I Haven't Played One Track out of Todays Top 40 All Year and Here's WHY

0:00 It is November 2025 and so far this year I have done an experiment

Right ladies and gentlemen, it is November 2025 and so far this year I have done an experiment. So it's about DJing, it's about mobile DJing and it's about the music I've been playing. Now this year I have not downloaded one new track. I downloaded, I haven't, sorry, downloaded a track that was released say 30 years ago and I haven't played that. What I haven't done is I haven't downloaded any tracks that were released this year and played them. I wanted to do this experiment personally to see the reaction from people I'm playing to. Now if you're like me you're I mean, years ago I used to do clubs and all that sort of stuff but now it's just mobile and it's predominantly weddings. But practically every single wedding I've done, no one has even asked for a modern track. They haven't even said, oh can you play this at the top 40 or that at the top 40? And there's good reason for that and it's psychological and I will explain.

2:02 I'm trying to talk about logic here

You're always in a wedding, or not always but generally you're going to have a mixture of age groups from mothers with babies, toddlers, youngsters up to grandparents, grandmas, granddads the like. So you can have a wide mix of all age groups. So you would have thought that you're going to have an age group that would want you to play modern day pop music. But here's the twist, and this is where psychology comes in. If you're very good at putting a set together that is harmonically gelled together, it takes people on a journey, then by definition what you're able to do is capture their imagination in your set so they're not going to be then thinking, oh, this DJ's crap, we want to hear something else.

So how do you do that? Now, again, I'm just looking really. I'm trying to talk about logic here. But imagine going on a boat journey on a rough sea. You're going to be battered about the place everywhere. You're going to be rocking and it's going to be a horrible experience. Unless, of course, you're like me and you don't really mind. As a young kid, my dad took people out on boat trips and it would be rocking like mad and I'd love it. Anyway, what I'm trying to explain here is if you put your set together and the tracks fit well with each other. So for example, the wrong thing to do is play like an old school rock tune and then play a hip hop tune and then play... One soul tune, and then play one house tune, and then play one party tune, and so on. Now, if you mix those harmonically and you're really clever, it might work. But you don't really want to spend hours and hours going through your tracks working out smooth transitions from house to hip-hop and rock to soul. You don't want to do that. It's a waste of time and energy. On the other hand...

4:26 Dance floor, people, floor almost

If you, let's say, put together a set where you've got five or six rock tunes and then you go into maybe some drum and bass and then you go into some soul to slow the thing, you know, slow the energy down into a couple of hip-hop tunes from hip-hop or you then go into drum and bass because you're going from broken beats slow to fast. You can easily go from half-time to double time, hip hop to drum and bass, and then you can slow it down a peg or two and go into some house tracks. But again, it's about putting your set together. And that's what I've been trying to do. And this year so far, it's worked because no one has asked me, oh, can you play so-and-so out of the top 40? Because I've got a captive audience, I'm able to

To get them interested in the set. Now, I've always thought, and comment if you think this is right or wrong, but I've always said and thought, excuse me, that if I have people coming up to me constantly asking for requests, there's one thing I'm doing wrong and that is I'm not playing a good set because a lot of people sitting down will look at the dance floor and go, oh, this isn't very good. Not many people dancing or I don't like this sort of music and they come up. So what they're actually trying to do, unbeknown to them, is get people on the dance floor. It's almost as though they're thinking DJ's crap. If I choose a track then for him or for her that might make loads more people come on the dance floor.

You may be have one person or two throughout the whole night come and request a track just because it happens to be their favourite track, then that's not too bad. And also as well psychologically when you have a full dance floor you're less likely to get people to come up and ask for requests because you've got eye candy. Now what do I mean by that? Now when you're doing any form of event If you imagine, if you go into a room, a venue and the dance floor is empty and you've got people at the bar, you've got people sitting down, you've got people at the buffet and there's no one on the dance floor. It's almost like embarrassing for everyone, especially for the DJ. It's a little bit like, oh we need something to happen.

7:10 Again, back to the conversation at hand

The analogy is very simple. It's like going to a show, going to a circus and having no one in front of you there to entertain you. No one. The stage is empty. The circle where the clowns go and the acrobats is empty. I mean people are really like, what's going on? Why isn't there something here for us? And that's exactly the same experience people will get. So again, back to the conversation at hand. Simply like this. I think it's because, I hate to say it, but modern day pop music is dead. It seems to be the same artists playing the same few keys, the same notes, talking about either love, money, drugs, diamonds, cars, killing people, murder and the mind boggles. It's just insane. So, and also, when I say we have the same artists, I'm going to give you a reason why we have the same artists. It's because they're owned by the big companies. And the big companies want their share of the music industry. And because now there's less money in the music industry, that means there's less money currency to go around, which means they're more likely to want to have their artists.

Back in the top 40 again and again and again, so they will make the money. They don't want new people into the top 40. Heavens forbid! And believe me, there are so many good producers, DJs who make their own music, and singers, songwriters and bands out there. You wouldn't believe it, there's thousands of them. And we never see them in the top 40 or hear them in the top 40 simply because of that. There isn't enough... Thank you for watching. Practice and enjoy.

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