Usually December is one of our busiest months of the year thanks to all the companies out there that hire a DJ for their annual holiday party. Unfortunately, there aren’t many Michigan companies doing very well right now and many are dropping the Christmas party to save money. As a result, this December hasn’t been nearly as busy as past years but we’ve still managed to book enough events to keep me and a few of the other guys busy and thankfully, the bills all got paid (yay!).
For a DJ, corporate gigs are a challenge. A fun challenge! I’m very used to crowds diverse in age (the average wedding reception’s guests will be anywhere from the 4 year old flower girl to the great-grandparents who look like they are getting close to 90), but at least the majority of the wedding guests will be of the same ethnic background. A holiday party also has a pretty big range of ages (typically everybody is between 21-65), but you also get a diverse group of people (white people, black people, Indians, Latino’s, Arabs, etc). Not only do you have this very diverse group of people, but even I can admit that it must be difficult to throw down your best MC Hammer moves when your boss is watching.
Work for me tonight, was at the
Motor City Casino dee-jaying for a group of doctors, administrative staff and residents. I’ve worked their annual holiday party for the past 3 or 4 years, so I pretty much knew what to expect. A cool feature of my DJ software is it saves a history of every single song I play, so I thought it would make a helpful blog post to go through my actual play list, and breakdown the reasons why particular tracks were chosen. I’m kind of hoping this will be helpful to all of our clients who choose to customize their own play lists using Platinum Mix’s Click+Mix online event planning system.
To better understand the way a professional DJs brain works, its important to first understand the following terms::
BPM (beats per minute): This is how a DJ measures the tempo of a song. A slow dance song might be 55-65 BPM, while a really fast techno dance song could be as fast as 155 BPM. A really nice danceable beat will typically clock in at somewhere between 120-135.
Beat-Mixing: Sometimes people will tell me that they really liked the way the songs “flowed” into the next, without any awkward pauses between them. This is called beat-mixing and being able to do this well is something that separates the good djs from the bad ones (amongst other things, but that’s a whole different post). To accomplish a beat-mix, you simply line up two songs with similar BPM’s and fine-tune each until they match. For example, Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback” is 114.3 bpm and Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous Girl” is 114.7 bpm. These two songs will very easily mix together, but “sexyback” will need to be adjusted +0.40 faster to be a perfect match. (btw, this is what a DJ is busy doing when he or she has got the headphones on).
Now that we’ve covered some DJ 101, on to the playlist:
Dinner: Christmas music (this was requested by the client and is pretty much standard for holiday parties)
Dancing:
1. John Legend Ft. Andre 3000 “Green Light”Never in a million years would I have chosen this to be the song to open the dance floor with. It’s a terrible choice. “Green Light” is a good and very danceable track and I’ve been playing it at pretty much every event lately, however the song selected to open the dance floor is a critical choice. I need something with a good introduction, something everybody knows, and most importantly something easy to dance to and non-threatening so people will get up out of their comfy food coma and come to the dance floor. The woman who hired me requested it, and told me to play it first, so I did. In my book, the person writing the check gets whatever they want whenever they want it. She did dance to it, and managed to get a few of her friends to dance with her (like 6 or 7). Not a great start, but its all good….
2. Stevie Wonder “My Eyes Don’t Cry” (also known as the Motown hustle)For track #2, I needed to repair the damage done by track #1. I really needed to fill up the dance floor quick to get the party off to a good start. There are only a few songs that exist that can provide the full dance floor guarantee that I was looking for. Call it cheesy or whatever you want, but the hustle provides that guarantee every time. Result: Packed Dance floor.
3. Justin Timberlake “Sexyback”
4. Michael Jackson “Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough”Tracks #2, #3, & #4 is a “set” that I play very often. I play it often because they beat mix together nicely, I hit 4 genres in 12 minutes (Motown, crowd participation, top 40 and eightes), and it has an amazing success rate (like I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen it fail). Result: Packed Dance floor.
5. Chris Brown “Forever”This one bombed, and that surprised me. I picked it because it because it blended well with #4, and I was trying to feel out the Top 40 potential of the crowd. Didn’t work at all, result: Empty dance floor. Oops.
6. Punjabi MC “Jogi”There were several Indian guests that wanted to hear Indian music. I hope he never reads this, but there was this one guest who during tracks #1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 probably came up to me at least 4 times and demanded that I play this song (which he selected when I showed him my Indian music section). Here’s a hint, when requesting a song try to keep in mind that there are 250 other guests at the event and the DJ is trying really hard to keep everybody happy. The DJ also probably has the next couple songs already planned out, and its doubtful that he or she will break their set if the dance floor is full and your request doesn’t fit in to the vibe at the time. (FYI, your request will probably be worked in later if you are cool about it and don’t ask for the same song 4 times in 15 minutes. I’m not an idiot, I didn’t forget. It was either punch this guy to shut him up or play the damn song, and I figured since #5 hadn’t done well, making it track #6 would be perfect.
7. Punjabi MC “Mundian To Bach Ke”So apparently, my man from track #6 actually “meant” “Mundian To Back Ke” because as soon as “jogi came on, the same guy was like “No! wrong song! Change this! Nobody likes it!!” Geez. When will I learn to go with the punching him option rather than playing it and looking like an idiot in front of 250 people??? I quickly switched the song as requested. Terrible transition…but whatever, I am now slightly annoyed. Result: Good dance floor, but full with only the Indian population.
8. Mr. C “The Cha Cha Slide”
During #6 and #7 several requests from guests have come in. At this point I need to diversify the dance floor. I need another of my guaranteed to work tracks. One of those requests was for the “cha cha slide”, so I though now was a perfect time for it. Result: Packed dance floor.
9. Marvin Gaye “Got To Give It Up”I had a request for some Motown, and “got to give it up” was showing up as a similar bpm as #8, so I thought I would try it out. Result: Great beat mix + dance floor full. Success!
10. Sean Paul “Temperature”
11. Katy Perry “Hot N’ Cold”A good dj is always thinking at least 3 songs ahead. I knew I had to drop some slow songs soon, but I had a good dance floor going and I didn’t want to ruin it. My solution is to wear people out, so they get tired and welcome the slow jam break. This is also a good time to get a “risky” request out of the way. (theory is, if it clears the floor, its’ cool because I got a slow song coming up which will fill it right back up). Sean Paul did great. Katy Perry was a request and I was a little afraid because the Chris Brown #5 bombed. Katy Perry also bombed (again, surprising….there was a pretty large group of younger people).
12. Eric Benet Ft. Tamia “Spend My Life With You”13. Etta James “At Last”#12 & #13 classic slow jams. Both filled up the dance floor. I’m back to good!
14. Shakira “Hips Don’t Lie”
There was also a Latino population at this event. This one is a decent American/Top 40/Latin-ish song that worked really well for this same group of people last year. Worked again this year.
15. Kid Rock “All Summer Long”
16. Usher “Yeah”
17. Eminem “Shake That”
#14 & #15 did good. #16 did awesome. The soul train breaks out to Eminem’s “Shake That”. Party is rocking now!
18. George Clinton “Atomic Dog” (Soul train going on)
19. Pussycat Dolls Ft. Snoop Dogg "Buttons" (More Soul Train)
20. Kevin Lyttle "Turn Me On" (Still more soul train but people are starting to break out of the soul train and back into regular dancing)
21. Coolio “Fantastic Voyage”“Fantastic Voyage” was requested at a wedding I worked last weekend and it did really well. Its around the same bpm as #20 so I thought I would mix it in and try it again. Packed dance floor! Looks like I have a new one to add to my regular play list! Go Coolio – making a big comeback!
22. Snoop Dogg & Akon “I wanna Luv You”Alright, honestly, I just played this one because it was a similar bpm as #21 and I kind of felt like hearing it. It worked though, still a good dance floor going.
23. Sir Mix A Lot “Baby Got Back”
At this point I want to switch to a faster bpm, I haven’t gone “old skool” yet and I needed a crowd favorite party track. Sir Mix A Lot to the rescue. Result: Packed dance floor.
24. AC/DC “You Shook Me All Night Long”This song has been in the top 10 of most requested songs for the longest time. Its got an amazing success rate. I needed some rock to mix things up a little, so I went for a proven winner. Result:
Empty dance floor. WOW! That was weird, guess I don’t have rockers tonight, on to something else.
25. Frank Sinatra “The Way You Look Tonight”
26. Edwin McCain “I Could Not Ask For More”The woman who hired me came up and asked me to slow it down, so I went with 2 proven winners - #25 and #26. This worked well to rotate the dance floor and fix the AC/DC mistake.
27. R Kelly “Step In the Name of Love”
Lots of request to “ballroom hustle”. This one fit the bill.
28. Beyonce “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)
Good response to this one.
29. Unknown Artist “Say Shava Shava”
30. Bhangra MegamixAt this point in the night, I was feeling like a jerk for ignoring all the Indian requests. I decided it was mean to punish everybody just because of two people who were being rude (plus I like Indian music), so I hooked them up with the crowd favorite “Shava Shava” and some good ‘ole bhangra. I was rewarded with a re-energized dance floor.
31. “The Cupid Shuffle”
Just like #8. Time to get everybody involved. Works like magic. Everytime.
31. Jennifer Lopez “Let’s Get Loud”
32. Flo Rida “In The Ayer”
33. Rick James “Super Freak”
34. Rihanna “Don’t Stop The Music
35. Michael Jackson “P.Y.T”
36. Salt N’ Pepa “Push It”
37. Run DMC “It’s Tricky”
38. Britney Spears “Womanizer”Tracks #31 - #38 were all a nice beat-mixed set. Hitting lots of different decades, keeping the dance floor moving.
There is a serious snow threat, and people are now starting to rapidly leave. We are down to about 20/30 people at this point who all seem young and also seem to know each other well. The woman who hired me left and told me to shut down the music in about 20 minutes. I decide to switch to some current hits which was being requested by the remaining group.
39. Lil Wayne Feat. T-Pain - Got Money
40. M.I.A – Paper Planes
41. Down aka Kilo - Lean Like A Cholo
42. T I Ft. Rihanna - Live Your Life
43. Lil Wayne Feat. Bobby Valentino - Mrs. Officer
44. Kanye West – Heartless
The End.
That was a crazy long blog post. Hope its helpful to somebody!
Just be thankful I'm not doing my "I'm on a Boat" dance in this pic....
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