Your Quintessential Girls’ Night Out Getting Ready Playlist

From your college days to your golden years, the girls’ night out is a sacred event, filled with music, laughter, cheese fries, dancing, and friendship. And one essential part of the event is crowding into a too-small bathroom to sing songs, straighten your hair, and finally try that new shade of eye shadow your bestie has been rocking for a week.

Some of my favorite memories (and photos, for that matter) from girls’ nights are from getting ready. For example, once, inspired by the possibility that we might run into a particular ex-boy, I showed up to a friend’s apartment wearing a little black dress and fire-engine red lipstick. She raised her eyebrows, nodded and acknowledged there might be a — ehem — “Murder on the Dancefloor” on the schedule for the evening.

I asked some college friends to share their favorite girls’ night getting ready moments. One shared that, having grown up in San Francisco, she truly believed that hot rollers were something between a storybook fantasy and a relic of the 1950s, rather than something people actually still used — until well into her sophomore year of college. One night, another friend showed up wearing a set before a sorority event. Her little Bay Area mind was blown. Everyone got a big laugh out of that one.

All that to say, a successful girls’ night isn’t all about the destination, but instead about the little memories you make along the way. And one essential part of memory-making is the music.

Don’t overlook the importance of the soundtrack to your pre-game festivities. Here are 12 tracks from the last 50 years that will speak to your soul and get you pumped up for a fabulous girls’ night on the town.

Run the World (Girls) - Beyoncé