Sharon's Birthday Dance Party

Here's a playlist I assembled in preparation for a four-hour birthday dance party for my friends Sharon and Marc. Of course, there's no way to play 100 songs in four hours, so many of these songs didn't get played that night, but this was my roadmap for the night's voyage.

Instrumental Background Music: these ten instrumentals were set aside for the first hour when the guests were arriving.

1. Groove Holmes • Beastie Boys
2. Mick's Up • Style Council
3. Cantaloupe Island
4. Guero Canelo • Calexico
5. The Staunton Lick • Lemon Jelly
6. Untitled Instrumental • Bo Diddley
7. Flying • The Beatles
8. Homage to Patagonia • Lemon Jelly
9. S'il vous Plait • Fantastic Plastic Machine
10. Rodney Yates • David Holmes

Swing & Soul: It's important to play some golden oldies at the outset, to give the older early birds (parents, grandparents) something easy to dance to before they split.

11. A String of Pearls • Glenn Miller
12. Flip, Flop, and Fly • Big Joe Turner
13. Jump, Jive, and Wail • Louis Prima
14. Rock Around The Clock • Bill Haley & His Comets
15. Mustang Sally • Wilson Pickett
16. Lonely Teardrops • Jackie Wilson
17. Tequila • The Champs
18. Diner • Martin Sexton
19. Little Bitty Pretty One • Clyde McPhatter
20. Let's Stay Together • Al Green
21. Mr. Big Stuff • Jean Knight
22. Ruby Baby • The Drifters
23. Sweet Soul Music • Arthur Conley
24. Tears Dry on Their Own • Amy Winehouse
25. Birthday • The Beatles
26. Let's Get This Party Started • Black-Eyed Peas
27. Mr. Blue Sky • ELO
28. History Repeating • The Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey
29. My Sharona • The Knack
30. You Dropped a Bomb On Me • The Gap Band
31. Best of My Love • Emotions
32. I'm Coming Out • Diana Ross
33. What I Like About You • The Romantics
34. September • Earth, Wind, and Fire
35. Atomic Dog • George Clinton
36. If You Don't Know Me By Now • Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
37. Take a Chance On Me • ABBA
38. Like A Virgin [ext dance mix] • Madonna
39. Faith • George Michael

Totally Eighties: Alternative & New Wave

40. Kiss Me On The Bus • The Replacements
41. This Charming Man • Smiths
42. Just Can't Get Enough • Depeche Mode
43. Bizarre Love Triangle • New Order
44. Tainted Love • Soft Cell
45. Don't You Want Me • Human League
46. The Safety Dance • Men Without Hats
47. Don't Bring Me Down • ELO
48. Borderline [new mix] • Madonna
49. Don't Stop Til You Get Enough • Michael Jackson
50. Wake Me Up Before You Go Go • Wham!
51. Love Shack • The B-52's

Hip Hop

52. Hey Ladies • The Beastie Boys
53. Bust A Move • Young MC
54. Me Myself and I • De La Soul
55. Fantastic Voyage • Coolio
56. Cantaloop • US3
57. Connected • Stereo MC's

Soul

58. Dashboard • Modest Mouse
59. Jackie Wilson Said • Van Morrison
60. The Underdog • Spoon
61. Everyday People • Sly & The Family Stone
62. Sly • The Cat Empire
63. Short Skirt, Long Jacket • Cake
64. Tenderness • General Public
65. Close To Me • The Cure
66. When The Stars Go Blue • Blake Lewis
67. Sexx Laws • Beck
68. Groove Is In The Heart • Deeee-Lite
69. Shotgun • Junior Walker & The All-Stars
70. Do You Love Me? • The Contours
71. Good Times • Chic
72. Come On Eileen • Dexy's Midnight Runners
73. Private Eyes • Hall & Oates
74. Soul Finger • The Bar-Kays
75. Night Fever • The Bee Gees
76. Waterloo • ABBA
77. Signed, Sealed, Delivered • Stevie Wonder
78. Hey Ya! • Outkast
79. Raspberry Beret • Prince & The Revolution
80. I Wanna Dance With Somebody • Whitney Houston
81. Machine Gun • Kool & The Gang
82. Superstition • Stevie Wonder
83. It Wouldnt Have Made Any Difference • Todd Rundgren
84. Ain't Too Proud To Beg • The Temptations
85. I Got Ants In My Pants • James Brown
86. Tears of A Clown • Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
87. Good Lovin' • The Rascals
88. You Can Call Me Al/Late In The Evening • Paul Simon
89. Suspicious Minds • Elvis Presley
90. Poison • Bel Biv Devoe
91. Creep • TLC

Last Call: The Party Wraps Up. Because I knew that I had over-scheduled the playlist, I set aside 10 songs for the end of the night. I went to this section when I discovered the "last gasp" of the party about to arrive.

92. Been Caught Stealing [12" remix] • Jane's Addiction
93. Love Rollercoaster • The Ohio Players
94. Rock Your Body • Justin Timberlake
95. Smile • Lily Allen
96. The Sweet Escape • Gwen Stefani
97. Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex • CSS
98. Get Ur Freak On • Missy Elliott
99. Dancing Queen • ABBA
100. Dancing With Myself • Billy Idol
101. Let's Go Crazy • Prince & The Revolution

117: Empress Zhangsun

I got the title and "artist" of this mix from a posting on the Brainiac blog at Boston.com. The game was to create a real-sounding artist and CD title from random Wikipedia entries, and real-looking cover art from random images on the Web.
ARTIST: Empress Zhangsun
TITLE: Effect of a Habit

1. Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
2. Music is My Hot, Hot Sex - CSS (from an iPod Touch commercial.)
3. Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie
4. Hold Your Head Up - Argent (one of the true one-hit wonders. I don't think Argent ever had another Top 40 single.)
5. The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani (aka my ringtone)
6. Don't Bring Me Down (live) - A cover of the ELO song by The New Pornographers (an iTunes exclusive)
7. Sweet Emotion - Mike Gordon and Leo Kottke (a mellow cover of the Aerosmith song)
8. Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well - Mike Doughty
9. From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come) - Dave Edmunds covers a fun, late-1970s Bruce Springsteen song. Edmunds is one of the rare rockers of the singer-songwriter era to specialize in covering his contemporaries' material. I bought this LP at a yard sale exclusively for this song.
10. Everybody Went Low - John Hiatt
11. Reggae Merengue - Tommy McCook & The Supersonics (this instrumental was sampled by Lily Allen for her song "LDN")
12. Pick Up The Pieces - Average White Band (how are you supposed to find instrumentals like this when there's no lyrics? Also, DJs don't announce all their songs anymore. I may have gone online to check a station's online playlist to track down this frequent movie soundtrack staple.)
13. Gotta Get Back - Shelby Lynne
14. Please Read The Letter - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
15. Precious (live) The Pretenders, live at the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, December 1979. I bought the two-LP set in Central Square, Cambridge, last winter.
16. Thankful - Glenn Phillips (This song from the former Toad The Wet Sprocket singer was a free download from iTunes. I think I was given this promo download as a credit-card-style coupon at SXSW in 2007?
17. Blue - The Thorns
18. Gypsy March - Grand Ole Party (I saw the GOP at the free party for BUST Magazine, at SXSW 2008.)
19. Bodysnatchers - Radiohead
20. Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today) - The Temptations

116: Soup Du Jour

I don't know why I haven't called a mix "Soup of the Day" before?

The Cover: A collage of snaps from our digital camera, including a view of New York City, me playing guitar at this very desk, our cat Max and his needlepoint doppleganger, and our infant friend Isaac.

The Tracks: Only six of the songs are from the 20th century:

1. Oh Well- Leo Kottke & Mike Gordon (a cover of the Fleetwood Mac song)
2. Smile (Mark Ronson Remix) - Lily Allen
3. Pressure Drop - Keith Richards and Toots & The Maytals (free? on iTunes)
4. Tenderness (Live at the Channel 1984) - I really like this modern soul song from General Public. Too much of the soul music of the Eighties has aged poorly, but this track still sounds good. I found this live recording on a cancer benefit record called LIVE! for LIFE, which we had in the library of my high school radio station, WBMT 88.3 FM. In those days, I had a negative bias against live recordings, but now I am totally into finding rare live records like this. I also like the idea that this was recorded in Boston, a mere 28 miles from where I was living my 12-year-old existence, playing air guitar along with "Footloose" and dreaming of seeing Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium.
5. Union, Jack - Big Audio Dynamite (I only heard this song once before: when I was interning for Neal Robert at WFNX in 1993, he played this track, whose drum track sounds like a sample from "Honky Tonk Women". Fast forward 14 years, and I buy a used vinyl copy of Megatop Phoenix at a record shop in Red Bank, NJ, for $2, and here we are...)
6. You Only Live Once - The Strokes (I think I found this song while listening to the Adult Alternative channel on my cable TV.)
7. Hollywood - Collective Soul (I heard this shameless Cars style-ripoff on WXRV and I knew it would make it onto a mix someday.)
8. If You're Into It - Flight of the Conchords
9. The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson (I am only a little embarrassed when I include songs from iTunes commercials on my mixes.)
10. Dark Horse - The title track from the George Harrison LP best known for George's rough, laryngitis-damaged vocals.
11. Everywhere I Go - I really like the chorus of Shawn Mullins's almost-hit.
12. Fair - This piano arrangement on this recording-- from Ben Folds's 1990 solo demo tape-- sounds like "Virtual Insanity", which never ceases to amuse me.
13. Make It Easier - My high school radio station, WBMT 88.3 FM, was on the mailing list of only a few select record labels. Because we had nearly no budget for buying music, we ended up playing a lot of music from artists whose music we got for free. One of those labels who sent us free records was Epic, home of Living Coloür and Indigo Girls, along others. That's the long story of where I got to know Indigo Girls's music from the very beginning.
14. Ride - The Vines
15. Fell In Love with A Boy - Joss Stone
16. Long Limbed Girl - Nick Lowe (from his latest album "At My Age")
17. To Know Him Is To Love Him (Napster live session) - Amy Winehouse
18. Someone To Love - Fountains of Wayne
19. Yellow Ledbetter - A great Pearl Jam B-side from the Versus era. This song always reminds me of my old friend Meg (Goldstein) Chapman, who was the biggest PJ fan in the world back then.
20. September Gurls - From The Bangles second LP, Different Light, which I got for a penny from the RCA record club.
21. Wake Up - Rage Against The Machine (aka the closing credits song from The Matrix.)

115: Eye In The Sky

#115 and 116 were composed simultaneously. The Cover: My wife's new commute route takes her past this monstrosity on a hill every day- that's her woodsy pondside road cutting diagonally through this Microsoft Visual Earth photo.

This disc is very current-heavy: over half the tracks are from the last five years, and seven of them are from 2007:

1. Tears Dry On Their Own - Amy Winehouse
2. Winning Ways - The Vines (I found this song on Music Choice channel 414.)
3. Hero Takes a Fall (Live in London 1986) - The Bangles
4. Robots (Live in NYC 2007) - Flight of the Conchords
5. LDN - Lily Allen
6. Our Town - Marshall Crenshaw
7. Traffic and Weather - Fountains of Wayne
8. Don't You Evah - Spoon
9. A Life Without You (Is No Life at All) - John C. Reilly (Reilly as Dewey Cox, singing a Roy Orbison-style torch song.)
10. Eye In The Sky - Jonatha Brooke (an interesting cover song, discovered on iTunes while looking for songs for my "1982" mix. I actually met Ms. Brooke circa 1992, when her former folk duo The Story visited WERS-FM.)
11. The Breakup Song - Greg Kihn (heard on the PA system before a New Pornographers concert.)
12. Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens (My wife included this song on a mix. Possibly the saddest song of the year!)
13. Uncle Walter - Ben Folds Five
14. Seen The Doctor - Michael Penn
15. All In My Head - Shawn Mullins
16. Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
17. Getting Better (Live 2002) - Paul McCartney (I only bought this song because I remember liking the newly-arranged ending when I saw this show at the Meadowlands with my friend Robert.)
18. Happier (Live In Portland 2003) - Guster
19. Are We Ourselves? - The Fixx
20. Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen
21. The Melee - Beastie Boys

1980s Party Playlist

January 2008: My wife and I threw a birthday party for me at the local Elks lodge. We dragged my turntable, speakers, and an old receiver borrowed from my Dad from the back of my little Honda, we hung up some of my vintage 1980s T-shirts on the wall, and dressed up like the way we thought was cool in 1986 (see right).
Anticipation is half the fun, so I worked out a playlist in advance. I didn't have a mixer, so the transitions were all going to stink, but I wanted to be prepared. Besides bringing almost all of the 60 songs on vinyl, I also burned CD-Rs of the playlist and borrowed my wife's laptop + iTunes to play music too. I don't remember exactly how closely we stuck to the playlist, so I've edited the list below to reflect as many of the changes as I can recall.
Fifteen songs per hour is average, but many of these are extended remixes from 12-inch singles, so these 60 songs are closer to 5 hours of music.
I have learned the hard way not to start off too big. At the beginning of a party, no one's dancing yet anyway. The first half hour at least should be mood-setting, almost background music.

1. Is It Love • Mr. Mister: Not many people give a crap about Mr. Mister, and I must be the only person on Earth who still remembers this song. I got the LP from the RCA Record & Tape Club. That's how old school I am.
2. You Might Think • The Cars
3. Sanctify Yourself • Simple Minds
4. Raspberry Beret • Prince & The Revolution: Midtempo and not really danceable, but everyone loves Prince.
5. Sussudio • Phil Collins
6. Sledgehammer (extended dance remix) • Peter Gabriel: Petey was my first concert (the tour for this album in 1987) and I bought all the 12" singles for the So LP.
7. We Close Our Eyes (club mix) • Go West: File next to Mr Mister under "Bands Only I Remember Anymore"
8. Say Say Say • Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson
9. Like a Virgin (extended dance remix) • Madonna: There's lots of Madonna on this playlist. She never fails!
10. Be Near Me (munich mix) • ABC
11. Too Shy • Kajagoogoo
12. Dancing In The Dark (blaster mix) • Bruce Springsteen released three 12 inch singles from the album Born In The U.S.A. comprised of disco-fied remixes by dance producer Arthur Baker. This is the best of the bunch.
13. Freeway of Love (Extended Remix) • Aretha Franklin
14. Two Hearts (club mix) • I was totally surprised to find a 12 inch single of U2 remixes from so early in their career. I own several remixes of songs from Rattle & Hum and Achtung Baby, but finding this vinyl was a total surprise. The remix is tasteful, and seems to preserve Larry Mullen's original drum track.
15. Love Bites • Def Leppard

Here's the "Late 80s English Alternative" section:

16. Why Can't I Be You? • The Cure
17. Kiss Me On The Bus • The Replacements
18. This Charming Man • The Smiths
19. Just Can't Get Enough • Depeche Mode
20. Bizarre Love Triangle • New Order
21. New Sensation (nicks mix) • INXS
22. I Cant Wait (dutch mix) • Nu Shooz
23. I'll Tumble 4 Ya (12" remix) • Culture Club
24. Borderline (new mix) • Madonna
25. Drive • The Cars: A note on ballads. Only play 1 at a time, and space them out, every 20 or 30 minutes max.
26. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go • Wham!

Here's the "Late 80s Novelty Hip Hop" section:

27. Hey Ladies • Beastie Boys
28. Bust a Move • Young MC
29. Me Myself And I • De La Soul

30. Wild Wild Life (extended mix) • Talking Heads
31. Escapade • Janet Jackson
32. Big Time • Peter Gabriel
33. Something About You • Level 42
34. Poison Arrow (remix) • ABC
35. Angel (extended dance remix) • Madonna
36. Hello • Lionel Richie
37. Rio • Duran Duran
38. Tenderness • General Public: Nobody knows this band, but everyone loves the song.
39. Steppin' Out • Joe Jackson
40. True • Spandau Ballet
41. Don't You Want Me • The Human League
42. The Safety Dance • Men Without Hats: People LOVE dancing to this song. Any dance song which is also a novelty hit song works great.
43. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) • Whitney Houston
44. Billie Jean • Michael Jackson
45. Heaven • Bryan Adams

46. I Feel For You • Chaka Khan
47. Material Girl (extended dance remix) • Madonna
48. Things Can Only Get Better • Howard Jones
49. Take On Me • A-Ha
50. That's Why They Call It the Blues • Elton John
51. Come On Eileen • Dexy's Midnight Runners: Another must-have.
52. Angel • Aerosmith
53. Hungry Like The Wolf • Duran Duran
54. Girls Just Want To Have Fun • Cyndi Lauper
55. When I Think Of You • Janet Jackson
56. Relax • Frankie Goes To Hollywood
57. Dancing With Myself • Billy Idol: People literally rushed to the dance floor like someone threw hundred-dollar bills everywhere.
58. Let's Go Crazy • Prince & The Revolution: The ideal last-song capper.

What did I take away from hosting my first live dance party?

• People like to dance to novelty hits from their youth.
• People like to dance to songs they know already. I tried playing some very danceable Style Council ("My Ever-Changing Moods"), and nobody danced. "But this song shows how cool I am!" I thought to myself. On the flip side (not literally), I didn't want to play "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" because it is hopelessly uncool. My wife forced me to play it AND SHE WAS RIGHT. The whole crowd danced their asses off.
• Don't blow your wad right away. I hosted a dance party once where the first five songs were super hot and danceable, yet everyone was still saying "hi" and settling in, so no one danced.
• I didn't think anyone would dance to "Dancing With Myself", but it really worked.
• If you want to rock the "jacket with the sleeves pushed up" look (see my photo, top), you have to roll them up BEFORE you put the jacket on.