Er... no you don’t.”
So we went out dancing the other day. We go fairly often.
We’ve been a couple of times since. But this was different because we went a
little off piste, away from the gays, out with some friends to a local 80s
night.
Our guests were adamant they wanted 80s. It’s their thing.
They like 80s when they go out, which isn’t as often as us, so we like to
oblige.
We foolishly tried somewhere oh so Brighton-esque and a bit
trendy and alternative. And it was
awful. They did that thing where, rather than just playing some nice songs that
everyone will enjoy, they set out to educate you.
‘You may not know this. You may not like this, but THIS is
what you should be listening to...’
That sort of thing.
And there may well be a time and a place for this, but this
was an 80s night. It was advertised as amazing 80s, back to the future, dance
your tits off, delicious, mozerellicious cheese.
And they were playing such weird stuff. Loosely 80s,
granted, but not a song ANYONE there knew.
“Why?” I wondered to myself. There is no-one dancing.
Everyone is doing that shuffling thing where they WANT to dance, but it’s just
not good enough. And I felt a bit embarrassed. Our friends had travelled some
distance to see us, and specifically asked for certain music when we went out,
and we’d tried to oblige.
In the end, one of them went up to the DJ and said “Can you
play something everyone’s heard of?”
And you know what he said?
He said he had to warm up the crowd and play some bad music first.
Why? Why? Why would anybody do this? There is not a shortage of good music. You
won’t run out at 11.30. You don’t need to save all the good music for the
end. You could just play it now and continue
to play it all night, and everyone would dance all night and enjoy it.
Why do you need to deny everyone? It’s not like people REALLY appreciate the
good music, and feel saved from the early bad bit, and therefore enjoy it more
because of this build up; this warm up. They just say things like – ‘the music
was bad early on, but got much better.’
People would be happier if they just liked all of it.
Which is where it’s gone wrong in so many places. People don’t want to be educated by their DJ.
That’s not why they go out. They want to
hear some songs they know, some songs they like, with the odd predictable old
favourite that you always hear, and the odd surprise where you say ‘Awesome – I’ve
not heard this in AGES!’ and get all excited.
But they don’t want to be educated. They’ve paid to have a
nice time and really, Mr DJ, you’re paid to entertain them, not tell them they’re
wrong, or uncool, or that they require re-education according to your stringent
and restricted definition.
So entertain them.
Give the people what they want, not what they need.
Be the sort of DJ about whom people say: “He played amazing
music ALL night!”
Let them have the good music.
Thank you for the music...
