I drink seven beers, and if I still want to boogie after all, I put it in twice. That’s what happened with ‘Timber.’”

And while “Songs That Get Drunk White Girls Excited” include bangers from the likes of Kesha and Carly Rae Jepsen, the whole point of the playlist is to make it fun for everyone—not just drunk white girls. There’s some hardcore rap mixed in, along with the likes of Lil Wayne and Ludacris. 

“Everybody gets that it’s just a fun joke. Nobody sees it as a piece of gender politics,” Branton says.

As for his favorites to turn up to, there are definitely some tracks that standout for him, like “Salt Shaker” from the Ying Yang Twins and Lil Jon, Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” and one hit wonder LMNT’s one hit, “Hey Juliet.”

But the playlist isn’t reserved solely for partying. When the Daily Dot talked to Braton, he had been listening to it earlier that day. He listens to it all the time, he said, because it has something for every emotion or moment you’re trying to hit.

A few weeks ago, he got an email from someone at Fetty Wap’s label asking if they could add some of the “Trap Queen” king’s tracks to the playlist. According to Branton, the writer of the email called him a “modern DJ breaking the industry’s best artists.”

He didn’t respond because he didn’t think anything was really going to come from it. Maybe he should have.

“But this might be the big career break for me. This might be my calling,” he jokes.

Illustration by Max Fleishman