Wedding Reception Music For Dancing

So here are some categories and their descriptions DJ's pull from when building their wedding dj playlist:

Dance: Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson are your early dance artists. Nowadays you've got Lady Gaga and The Black Eyed Peas putting out the hits. This is a fairly broad category that reaches into many of the categories listed below, but for our purposes, we'll try to keep this category as narrow as possible.

Disco: Flashback to the late 1970's! Artists like Donna Summer, The Bee Gees, and KC and the Sunshine Band fit into this music category. Very danceable, but some standards may be a little too played out (read Celebration by Kool and the Gang).

Old School: This music genre is very similar to disco and some songs even cross over into Old School. Songs like Atomic Dog, Electric Kingdom, and Rapper's Delite fall under this umbrella. A lil mo' funky, fo sho!

Rap: This category breaks down into a couple of niches: Old school rap is similar to Rapper's Delite mentioned above and also includes 80's rap like Bust A Move and It Takes Two. 90's rap, like Back to da Hotel and the campy Ice, Ice Baby land here. And there's Gangsta Rap from the likes of Tu Pak Shakur, Ice Cube, Ice T , and anyone else with "Ice" in their name.

Top 40 Rap: This would be the most current rap out there. As of 2010, artists like Kanye West, Ludacris, and Lil Wayne are on the charts.

Top 40 Pop: Ugh, huge category here, but it's any new songs that people dance to. Pink, Britney Spears, and even Miley Cyrus (for the tween-agers) fit in here. This category could also include alternative bands such as All-American Rejects and A Simple Plan and even Paramore (yes, people do dance to those bands).

And there are even more Top 40 categories, but we'll stick to music playlist-friendly areas. We're trying to get people to dance. We'll be skipping dinner type music like AC (Adult Contemporary) and Vocal Jazz (Sinatra, Dean Martin, Etc).

Rock: Come on...feel the noize. Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, Def Leppard fill out the older section while newer rockers such as Daughtry, Fall Out Boy, Thrice, and Avenged Sevenfold jam up this group.

Motown: Doo-wop your way across the dance floor to The Four Tops, The Temptations, and Diana Ross (pre-Upside Down, boy you turn me) and the Supremes. Even Little Michael with the Jacksons fall in line here.

Oldies: Twist and shout to the Beatles, Chubby Checker, Little Richard, and the like. This is a fun genre that can be thrown in as a "twist" LOL once in a while.

Big Band: Sure you could play In The Mood by Glenn Miller, but newer artists swept the nation in the late 90's (Thank you, "Swingers") like Big Bad VooDoo Daddy, Blue Plate Special, and Brian Setzer's comeback with his Orchestra.

House/Techno/Rave: I know, these are three completely separate genres with their own multitude of sub-categories, but we're talking about a wedding DJ playlist, not a "Drop the bass on your head" 2000 person Rave-stravaganza! Sandstorm by Darude, Zombie Nation, and The Launch are still popular at weddings.

Latin: Mucho gusto! And so many sub-categories I can't even name them. Okay, I can so here goes...Cumbias (slower, groovier, cowbell-ier), Reggaeton (most popular, almost like latin rap), Salsas (standard swingy-type dance music), Merengues (mucho rapido, very fast, rockin' and movin'!), Bachatas (like a mix between Salsas and Cumbias, but bouncier), Rancheras/Nortena (Scream at the top of your lungs, "Ahhyeeeeeeeeaaahhh!!!"), and finally Rock En Espanol (like 80's new wave in Spanish).

Country: Yee-haw. Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill...get yer sh*#-kickers on.

Alternative/New Wave: Dropping older songs with good beats from Depeche Mode, New Order, and the B-52's make the baby boomers move their feet.

And Finally, Group Dances: I know, gack! But people still like the Chicken Dance and the Macarena (although I would avoid these like health care reform). The Cha Cha Slide and the Cupid Shuffle are newer and still fun, though.

So, there you have it. The Many genres and some very brief descriptions of what we as DJ's have to go through as we put together set lists. Many of these categories you can skip, simply because you don't want them at your wedding and that's just fine. But, the more variety you have the more people you will please. Sure, one couple might get up to dance to a latin song, but it doesn't mean you have to play 3 latin songs in a row! I've seen DJ's play a song for one couple and they danced for all of 2 minutes then walked off the floor. This pro DJ faded out the song and changed genres right then and there. There are more exceptions to the golden rule and I'll discuss other tips and tricks for creating the perfect wedding dj playlist in the future. Until then!