An Ode To The Party DJ

Hamiltonian11 years ago

I use the term “DJ” loosely. If your college experience was anything like mine (full of drunken debauchery at a medium-sized directional state school in the midwest) then you know that the most self-righteous brother living in the chosen party house runs the music. What does that mean for the rest of us? It means that we, as the partygoers, are subject to whatever that pretentious prick likes this week. I know this because I was that guy.

To be clear, most of my musical choices were driven by what was hot at the time. Unfortunately, it was mostly ear-ripping dance music that would make Elvis shit straight through his white bell bottoms. However, everyone knows that the King wasn’t valued for his musical prowess. It was that he made women wet just through his music. This column is a cautionary tale, if not a guide for all you pretentious pricks out there on how to forge the house playlist into a weapon for all your brothers to wield on their way into the sexually frustrating battle that is the dance floor.

Through my years as an undergrad, I attended an incalculable number of parties, ragers, bangers, and soft openings. The ones worthy of the adjective “epic” all had one thing in common in addition to copious amounts of the Devil’s juice — the DJ knew what the hell he was doing. It is an art form. being able to sense the pulse of a crowd. Most of us know that you can’t just throw a classic such as “Shout” (by my man Otis) into the middle of a set comprised of Ke$ha and Lil Jon; it will kill whatever momentum the party was carrying. It is this fundamental ability to understand what the people want to hear next that can take a mediocre gathering of polite intoxication and background music to a shit storm with dangerous levels of inebriation and borderline public sodomy.

My recommendation to any of you that have been deemed worthy of operating the house’s sound system is that you build a carefully crafted playlist that is fluid. One that can be adjusted to mirror the mood of the crowd. Save the good stuff for when the throng is thickest and the alcohol is plentiful. By doing so, a heavy beat and a fast tempo coupled with well-known lyrics can lead to hours of dripping sweat and beer showers that we all have come to love and cherish. The payoff? Suddenly you have found a courage reservoir that could only be tapped with the right combination of MadDog 20/20, beer bongs, and shotgunned Natty.

Go forth and conquer, gentlemen.