Tag Archives: music

The ultimate wedding playlist

It’s wedding season again. When I put together our playlist, Ben Meadow (Leah’s uncle) gave me a couple pieces of advice. First, include up to two slow songs. And probably only one. Second, make sure you have music for all ages. I stacked the golden oldies up front, which worked well.

Here’s the playlist that kept everyone on the dance floor the entire night:

  1. I’m A Believer – The Monkees
  2. Baby I Love You – Aretha Franklin
  3. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough – Michael Jackson
  4. Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
  5. Get Down Tonight – KC & The Sunshine Band
  6. Brick House – Commodores
  7. Love Shack – The B-52’s
  8. At Last – Etta James
  9. ABC – Jackson 5
  10. Dancing Queen – ABBA
  11. Celebration – Kool & The Gang
  12. Wild Thing – Tone-Loc
  13. Stayin’ Alive — Bee Gees
  14. Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
  15. Mony Mony – Billy Idol
  16. Kung Fu Fighting – Cee Lo Green
  17. A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got) – Fergie, Q-Tip, GoonRock
  18. Cha Cha Slide – Mr. C
  19. Gangnam Style – PSY
  20. It’s Time To Disco – Vasundhara Das, KK, Shaan
  21. Sexy And I Know It – LMFAO
  22. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) – Beyonce
  23. Save A Horse (And Ride A Cowboy) – Big & Rich
  24. Hava Nagila – The Klezmer Lounge Band
  25. Poker Face – Lady Gaga
  26. Hello (Feat. Dragonette) – Martin Solveig
  27. The Time (Dirty Bit) – The Black Eyed Peas
  28. Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond

Truthfully, people sat down for the Bollywood song. But it wouldn’t be my wedding without Bollywood. For the Hava Nagila, Leah and I actually did end up on chairs. And, if you’ve ever lived in Eugene, you know why we ended with Sweet Caroline.

Good luck!

Rdio vs. Spotify

Some many know me as a hardcore Rdio fan. I love the UI, appreciate their story, and have mostly been satisfied with the service.

Last year, Andy Baio wrote two articles comparing Rdio to Spotify. In both instances he concludes Rdio comes out slightly on top — their catalog is just a little bit better.

But, I’ve never been able to get the Blue Scholars or St. Germain on Rdio so I always questioned how the catalogs really compared. Yesterday, after scrapping my first hackathon project at 7:30 pm, I decided to use the Echonest API to answer my question once and for all. Which is better, Rdio or Spotify?

As it turns out, Spotify. By a landslide. Of the 92,343 songs I had time to pull down, 74,703 are available on Spotify and 56,988 are available on Rdio. Furthermore, Spotify had 21,370 songs that weren’t available on Rdio, whereas Rdio only had 3,655 songs that weren’t available on Spotify.

Plus Spotify has the Blue Scholars and St. Germain. Time to make a switch.