Sometimes bridal couples wonder what kind of magic sauce DJ’s bring to the dance floor aside from the mobile sound system, club lights, and perhaps some cool performance tricks.
I would argue that the single greatest musical value provided is when DJ a unlocks the magic of a song by playing it at the best possible time– a task that is easier said than done.
To achieve this, DJ’s try to collect as many hits that people love as possible. There are tens of thousands of certified wedding bangers to choose from. However, the problem cannot be entirely solved by mining those 500-song wedding playlists on Spotify. They are often bloated and filled with outdated songs. There’s no blueprint for how to play these songs, or when to play them.
Below I offer an alternative that ensures we are thinking about every phase of the night. You can now grab songs that shine best at specific moments.
Four Phases of a dance party
Hour 1, or the the opening hour of a dance party is a chance to sample a few different genres that all age groups can dance to, from kids to seniors. It’s essentially a warm-up hour featuring well-known hits from Abba to Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston — oldies, disco, 80s and funky bass lines prevail. By selecting hits from different decades, the DJ can experiment and see what what draws the best response. Try to grab at least 20 songs from this first playlist below. These, in combination with a few of your own songs added to the top, will be the foundation of your opening hour.
Let's start by adding some no-brainer tracks.
Go ahead and log into your Spotify account if you have one and then click on the playlist directly below. From here you can go ahead and pick songs by creating your own playlist, as follows. You can either copy the entire playlist if you love most of the songs and prune the few you don’t want. Or you can go song-by-song, and only add a few songs that you think you’ll need.
Here’s the Hour 1 playlist. When identifying a song you like, find the three dots on the right-hand side in order to add the song to your master playlist which you can create and re-name.
So maybe you picked a few songs, or every song. We’re off to a great start because the goal is to have granny on the dance floor, and some really young kids partaking in their first dance party. We’re going for a packed dance floor from the very start!
Now, the second hour is a chance for the DJ to lock into stride as they have begun establishing a rapport with some loyal dancers who are influencing the evening. The tempo is speeding up as get into more contemporary pop hits.
By the time the third hour hits, you may witness some people requesting songs they can really get down to, if they haven’t already. It will not be uncommon for Lil Jon and the Ying Yang Twins make a cameo appearance. Perhaps not everyone will want to dance to songs with raunchy lyrics, but its curfew time for kids and granny, and the adults are taking over, although every wedding is different and the DJ may cater to slow dancing couples at any moment. Some of the best dancing moments of the night happen in the third hour, however it is usually not the crescendo.
Hour Four is where things can split into many musical directions again. If the DJ has done their job well, the crowd will be musically inspired and eager to make song requests. This is prime time, where each song selection carries higher stakes as we approach the crowning track of the night. The DJ is able to go from hard rock to EDM and everything in between. Song selections skew heavily towards universally adored ones that are conducive to sing-alongs. DJ’s know they’ve nailed the closing hour when the crowd is lifting the bride and groom into the air or forming spontaneous dance formations.
So there you go, that’s all there really is to making an impactful wedding playlist. By combing through all 4 playlists, you will have built a solid foundation for a playlist that hopefully has 50+ must plays for your DJ. 100 is even better. Naturally, this is an opportunity to personalize your list and add songs you think your party will love.
Just start adding songs and don’t worry about the order and the different phases. The DJ will piece it all together based on the demands of the performance. Hopefully they know that Mr. Brightside hits a lot harder at the end of the night!
