Every once in a while you’ll have a dance floor that’s just hard to pack consistently. This is when DJ’s pull out the big guns and play those quintessential party songs we all know and love. You do the best you can to keep every person tapping their feet and use your experience to guide dancers through the night. However, every party is unique because the people and their environments are unique. Sometimes circumstances are everything. The greatest song on the planet (whatever that is) will not entice a group of average adolescents to strut their stuff while the sun is out and chaperones are plentiful. In the same way, playing “OMG” by Usher isn’t necessarily a surefire way to get tequila sloshed stumblers to do anything but sit down next to the dance floor and chat. When a DJ is really doing their job, this is not reflective of song selection but the situation and personalities around.
Often when, for whatever reason, the dancefloor is not quite full, a concerned party-goer approaches.
Can you play something, you know, like, bumpin’? Like, uh… faster?!
At this point you’ve already exhausted every Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga tune available, along with every coordinated, popular dance known to man. Your “slow” songs are averaging at 120 beats per minute as you go through the bride and groom’s meticulous request list and most guests are sitting down to deep conversation. Your concerned party-goer continues suggesting “some kind of awesome song” that will miraculously cause everyone to abandon their pleasant chatting and jump to their tired feet and rage on the dancefloor and writhe in pure excitement. But I write this article to dispel this myth. There is no magical white stallion of musical composition. Perhaps one day soon, a song will include scientifically researched hypnosis and subliminal messaging techniques to zombify the masses and enslave mere humans to grinding– all the while liquid courage miraculously rains from the sky just as ballers make it rain on so many an evening. But that day is not here. No sir (or madam), there just is not a miracle track. There are just so many reasons that a floor may not be full of dancers, and I find most often it is not because of poor song selection, but because parties are full of friends and family. And sometimes talking with long lost relatives and close friends is the best thing a for a party member to do while simply listening to music they love.
