djing “The dance floor is like an organism”: Fatboy Slim drops new DJing tips to get your holiday party started

[MusicTech]

Looking to curate the perfect party playlist for the upcoming holidays? Well, grab your headphones and prepare to channel your inner DJ because we’ve got some sage advice from British producer and DJ Norman Cook AKA Fatboy Slim – the man who knows a thing or two about getting a crowd moving.

A true master of the dance floor, Cook tells The Guardian that it’s not so much about getting people dancing as much as it is about “unifying people”.

If you’re stepping behind the decks instead of letting a playlist run on autopilot, Cook advises starting by “narrow[ing] it down to 60 or 70 tunes that you think are going to be needed.” And if the dancefloor starts losing steam? “Just play something well known” to reignite the vibe.

“For me, if I really had to rescue a dance floor I’d play Right Here, Right Now or Praise You. They would be my get-out-of-jail records,” says the DJ.

“The dance floor is like an organism, and when it’s all working together, it’s lovely, but sometimes you lose the dancefloor,” he adds. “There’s sort of different pockets of people and they’re not really united. Or some people are dancing, some people aren’t, and it’s that feeling of bonding everybody together that you need to do, and recognition of a song that everybody likes is kind of that thing.”

Cook also says that unlike when you’re playing at a club, “nothing is out of bounds” when it comes to house parties. In fact, “all bets are off because it’s Christmas,” though “there is a limited palette of what I would play.”

“There is a fabulous drum ’n’ bass edit of Fairytale of New York that I might end a set with. I wouldn’t play a record like that on any other day,” he admits.

Elsewhere, the producer also shares that he doesn’t create as much music anymore due to the overwhelming amount of gear options out there – which can be paralysing at times: “Give me a laptop, but it’s got every single drum machine, every single synth sound, every single – potentially – sound known to man.”

“I just sit and go, ‘pfft, where do you start?’ I need to start with, you know, ‘I’ve just borrowed a drum machine off a mate, I’ve got it for the weekend, just get what I can out of it.’”

“I think the most inspiring times are when people had very limited equipment and it was what you could squeeze out of that,” says Cook.

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