Does this happen to you?

You plan a Halloween party. You got every little detail planned and taken care of, including the music.

If anything, you know Halloween music. You keep a huge list of mp3's on your computer harddrive and cannot wait 'till this time of the year to break them out without all the weird looks you would get for listening to them in March. (Which a lot of us do anyways.)

So your guests show up, the music is playing and everything is going good until one of the guests heads to the stereo and decides that they want to be DJ and play one of their CD's, which makes the half the room cringe.

So.. this year I have decided to hook up my iPod to the stereo and make a special playlist for the party. I have all the Halloween music together, but I need a good list of Party songs that I can play into between the holiday music so people don't start to get bored with it.

My friends are into everything from the Hip Hop to Alternative to Classic Rock!

Make a rule hands off the stereo. That's what I'd do if i had gone to all the trouble to put together my own music for a party. If you'd wanted that asshole to DJ you would have asked for it. Man that would tick me off no end.

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I have sort of the same problem. I need to make a play list about 5 hours long and i'm running short of songs. The thing is I don't want alot of halloween type song on there i.e. monster mash, rocky horror, etc. But I still want it some what dark. I got Rob Zombie, Black Sabbath, Wednesday 13, Bauhaus, Voltaire and others on there. My crowd is more Classic rock and goth.

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"I am a scary monster"

Unholysuicide.. You understand my problem.

The guy who did this last year, is a good guy. But unfortunely, he lives for that extremely heavy heavy rock music that he believes can only be played at the highest setting!

And while I do love my harder rock, it's a party. I feel like you should cater to:

1) The Theme of the party (In this case, Halloween. I personally could listen to the Halloween related stuff all the time, but I realize not everyone appreicates that.

2) Play a wide range of music that suits everyone, a sort of jukebox.

But's just really hard to find songs that will make everyone happy.

This year's group consists of the heavy mental crowd, the (sigh) slighty disco/dance music crowd and the people who really don't care.

This year, I told my friend that I would slap him if he even looks @ my Ipod this year. LMAO.

when I pick out my list I tend to go by the rule of; "do most of the people at this party know the words to this song" or "is this a drunken singing song?". I only keep to this cuase I personaly hate it when I go to a party and I don't know any of the words to a song or even the song at all. Try looking for covers of songs or for your dance crowd try "mush ups".
I had the problem last year of haveing my roommate DJing it and he chossed mostly all techno music. It was fun the first couple of songs but it tends to get old. Also try to keep the songs around 3-4 mins. that way you are not push 12 songs that are 5 min long each. People tend to get bored of songs fast.

Try Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies.

Aslo how are you getting this songs?

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"I am a scary monster"

Party theme should definately be taken into consideration. if it is a Halloween party I see no reason all the songs can't be Halloween themed. I've found at most parties I've gone to (which aren't a great multitude mind you) the music can be more of a distraction from carrying on conversations than anything. But that's just me.

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You know in my experience.. Music the first thing other then decor that get's people in the mood of the party.

But after the first hour, when most people are in attendance, the party animals always want to dance. Probably due to the all the drinks they had.

Then later, everyone basically gets very chatty and want to eat and drink some more.

So I am thinking of having the first part of the night, when the people start to show up have the more novelty music being played. Classics to get them in the Halloween mood followed by the more active music .. the more dance/rock tunes.

As the night goes on, the stereo usaually gets turned down anyways.

I'm getting most of my music from my mp3 library, cd's, borrowed cd's and itune downloads.

missjavaviolet.. That is a very good idea. I think I might tweek it a little to fit my parting seeing that most of my guests and me will be coming working at a haunted house so they would already be in the mood. lol

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"I am a scary monster"

I can't imagine one of our guests changing the music. I have a playlist that is ridiculously long. I have a mix of halloween music, rob zombie type stuff, a few well known theme songs, and 80/early 90ss music. I may throw in some other stuff, but 80s music fits perfectly. I throw in some cheesy oldies too. (b52s, oingo boingo, michael jackson)

Also, if it has anything to do with halloween in the lyrics, I might include it. Zombie by the Cranberries, Haunted Heart by Sammy Kershaw, Feed my Frankenstein by Alice Cooper, etc...)

We have people from the early 20s to late 50s. Anything too hardcore for too long is annoying. Music is a backdrop, conversation shouldn't be difficult.

A few years ago a friend planned a Halloween party, and asked me for help because I've been doing this for so long. Another friend of mine and I created a playlist with all the classic Halloween songs, plus some not-so-well-known stuff, including Roky Erickson (look him up. Night of the Vampire is a classic)

Anyways, when the time came, he got cold feet and didn't want to play our CD. Instead he chose to please the crowd with pop music, which made the party lame in my opinion. If you're calling it a Halloween party, you have to go all the way!