for your information

PRO DISC
ISSUE 53

Track Listing:

B.A.M.A - Sweet Home Alabama

David Brent - If You Don't Know Me By Now

The Corrs - Long Night

Duran Duran - What Happens Tomorrow?

Nikki French -1 Surrender

Geri - Ride It

Girls Aloud - I'll Stand By You

Darren Hayes - Darkness

JoJo - Baby It's You

Lemar - If There's Any Justice

Maroon 5 - Sunday Morning

McFly - Room On The Third Floor

Nelly Feat. Christina Aguilera - Tilt Ya Head Back

Omarion Feat. Big Boi - Never Gonna Let You Go

Joss Stone - Right To Be Wrong

Shania Twain FT Mark McGrath - Party For Two

Usher - My Boo

Robbie Williams - Misunderstood

Will Young - Your Love Is Kin

David Brent ????????????????????

Looks quite a poor do to me

I simply have given up with pre release discs and now just use itunes and select the tunes I want then buy a now disc to cover the songs I have downloaded when they come out.

I do buy the pro disco annual though.

On the edge there Digital

Well I don't know if anyone feels the same way, because most of my work is teenage events, including a regular youth club plus birthdays, general parties etc I have to keep up with everything up to date and just general pro discs/dmc's are not reliable enough to warrant a subscription. I would rather spend 15 and buy 20 songs that I know will be usable.

If I was just doing family functions and weddings, I wouldn't need to keep up to date as much.

As I mentioned on the 'WMA' file conversion thread, I rarely need to buy any New Music due to the fact that i'm in a similar situation to Andy (ADS) in that most of the Family parties I do rarely require very new material . In fact I could quite possibly limit my entire current CD Spend to just buying every 'Now' album as it comes out.

I am even giving more thought to just offering a 'Retro' style Disco in the New Year, offering music from say 1950's - 2004, I do know of some 60's and 70's night DJ's in the Manchester Area who do very well out of this sort of idea, so it may be a nice little niche' for this area as well - although I don't really want to restrict it to SOLELY two decades.

To be honest, as each year goes by the stuff in the charts gets less and less appealing to mixed audiences, and not to put too fine a point on it, it's not just tripe, its EXPENSIVE tripe. But we buy it all 'just in case' and more often than not it becomes dead money .

When I look back at all of those 59p, 79p and 99p singles I used to buy from Woolies during the late 80's and 90's, tracks which are still appreciated at most private functions today, which, in my book, is excellent value for money. But when I spend £3.49 on an Eminem or Green Day CDS - Do I really believe and convince myself that i'll still be playing it in 6 Months?, let alone 15 Years??. So in short the price for music has more than trebled, the standard has undeniably dropped, and the music appeal has a much shorter life cycle.

Those of you, who were around and buying music in the 60's / 70's / 80's compared to what you have bought so far in 2004 and what you have spent on it. Now tell me how much of it you expect to be still playing in 1, 5, 10 and 20 years?. How much of the Early 2004 stuff do you play now??.

Food for thought Eh?.

I hardly expect to play it in a few years time, it's just kids they seem to like all the really up to date stuff in the chart.

Just a quick question, how many of you guys play really up to date stuff at weddings, family functions?

When I have done these sorts of functions in the past I have only played a few subtle poppy tunes. I know this is a bit of a generalisation but generally as Chris has mentioned the stuff in the charts at the moment is reallly only aimed at teenagers-young adults. This is maybe why when you have mixed ranges you are always warey of killing a dancefloor because of a teenagers request for eminem or ja rule etc.

Music Wise, Teenagers and Family Functions are 100 miles apart, I wasn't comparing what I currently get asked for at a Wedding for example, to that music which is required for doing Teenagers Gigs, or Pub's or Nightclubs for that matter, which are all entirely different audiences, age groups, music styles, and atmosphere.

Until 9 Months ago, I was doing a local Nightclub where the audience was aged between 18 (15 *cough*) and mid 20's. Now when I was doing that, I had to have virtually every track not only from the Top 20 but also the Dance and R'n'B Charts, and I would find myself spending £70 - £80 a time on CD's covering Chart, Dance and Trance stuff.

In some ways it was a relief to go back to mobile work, certainly on the wallet, because an Atmosphere at a Wedding is so much different to that in a nightclub and I simply don't need the same material . I myself do High Schools and a large Under 18's Disco every few months, but I would be happy to knock them on the head, because the revenue from them alone, does not warrant the daft amount of money you need to spend keeping your CD Collection 100% upto date. So if you find it a struggle funding your CD 'habit' from the functions you are currently doing, then perhaps its either time to up your prices, or look at doing different functions which don't require that level of CD Budget?.

Lets run a little experiment to see how the Private Function Music trend changes from area to area with regard to chart music....

Please click here to Read this Thread, keep it in mind over the Weekend, and then fill it in After your Gigs

Ah ha - Shouldve read this one before completing what I had played...

As stated on the other form, the only real track I play thats new is a cover - of Car Wash coz it kinda crosses decades..

I personally subscribe to Pro Disc as, like Digital, I do quite a lot of kiddies parties, so without new stuff you struggle with the requests... If I wasnt to do kids parties, I think I still would subscribe - just to stave off the "possible" requests I "may" get...

I regularly purchase CDs for just one track that someone requested 3 years ago at a party that I may never ever play but just incase someone asks me again.. I dont know why I do this, I just do.......

Similarly, even though Pro Disc sometimes really are pants it is still such a grey area over downloading and burning to disc to play publically that I will still get the pro disc to cover my proverbial backside.....