New Mobile DJ What Music to Play at Your Wedding Events

0:00 Styles of music in this video

Alright guys, you're watching this video because you want to become a wedding mobile DJ. Now I'm going to talk about styles of music in this video and this video is predominantly let's say for the European market simply because styles of music could vary around the world wherever you are. The styles could be slightly different in South America, they could be completely different if you're in South America and you're in India. But then again, they could be very similar if you're in Pakistan. And you never know, if you're in Nepal, you might play the same tracks. But this is UK and Europe. Now, if you are predominantly, let's say, a party DJ for birthday parties, it's fine to go in smartly dressed with maybe a good pair of jeans and a shirt. But weddings is that little bit different. It's a special day. The bride, hopefully...

We'll only have one wedding and the day has to be perfect for her. The bride is the most important person in the whole day. Groomers, of course, the father, the bride, the mother, the children, etc., the guests, yes. But the bride is important. If you impress and you please the bride, you will please everyone else. If you piss the bride off, then you might as well go home and take up needlework. So, excuse me, what do you play? Well, a vast selection of music first of all. So if let's say you're a club DJ and you want to delve into becoming a wedding DJ don't start playing the latest house tracks and go in with techno and trance because it won't work unless the bride has specified she wants that style. If she has then by all means play it and if anyone comes up to you and complains

2:20 What do you play at a wedding event?

The bride's told me to play this. That is the best excuse in the world because it's the bride's day. If she wants it, she gets it. I've done a gig where the bride has given me a playlist and I digress slightly from that playlist and believe it or not she's come up to me and says I didn't put this on the playlist. Alarm bells ring. Ah, she wants me to play only tracks from the playlist which I have done. The people enjoyed it but it wasn't as good as if I was able to delve through my collection and grab tunes, tracks that I know would work. So what do you play at a wedding event? Well what you have to do, let's put your mind now on the top 40 as it is today. Of course you'll be watching this video in the future so you can still put your mind on the top 40 where you are.

There are tracks that are one-hit wonders, there are tracks that you listen to and wonder why the hell it's in the top 40 anyway. There are tracks in the top 40 now, while you're watching this, that are classics and everyone likes it and sings alongs and jumps and as soon as you hear the first riff you think that is a brilliant track. Well these potentially are the tracks to play at weddings. Now let's go back a little bit which is where I am now and you're watching me because I'm in the past. There are tracks around today that I would never play in a wedding simply because they're like, what are they? They're one-hit wonders. They're like nothing. It's pop flubber. It's just rubbish that people listen to now and it's forgotten in six months. Now let's go back behind time now, even further behind where I'm making this video.

And I need to think about the tracks, the big tracks from years ago. The big tracks. Now I've got here a twin CD called Simply the Best Disco. Now I recommend you get something like this because it's got everything. I'm going to give you a rundown of some of the tracks on here. So good, I bought it twice. I Will Survive Glory Againer, Funky Town, Lip Sync, Boogie Nights, Heat Wave, I'm Every Woman, Shaka Khan, Lady Marmalade, LaBelle, Blame It On The Boogie, Jacksons, That's The Way I Like It, Casey and the Sunshine Band. Now pretty much every single one of those tracks you could play at a wedding in the UK because they're fun, they're exciting, they're old school, they're disco people like that kind of vibe.

4:35 Play that funky music, Wild Cherry

Play that funky music, Wild Cherry. It's an absolute classic. I have played that at 18th birthday parties and the crowd's gone wild. Now, the key to this video, I think, the key is let's have a look at music. If we say, let's say all of a sudden in 1970, music began. So we have 70s, 80s, 90s. 2040 odd years plus, 50 years plus or 40 sorry of tracks. What you have to do, you have to go through all those decades and choose the tracks that people remember now. The ones that are big like Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, Madonna, Holiday, Michael Jackson, Billie Jean. Tracks like that are the ones That you can get away with playing at a wedding because everyone knows them. That is the key. You need to play tracks that everyone knows. Right, so I've got here Fantastic 80s, 80s Simply The Best 80s, Blast From The Past. Let's have a look at some of these. Right, Club Tropicana, Wham! Okay, that's a good track. What else have we got on there?

Culture Club, Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me? I think that's on there. Blue Monday, New Order. It's a bit of a dark track but you play that at the right time in a wedding and the crowd will go nuts because it's one of those old original dance tracks from the early 80s that people love. One of the great ones here is Run DMC, Walk This Way. Again, if you think about it, you've got aunties and uncles out there. Who you would class as old. Alright, let's imagine there was someone sitting down and they're 60. And you look at them and you think, they're not going to dance to any new dance tracks. But Run DMC Walk This Way, now I'm not going to play ignorant here. Well, I'm going to play ignorant here because I can't remember exactly when it was out. But it's sort of around about the late 80s, early 90s. So, let's go back.

6:55 Pretty much 20 to 30 years, roughly

Pretty much 20 to 30 years, roughly. Okay, when it was out, 20 odd years. People are going to be commenting now going, no, it wasn't, it was out until 19, whatever, whatever. So what you have to remember is that person who is 60 now was maybe 40 then. So they will associate themselves being that age and that person who you think, you know what, they're not going to dance to anything like that, will. Because that was in when they were a lot younger. So you have to think along those lines. I mean, I can remember doing functions in the early 80s and playing 60s and having people who were like doddery and they would get up and party because of course there's tracks in the 60s were in vogue, were in when they were say 40 or 30.

This is something to remember and it's so important. Even for example someone who is 80 now, you go back 40 odd years to the 70s and you start playing disco, classic disco tracks, they're going to love it because that's what they remember. Those are the classic tracks for them. So it's about a mindset, getting your mindset in tune with the people who are at the event. It's always a good idea as well to take the random kind of CD or album. Pulp Fiction, that's a good one. I like to play this, Sal Sol. Now Sal Sol is a mixture of salsa and soul music. It originated in the late 70s, early 80s, more like the late 70s. And a lot of these tracks are very disco orientated. And a lot of modern day tracks have taken samples from South Soul Records. Believe me, absolute classics. This one here, the 70s soul revival. Absolute monsters on here. James Brown again. We've got The Tramps, Sister Sledge, We Are Family, Cool and the Gang, Ladies Night, Dynasty, I Don't Want to Be a Freak, Earth, Wind & Fire, Boogie Wonderland, Edwin Starr Contact. Those tracks are classic disco cuts.

9:16 This one here, Tom Jones and Jules Holland

This one here, Tom Jones and Jules Holland. Now this is a sort of CD I would play at the beginning of the wedding while people are coming in because it's very uplifting, very bouncy. It's got lots of instruments in it. Sorry, it's not electronic. You have people playing real instruments there. Great. This one here, Disco Funk Flavors 2. Alright, this one here is more sort of disco orientated but the lesser known. Now I would play something like that again at the beginning of a wedding, maybe while they're eating. So it's the sort of like random background music that isn't drab and crap where people are thinking what on earth is this rubbish? In other words, the sort of stuff you play in a lift. The only reason you play crap in a lift is because you don't really want people to stay in the lift, you want them to bugger off quickly.

Alright, another good one here is the Blues Brothers. Now, anyone out there who has never heard of the Blues Brothers, I'm afraid, is dead. Okay, so there you go. Everybody needs somebody. Classic track. Now in the UK we have this series called the Now Series and I highly recommend you invest or look into getting these because what they do is they will get the better or, well, they'll... Look at the charts today and possibly in the near future, and slightly in the past, and they will compile a CD giving you the chart poppy hits. Now you're not going to play every single one from here, but you will have a good old delve through, like Bruno Mars' The Lazy Song, you know, that one. Chris Brown, Beanie Benassi, Beautiful People, Calvin Harris here, Bounce. So there's a good selection of all...

All styles on here. It's pop, it's indie, it's hip-hop and it's dance as well. What else have we got? There's loads of stuff. So really, in a nutshell, a wedding DJ must be able to play a vast array of music including Tamela Motown, Northern Soul, funk, reggae, rock, hip-hop, soul, R&B, house, jazz, pop, rare groove, the list goes on. On. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.