Get Those Old Records Off the Shelf

This may be a bit of rant, so I apologize in advance.

I'll get it out right now, I hate cheesy wedding music. And for this moment I'll admit that I'm an elitest "holier then thou" prick when it comes to music. Since I'm at that age where lots of people I know have been getting married over the past year or two I've had to endure evenings of dancing to horrible music. There was one exception to this and I'll get to that in a bit. First, let's check out some of the main thorns in my side.

Number 1, with a silver bullet
I think the all-time worst offender of the wedding-music genre is Bob Seger and his Old Time Rock & Roll. First of all, the song sucks. There is no getting past that fact. Secondly it serves as an invitation for all uncordinated middle-aged white guys to come out and dance. It never fails. For some reason you put an average uncoordinated guy on the dance floor while that song is on and it's like an exponential function into the upper stratosphere of uncoordination. At least with a lot of more dancy stuff, you can fake it and not look ridiculous, but this song is just the daddy of them all. And for some reason when it comes on, the MAWGs (that is on HELL of an anacryonm, and you heard it here first folks), think it is one of the best songs ever and get up and dance. Horrible, just horrible stuff.

Number 2
The Electric Slide. I never learned this dance. I don't see the appeal in line dancing the same 16 steps for 5 minutes. A good time to vist the bar and get a double-shot of Wild Turkey. Side note, to you LHS alums, how many times did you do the Macarena and say "hey, we were doing [basically] the same dance to Personal Jesus (and a superior song) way before this crap."?

Number 3
Celebration. Can you believe that the same geniuses behind Jungle Boogie also came up with this offender? How many weddings haven't played this one within the first 10 minutes of being at the reception. Yes, it's a wedding. We ARE going to have a good time and you know what Mr. Kool? We are celebrating. We don't need you to tell us.

Number 4
The Love Shack. Now don't me wrong here, I rather enjoy this song. But it is way overplayed at weddings. The song has been devalued due to its association with the other songs on this list.

Number 5
Any cheesy slow, slow-rock/kenny g/etc crap for the father-daughter/mother-son/etc dances that we are forced to sit through.

Number 6
Any Country. This should actually be higher up, cause I'm at a wedding and I don't want to hear about how sexy your tractor is.

So there are your prime offenders. There are more, but I don't go to weddings to list down all the songs that suck. Since I'm on the topic, how offensive are wedding DJs that play this crap? They all have those classic crappy radio voices, trying to encourage people to dance to the stuff they choose to play. Sometimes I wonder how clued-in they are. I've been at more then one wedding where the DJ screwed up the introductions of the bridal party (including the bride & groom) -- just wrong man. And sometimes they play songs that no one knows and just clears the dance floor. Don't do that, it ain't cool.

Probably the best wedding DJ I ever experienced was this past summer at Gellin-Alexander Fest 2005. They chose to have a friend of ours (Mr. Michael Monaghan) DJ the wedding. Mike asked for us (the Case Swimming Alums) to provide mix CDs of songs that were a big part of when we were in school. We came prepared and there was a steady mix of 80s classics along with the songs (Shimmer, Veronica, etc) that had actually meaning to us. Add this to the fact that Mike is an actual DJ and mixed the songs together...it was a great time.

When I get married (whenever that may be), the music will be important. Really important. Being a music snob you will not see any of the above songs played at my wedding. Of course in my dream world I'd have R.E.M. serve as the wedding band, but that is my dream world, and not reality. I like the idea of having a friend serve as DJ or having a live band. In the few times I've experienced a live band at a wedding, it didn't go wrong. Yeah, you miss some of the fun Rap/RnB/dancy songs (Baby Got Back, Bust a Move, etc) that are hard to replicate in a live setting, but you gain so much more from having a live band. If for some reason I do have to hire a DJ, I'll be very particular and probably give him the list of songs that I want to be played and will additionally give him a no-play list. Some may not like it, but hey, it's my wedding and I'll only be doing it once.