SVSU is home to many clubs and is constantly seeing new ones pop up. One of those new ones is Cardinal’s Version. A club on campus for Taylor Swift fans.
The club, whose name is a play on Taylor’s Version, was created in part by Ivy Chene, a junior accounting major and co-founder of Cardinal’s Version.
“The inspiration for our club was Loving Him Was Brown, the Brown University Taylor Swift Club which we found via Instagram,” Chene said. “We wanted to create a club where we could make friends, hang out and listen to Taylor Swift, and have a group of people who love Taylor Swift as much as Jaime [McArthur, fellow co-founder of Cardinal’s Version] and I do.”
She explained what the club is.
“Cardinals’ Version is a Taylor Swift RSO, and basically a club for all things Taylor Swift,” she said. “We currently spend our meetings talking about Taylor and listening to music. At each meeting, we put the songs of one of her albums up against each other bracket-style, and we vote songs out each round to see what our favorite song from each album is.”
She also explained where the name came from.
“We came up with our name because of her more recent goal to re-release her stolen albums and rename them with Taylor’s Version at the end,” she said. “We wanted to include SVSU in our name somehow, and it just felt perfect to use Cardinals’ Version as a name to include both aspects of an SVSU RSO based on Taylor.”
She talked about what Taylor Swift means to her.
“For me, Taylor Swift has always been a big part of my life,” she said. “I’ve listened to her music for as long as I can remember, and she’s helped me through every good and bad day I’ve encountered. Her music has made an everlasting impact on me, and I can’t even imagine where I would be without her songs and albums.”
All music has played an important part in her life, not just Taylor Swift.
“Music has always been a big part of my life since a young age, and obviously, most people have a favorite artist or band and she just happened to always be my favorite, and that’s never changed,” she said. “My parents thought it was just a phase I’d grow out of as I got older, but that never happened. Taylor has had her ups and downs as every celebrity does, but in the past year or two she’s blown up due to The Eras Tour and her recent albums, so it was the perfect time to create an RSO formed around her and her music.”
The club kicked off with a party thrown to celebrate the re-release of 1989. This was one of the recordings she re-recorded as Taylor’s Version so that she could own the masters.
“[We] had a good turnout, we had 50- plus people attend,” she said. “We had a photo booth, where you could get a Polaroid keepsake picture. We also had a bracelet-making station with a variety of beads, and glasses you could decorate with beads.”
They celebrated all the Eras, not just 1989.
“We also came up with the fun idea of drinks that matched the 5 vinyl color variants she released for 1989 Taylor’s Version,” she said. “And of course, at midnight, we began listening to the album starting with the song “Slut!” Because it was the song everyone was most excited for, but we then started the album from the beginning and listened to the re-recorded songs and vault tracks, and it was just super fun being in a room filled with Swifties who were excited to hear how Taylor changed her songs and instrumentals, and how much her voice has matured since 2014 when 1989 was originally released.”
When asked about final remarks, Chene responded:
“Be true to yourself and do what makes you happy. Although there isn’t any other RSO on campus themed around an artist, we felt the need and demand for a fun RSO that was all about Taylor, and for it, we became a place where students could hang out, be themselves, and find friends with similar interests.”
Those who are interested in learning more about Cardinal’s Version can find more on their Instagram, @cardinalsversionsv, or at their meetings which are bi-weekly on Tuesdays.
- SVSU Moot Court to Send Competitors to Nationals - 3 Dec 2023
- Scarlet’s Showcase showcases SVSU talents on Dec. 1 - 3 Dec 2023
- Advice: More boundaries and less people-pleasing - 3 Dec 2023
Categories: Uncategorized
