Good Wedding Music

Sheep

I've been tasked with coming up with a play list for my wedding reception. Problem is my personal album collection consists of more vinyl than CD and I tend to listen to stuff like The Goslings, Fela Kuti, King Crimson, etc.

Problem is that we're gonna have to appease a large audience of old folks, young folks with terrible taste in music, etc.

Thinking the play list is gonna include some of the following:

Blossom Deary
Nina Simone
Billi Holiday
Neil Young
Louis Armstrong

Gonna go through some of my jazz albums and pick out some of the more tamer stuff, like Dolphy's Jitterbug Waltz, etc.

Any suggestions of good compilations I can check out from Amazon, or any other musicians, would be helpful. Just trying to get a good list going so I can streamline everything for when I hit up Amazon.com.

EggyToast

What I did for my wedding was assess who would want to dance (no one) and if anyone in the immediate families had a strong like or dislike for music (not really). So we generally had instrumental jazz and upbeat classical music for our wedding reception, and it did exactly what we expected (served as background). My wedding had a lot of people who hadn't seen each other in a while so I knew there'd be a lot of talking and conversation, so I didn't want to force anyone out or make the music a central aspect.

A friend of mine got married and his sis and mom LOVE dancing at weddings, so he picked out songs that he knew they liked and they made it on the playlists. His playlist consisted mostly of rock songs, the hardest rock being some bon jovi and the partiest being b52's love shack. A large part of the audience ignored it because they didn't want to dance, but he also threw some swing songs in there because he knew some friends did swing dancing. So he simply grouped stuff together, and it also worked out.

I would suggest you try to appease your immediate family rather than the entire audience. Pick songs that YOU like that you feel are appropriate for your wedding, and then ask your immediate family for some suggestions. I think you've already got some great direction, as jazz standards are popular and recognizeable, but don't be afraid to play stuff you like.

A lot of wedding receptions do the "play old people music and then after 90 minutes play club music," which is the easy way out (and generally lame unless you know you're going to have a lot of old people (who are going to leave) and also a lot of young people who want to do club dancing). If you actually care about music (which it sounds like, given how you describe your current tastes), you will probably be pained at your own reception if you follow that route. I know that part of "typical" weddings is my least favorite.

Deebaser

Eggy is correct on all points. If people like to dance, let the DJ figure out what the kids are listening to in the clubs and whatnot. (or im sure H/A will help if needed )

Don't worry about pleasing anybody, but if you want everyone to get on the dancefloor and have a good time, you may have to accept that some shitty music will be played before dinner. At dinner / cocktail hour you can pick any playlist you like.

Sheep

I pretty much got it paired down to old school RnB and the like. Just trying to get a good list together to provide me with a couple of hours worth of tunes.

jeddy lee

I used a lot of rock songs, some cliche, some not. I think my playlist for our outdoor BBQ wedding at her parents church with our families all there included songs such as:

"Bones" - The Killers
"God Only Knows" - The Beach Boys
"Wouldn't it be Nice" - The Beach Boys
"Dosed" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" - The Flaming Lips
"Slaughter on 10th Avenue" - The Ventures
"Buddy Holly" - Weezer
"Geography" - Thao and the Get Down Stay Down
"Good Morning Aztlan" - Los Lobos (I got Mexican heritage)

EggyToast

Are you paying a DJ and supplying a list, or are you renting a PA and plugging in an iPod? How many hours do you need, and how many hours do you currently have?

Scalfin

For more obscure stuff, here's a good slow song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqmofWAAh1U
In fact, Yoko Kanno puts out generally good stuff regardless of what genre she's working in. Check out her section here, but I'll post her most famous jazz piece because I know how popular that music is, and it includes no Japanese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Kf545Kg4s
The supergenre is shared by Baccano!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUjqlVt6y2A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvLiYLgsPaY
Good dance music.

You might also want to check out the Eureka Seven OST, as the show has a good mix of quality music.

Days, op cut
Remix!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBVuqsWyiik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf4a2aQ23ic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSrdt0FD74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N23j1mxqkrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrC8z8MK7HI

If you're sticking with English, TTGL has a lot of English stuff (found in the show's section of the page I linked or by plugging "parallel works" into youtube) and Jukebox the Ghost does good indie rock.

Top search result on youtube.
If you can't tell, I like a playlist to have a couple of pieces that are unknown enough to hold interest and even function as conversation pieces.

Crashtard

I had this song at my wedding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVI254QGSQ4

Sir Carcass

We didn't have a dance or anything at our reception, so our music was mainly just for background noise. We made a CD of songs that meant something to us, and just had it repeat. It worked out pretty well.

cloudeagle

I played this song at my reception to see if any of my now-wife's sheltered, repressed Kansas relatives would notice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iob2_8eyMK8

They didn't.

Sheep

EggyToast wrote: »

Are you paying a DJ and supplying a list, or are you renting a PA and plugging in an iPod? How many hours do you need, and how many hours do you currently have?

Couple of hours. It can go on repeat after about 3 or so.

Gonna get a good list together this weekend. I'm trying to go through and find stuff from musicians I really like that I can use. Gonna use a Frank Zappa/Little Richard cover!

Everywhereasign

For background music leaning heavily on the Jazz/Swing

Billie Holiday (Bonus points if it's God Bless The Child from the Bioshock OST)
Quincy Jones
Charles Mingus
Duke Ellington (The Duke with Armstrong is an amazing duo in - I'm beginning to see the light, Do nothing till you hear from me, I'm just a Lucky So and So.
Moe Koffman
Janis Siegel's Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (aka Bist Du Bei Mir)

BTW, I clicked into this thread reading it as "Good Welding Music". I needed to be a part of that conversation.

Jebus314

Everywhereasign wrote: »

For background music leaning heavily on the Jazz/Swing

Billie Holiday (Bonus points if it's God Bless The Child from the Bioshock OST)
Quincy Jones
Charles Mingus
Duke Ellington (The Duke with Armstrong is an amazing duo in - I'm beginning to see the light, Do nothing till you hear from me, I'm just a Lucky So and So.
Moe Koffman
Janis Siegel's Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (aka Bist Du Bei Mir)

BTW, I clicked into this thread reading it as "Good Welding Music". I needed to be a part of that conversation.

God I love that song.

clearsimpleplain

My wife walked down the aisle to the Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror". This might be a little strange for most though, but Clem Snide does a really good and more relative-friendly version if you're less able to get away with something weird. Clem Snide

For dancing songs, playing "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey will drive people crazy.

Sheep

That would work!

Gonna get some perry como and the fontane sisters as well. Thanks everyone!