It is the time of year to party but how can you create a soundtrack that is guaranteed to get people dancing? And what can you do to rescue a dancefloor if it all goes a bit Pete Tong? Professional DJs share the secrets to curating the perfect mix
Recognise the power of dance to unite people
“After lockdown, I think a lot of people’s relationship with partying and clubbing was reassessed,” says Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim. “It is the feeling of togetherness that is key to going out and listening to a DJ. So when we came back after 14 months off, every night was like New Year’s Eve. It gradually went back to normal but I still cherish what we do more, having had it taken away. It made me realise what it meant to me: it is that moment when you’re in a large crowd of like-minded people and you suddenly feel connected to everybody on the dancefloor. A mutual celebration is that thing that unites people.”
Context is everything
“What is the playlist intended for? Is it to make people dance, or is it to put on in the background when they are eating dinner?” asks Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, who hosts the London Loft parties and presents the Balearic Breakfast radio show. “To make people dance, a DJ is responding to all kinds of different information, whether it is the acoustics of the room, the atmosphere or what time of day it is, and most importantly, to the people on the dancefloor. So you can’t really premeditate a playlist. You don’t know if everyone is going to be talking until 9pm, and don’t really want to dance. You might need to play specific songs for specific people to draw them on to the dancefloor so that others will follow.”
Do your homework on the crowd
“When I was starting out, I used to play weddings and 21st birthday parties for people I didn’t know,” says Cook. “So you had no real idea what they were like. In that situation, you have to try to bring everything, because you might get there and something’s working and something else isn’t. But if it’s your mate’s party, it’s a hell of a lot easier.”
Plan your set – to an extent
“Create a ‘crate’ based on what you think is going to be needed,” advises Cook. “The beautiful thing about DJing nowadays is you can have quite a lot of things in your crate, whereas when you were playing on vinyl, it was proportional to the weight of the crate that you had to carry there. Because I DJ off my laptop I’ve got my whole library there. But you narrow it down to 60 or 70 tunes that you think are going to be needed.”
DJ Paulette was the first female resident at the Haçienda in Manchester and still plays reunion events for the historic club, including last weekend at the Warehouse Project. She says her sets on these occasions “can be heritage, old-school, or they can be me free-range, playing what I play now. I start with bangers and continue relentlessly until I am finished because I’ve got to make people dance, and I’ve got to leave the room in a state where the next DJ that comes on has a really full and vibing room. So for me, in terms of playlisting, I know where I might want it to start, where I might want to hit in the middle, the point where I might want to hit the end, but I have to always keep it flexible and loose.”
Make sure you are comfortable with the technical side of things
“The best technical advice for a beginner is: know your music, be as smooth as you can with the blend and don’t max out the volume,” says Paulette. Whether you are playing vinyl or digital, make sure you know how to wire everything up, and don’t forget the cables. That said, “you can mix up a storm, use the effects and loops and be a right old clever clogs if that’s how you want to entertain, but I think the music is more important,” she says. “Pay attention to your selection first. If your tunes don’t cut it, people won’t stay to listen.”
Tell a story through song
“A playlist always works better if it tells some kind of story that can either be personalised to the event or the person, even if everybody in the room doesn’t know that story,” says Paulette. “I did one for my mum’s 80th and every single track on that I’ve either heard her perform, because my mum used to be a jazz and cabaret singer, or she taught it to me when I was little, or they were artists I knew she had in her record collection.”
Start a conversation with the dancers
When BBC Radio 6 Music’s raver-in-chief Sherelle went from playing gigs with two people to huge spaces such as north London’s Drumsheds, she used to plan a lot, but now she responds much more to the audience. “When a crowd is really gunning for it, then obviously you will give them all the tunes that are quite high impact and fast paced. If you see a crowd needs a little push to warm them up, then there’s a perfect tune for that. I try to leave it up to what smiley or not-so-smiley faces I have in front of me.”
“A great dancefloor is a conversation between the DJ and the dancers,” agrees Murphy. “It’s reciprocal – it’s not just one way.”
Be prepared to throw everything out of the window
Cook does this frequently, he says. “I have a crate that I intend to play, but I often get to a place, and then I always go and have a sniff of the vibe and the size and age and mood of the crowd. And I often run back to the dressing room and rejig it.”
To rescue a dancefloor, play a banger
If energy on the floor is floundering, “just play something well known”, says Cook. “For me, if I really had to rescue a dancefloor I’d play Right Here, Right Now or Praise You. They would be my get-out-of-jail records.
“It is about getting people dancing, but also it’s unifying people,” he adds. “The dancefloor is like an organism, and when it’s all working together, it’s lovely, but sometimes you lose the dancefloor: there’s sort of different pockets of people and they’re not really united. Or some people are dancing, some people aren’t, and it’s that feeling of bonding everybody together that you need to do, and recognition of a song that everybody likes is kind of that thing.”
“You Make Me Feel by Sylvester is a cure-all,” says Paulette. “You can play that record anywhere from an office party to a really underground afterparty and people will just dig it.” Another track that is guaranteed to get people dancing at a house party is Show Me Love by Robin S, says Sherelle, “because it’s such an amazing feelgood song”.
DJs often have their own secret weapon to save a dancefloor, says Murphy. “One that has always been a really great reset song for me, which I first heard David Mancuso play at the Loft 30 years ago, is Dexter Wansel’s Life on Mars. I always know it’s going to work, because I love it so much, and I think that love comes through.”
For a party, nothing is too obvious
“When you’re playing a club, you’re trying to be cool and maybe educate, but a party is the time just to play stuff that people know,” says Cook. “When you’re sitting there with your laptop on a Tuesday lunchtime, you’re thinking: ‘Is that a bit cheesy?’ but then when you’re there and everybody’s drunk, nothing is out of bounds.”
If you are willing to take requests, bring your glasses
Whether you take requests depends on the context, says Cook. “If you are playing a wedding, you have to listen to the crowd. I selectively take requests; I’m not a slave to them. The worst thing for me is requests tend to come on phones, and depending on the size of the phone, for a man of my age, it is actually quite difficult to read them. And you definitely can’t hear what they are saying.”
At Christmas the rules are slightly different – but keep it classy
“All bets are off because it’s Christmas,” says Cook, but “there is a limited palette of what I would play. There is a fabulous drum’n’bass edit of Fairytale of New York that I might end a set with. I wouldn’t play a record like that on any other day. I wouldn’t be averse to dropping a club edit of a really cheesy Christmas song. My favourites are Christmas Rappin’ by Kurtis Blow and Christmas in Hollis by Run-DMC.”
“If I absolutely have to play a Christmas record, I will play Mariah,” says Paulette. “Good on her for making a fortune out of possibly one of the best Christmas tracks, and also one of the most annoying Christmas tracks that’s ever been written. Maybe not Do They Know It’s Christmas? Slade? Never in a million years! Keep that for the office parties.”
Sherelle doesn’t tend to play Christmas songs in her sets – when she plays over the festive period she “veers towards tracks that are going to get people into a very specific vibe, like UK hardcore, even – bits which are very dance-y, upbeat and have lots of piano”. Still, she loves Christmas music and is doing a second Caribbean Christmas show for 6 Music. “I Saw Mommy Kiss a Dreadlocks by Barrington Levy is a really cute, silly song. And Benjamin Zephaniah’s Talking Turkeys is another favourite. It is a beautiful poem that promotes looking after each other and all the beings on Earth.”
Think about the messages of songs
“On New Year’s Eve, I don’t just sit and string out all the hits,” says Murphy, “but it has to be uplifting. Future-facing is usually good; songs that are speaking about the future in a positive way. The last thing you want is: ‘Oh, it’s all going to be terrible from here on in.’”
Be prepared for midnight on New Year’s Eve
“Whether you are playing house, disco or techno,” says Paulette, at midnight “you play a track either that has been significant in the year or that is going to be significant for the next year and that everybody loves. In 2006, it was Crazy by Gnarls Barkley that everybody seemed to drop.”
“I’ve always got a fondness for You Got the Love, the Frankie Knuckles mashup of the Candi Staton song. There is something very celebratory about that,” says Cook. “Or Born Slippy by Underworld. Something that gets the hands in the air. It is that moment of abandon and celebration that certain riffs or noises engender.”
Don’t overindulge
Sherelle used to drink alcohol when she first got a rider but now tends to only have one Club-Mate and tequila when she DJs, which she finds is enough to keep her going. She advises passing DJing duties to someone more sober if you have overindulged. “I’ve definitely been to a few parties where people’s recreational usage has influenced their playlists and created a very strange and weird vibe where everyone wants to go home.”
Dance like no one’s watching
“I always dance while DJing,” says Paulette. Some DJs are “hypercritical of other DJs who dance around, gesticulate and lip-sync, because people aren’t there to look at the DJ. I get that. But I think it really works: if you are seen to be having a great time, then the people on the dancefloor will also have a great time.”
