I've got the possibility of a regular gig playing cheese, and it got me thinking what exactly is cheese. Now for all the wide-oes out there I don't mean...

...the curd of milk separated from the whey and prepared in many ways as a food.

What exactly would you consider cheese. Is there any modern cheese, for example would you consider Scissors Sisters - I don't feel like dancing as a cheesy song.

I'm not looking for a playlist but can you give two or three songs you'd consider cheese and also perhaps a rare or forgotten song, some vintage cheese

I think we had a discussion on here within the last 12 months all about cheese (try a search). The general consensus was that, just like the real stuff, musical cheese comes in different strengths from the really strong Black Lace variety to the mild Wham, Whitney flavours.

There's also the personal choice that one mans cheese is another mans classic song but I think that any of the manufactured pop is cheese - Steps, S Club, Kylie, Girls Aloud, Westlife, any Pop Idol or X Factor contestant.

To answer your specific question about the Scissor Sisters - at the moment it is still a newish song so it's cool to dance to it, give it a little while and it will become mouldy cheese

As the man above said, different people call different things 'cheese'.

Hardcore dance heads will call anything that gets in the charts 'cheese'.

Metallers will call Indie stuff 'cheese'.

Etc etc

When someone adds the description 'cheese' on my booking form I generally call them and ask them for a couple of examples. Most of the time I will get it right and it's stuff from the 80's etc.

What I would class as 'cheese' may be different to everyone elses perceptions but a few tracks that I would consider would be ;

MC Hammer - Can't touch this
Toni Basil - Hey Mickey!
Chesney Hawkes - The one and only
The Proclaimers - 500 miles

Add to that stuff like ; S Club 7, Spice Girls etc

Cheese is quite simply any old, well known classic, that the general public are happy to dance to. General public being important here.

"Don't Give Me Your Life" by Alex Party is not cheese, as it's not old enough;
"Dancing Queen" by Abba most certainly is, as is
"Tiger Feet" by Mud, and
"I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor.

Love it!

as has been said already very difficult to specify.

Ring the client to find out a bit more.

I would term as well known tracks of an artist like what has been suggested already.

Love shack, Summer 69, car wash, Final count down. Would be some of my best numbers to use to name a few, but there are libries of these type of tracks you can use.

I think dj dont like using some of the lesser stuf as they would rather use something a bit newer up to date term whatever you want to use.

But if the crowd you are playing dont get out much dont listern to music etc. they want to play safe, and dance to what they know and can relate to thats why they refer to this style catergory etc.

Hope this helps


Pete

Shaker,

MC Hammer - Can't touch this
Toni Basil - Hey Mickey!
Chesney Hawkes - The one and only
The Proclaimers - 500 miles

MC Hammer - no, the rest a big yes, so you're right it's down to the individual.

I'd include in the cheese list -

Young at heart - Bluebells
Young hearts - Candi Staton
I will survive - Gloria Gaynor
YMCA - Village People
You to me are everything - Real Thing

There's simply too many to mention.

I suppose just about anything you could class as 'happy, good time tunes'

Some old cheese would be:

YMCA
ABBA-Dancing Queen
DJ Otzi
Hurricane Smith Oh Babe what would you say
Blue Mink-The Banner Man
Dawn-Knock Three Times
MC Hammer
Barbie Girl
Cheeky Girls
Boney M
Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever
Back to the 60's Megamix

As to modern cheese the latest David Hasselhoff single comes top of the pile!


Incidently there's a very useful triple CD set called Vintage Cheese

Nothing wrong with playing popular cheesy tunes:) after all that's one of the regular nites I do each Thursday playing that kind of music, been doing the gig for ten years:)

Most people like to dance to the songs they know:)

Yes agreed, Mobile discos at wedding functions and events play alot of cheese, nothing wrong with that...after all there are a variety of ages at these events, and most of them like something they know to dance to...

Same goes for most successful discos, in every major town in Britain, there are 10 nightclubs playing Pete Tong/Judge Jules music...

Guess which has the most punters week in week out, the club that plays a variety of music...

There's nothing worse than some slider fader merchant playing the latest large tunes from London outside London...it's boring for the bar staff and the punters...

Saying that one of the best DJs on the dj circuit is Annie Mac who hosts the Annie Mac Mashup on Radio 1, just a great variety of music:)

And as your man said, if you want to hear London music go to a London nightclub....

Much of the downturn in the people going to British highstreet nightclubs, is

1/ Too many guest djs from outside the area, who haven't a clue what the local audience actually wants...ie Manchester or Leeds isn't London or Hemel Hempstead.

2/ Many clubs looking for the cheap DJ option, someone who will be willing to work for £50 for 6 hours work..same goes for many other industries nowadays...

As to if Cheese works in nightclubs, well the School Disco crowd have done very nicely out of it!

Cheese says

1/ I know it and I can dance to it without taking dance lessons
2/ I remember this when I was at school, did I really have a hairstyle like that
3/ This song wasn't that bad after all
4/ How does the Time Warp go again?