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Give me your party music!
I'm making a big fat party mix. Right now its mostly house and related genres
I don't really know anything about these genres, so I'm tumbling down the rabbit hole and adding anything that seems alright.
Anyway, give me your party jams. I'm totally cool with more indie dancey stuff like Toro y Moi's Freelance or El Guincho's Bombay -- this is stuff I actually listen to, so there will be a bunch of this.
Any help is appreciated! If you're listing EDM stuff and can also include genres, that'd be super handy. This is still a cultural blindspot for me.
Boots and Pants and Boots and Pants and Boots and Pants!! Let's PaRTaY!!
Ok, but seriously party tracks inbound! I'm going to give a pretty big range here as a party can take so many forms. Is this is classy shindig? A neighborhood rager? A debaucherous night with da boiz? I've broken out the selection by the kind of evening I'd generally pair it with. The link below are links to Spotify (sorry if you don't use the platform), otherwise they are largely available on Youtube.
Edit: After completing it, wow I over did it. Sorry for the extensive list, I got into this and went overboard. There is no ranking by where songs come in the lists. Hope you enjoy!
First up, the generalist. AKA: let's crank the pop.
It took me a really long time to come around to but when appropriate, I love pop music. These are the tunes that anyone can jam to from kiddos to grannies and everyone in between. I'm going to span eras here.
Cold Heart - Elton John and Dua Lipa. Probably my favorite dance song to come out in the last year.
All Night - Chance the Rapper
Say So - Doja Cat.
Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk. Daft Punk is the perfect party music and they will be featured else where as well. I went with this song as it's the one I would say the most folks know and get reeeally excited for.
Dance Yourself Clean - LCD Soundsystem. Similarly there are so many bangers from LCD
PYT - Michael Jackson. A personal favorite of mine. Can't have a party like this without Michael.
Rhythm is a Dancer - SNAP!
Locked Out of Heaven - Bruno Mars
Juice - Lizzo
Ungodly Hour - Chloe and Haley
Yes Sir, I can Boogie - Baccara. An oldie but a banger.
Ce Juex - Yelle
Next, a chill afair.
Some parties are more about catching up and chatting. The vibe should still be lively but relaxing and the music should reflect that.
Is There Any Love - Twin Shadow. Very repetitive and easy to gently move your shoulders to during an engaging conversation.
Feel Your Weight - Rhye and Poolside collaboration. A little funking a little mellow.
[Happiness In Liquid Form] - Alfie Templeman.
Boarderline - Tame Impala. As with most of their stuff it's an easy party play, just stay away from their hits that have been played to death.
This Must Be the Place - Talking Heads. Who can be sad listening to this song?
Somebody New - Swim Mountain
Hush - Marias and Still Woozy
The Spot - Your Smith
Guilty - Lady Wray
Johnny Says Stay Cool - Babe Rainbow
Most Really Pretty Girls have Pretty Ugly Feet - HNNY
Supalonely - BENEE
Can't Keep Checking My Phone - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Let's break out the china and crystal, we're having a cocktail party.
Excuse Me Mister - Gale Garnette.
Agua de Beber - Sergio Mendez. Sergio gets a few shouts on here.
Uturs Horas - Ochestra Baobab.
Swing - Jose Gonzalez
This is Where We Come In - The James Hunter Six
Jump in the Line - Harry Belefonte
Lady Fingers - Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass
Gypsy Woman - Joe Bataan
Oogum Boogum Song - Brenton Wood
The Chant - Artie Shaw
How Long Do I Have To Wait for You? - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Stanyan Street - Nick Waterhouse
Cry to Me - Solomon Burke
Now we take a trip south, particularly if you're from the Americas.
To me there are very few cultures that party like those in Latin America and the Caribbean. I'm going to have two unique lists here because they have different vibes.
Central and South America
Dorothy - Polo y Pan. I could put pretty much any Polo y Pan song in this list and it would work. Worst case, just throw on one of their albums.
Ponza - Laila Al Hasba
Loca People - Sak Noel
Mais Que Nada - Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66. This song could easily make its way into the chill party or the cocktail one. Fantastic.
Come On Home - Ljjadu Sisters
Alegria - Elia y Elizabeth
Estrelar - Marco Valle
El Cuarto de Tula - Buena Vista Social Club
La Danza del Portolero - Los Wembler's de Iquitos
Lobos al Escape - Los Orientiales de Paramonga
Caribbean
Hello - Kes
Wine to the Top - Vybz Cartel
Watch out for This, Bumaye - Major Lazer
From here we might just burn the house down.
All Night Long - The Frowning Clouds. I can't believe it's been over a decade since this released.
Switchblade - Drunk Mums
By Myself - FIDLAR
Maldito - Jessy Bulbo
Get Found - Bass Drum of Death
Drugs I've Taken - White Fang
Sick Shit - Together Pangea
My Sunshine - Ty Segall
Tremmors - Meat Bodies
Ok, last one. We've run the gambit and now it's time to get down and funky.
Man Funk - Guts, Leron Thomas
Skin on Skin - Franc Moody
Overnight - Parcles. Like so many bands on here you could really play most of their discography.
Disco Dancer - Kiki Gyan
Ladies - Lee Fields and the Expressions
Leave the Door Open - Anderson Paak, Bruno Mars
She Can't Love You - Chemis
Blame it on the Boogie - The Jacksons
Everyone's a Winner - Hot Chocolate
Too Hot to Trot - The Commodores
this is amazing! I scraped and added them all to a feeder playlist via the API. There's a lot of gold here. I owe you one.
I should note, for the record, that Lee Fields is the greatest of all time.
My go-to "set & forget" music for house parties is any of LCD Soundsystem's first 3 albums. They're high-energy, the songs are diverse enough to not stand out as repetitive, and they filter people out of your party that don't like LCD Soundsystem (shouldn't be friends with them anyway).
https://album.link/us/i/696523434
yesssssss! LCDS rules.
I really wish Spotify had a built in mixer so I could crop and adjust fade for some tracks. I'd love to have about half of Daft Punk is.. for this mix, but 5m is too long.
Normally I spend a lot of time building a mix, beatmatching, etc so I have a single file I can slap on... but I've realized over the years that nobody but me and a small handful notice or care.
These aren’t exactly in line with what you’ve posted but both have incredible feel-good party energy to me:
Alex Newell - Kill the Lights
SOPHIE - Immaterial
I'll pull albums and recommend a couple tracks, unless a whole EP is bangers.
Early dubstep. It doesn't match the vibe you're putting out, but it also might. IDK.
Skream - : Rutten
Rusko - Babylon Vol 2 and Mr Chips, not a lot of material, but it's sort more of a dub vibe than later dubstep.
I guess to turn you on to stuff to more easily fold into your lists:
Mike Huckaby - The Defenders of the Deep House World, deep house: You can probably expand into each of his collaborators' discographies and find gold.
Legowelt makes great stuff on the sliding scale between house and techno. I'd start with Legendary Freaks in the Trash of Time and Crystal Cult 2080. Skip to about the middle of tracks to see how they develop. Being techno, it all comes and goes, but peaks in the middle usually.
Ceephax Acid Crew - Box Steady is fully-developed (anti-minimalist, I guess?) acid techno that may not align with what may be on your list. You could probably expand out to his other stuff, like Camelot Arcade, but earlier stuff like United Acid Emirates is a bit more plasticky sounding, but I'd recommend Commuter for a track with the best vibe on the whole thing.
This is going to come out jumbled because I'm writing bits as I go --
Thanks for these! This is great. I'm gonna get digging and totally destroy the recommendations from Spotify. After this I'm going to use this one account as my search / junk one and have another one that is pure. I already borked this one by listening to generic dinner jazz playlists for dinner :)