What's the worst track requests you've ever received?

Kaiwan_NI

You can almost every time spot a track request coming. Someone types on their phone, reluctantly looking at you from a dance floor. They then slowly approach a DJ booth with a hopeful look on their face, before handing you the phone, showing the dreaded track titles on their Notes app. It's almost like an agreed-upon dance sequence.

What's not agreed-upon, however, is how you deal with those requests as a DJ.

So folks, share your story: What's the worst track requests you've ever received?

Extra points for the veterans if you can share the art of handling requests like a pro.

zephry

I played a wedding once. The Dad wanted me to play only Merle Haggard. Which really isn't wedding type music.

Same wedding a guy came up and told me not to play music that made people dance. Because "no one knows how to dance and they look stupid" I asked him what he would like to hear and he stormed off mad and cussing.

Uwe303

On one of our first techno parties, i had no idea about electronic music and djing. I was just "technician" - i was the idiot slowly going to the dj and asked for LFO-LFO, one of the first titles I liked back then, from that genre. And back in the day djs had only vinyl, but he actually had the LP and played it.😂😂😂😂 Now i never ever would do that again on a techno party.

Michael Vant Veld

I had some moron ask me to play the choirboys which is a ****** aussie bogan rock band. He was absolutely mortified that I didn’t have any of there stuff and kept on carrying on with asking me what sort of a dj was I. I managed to get security to quiet him down. It was right up there with when I got asked to play the Macarena. Which I also didn’t play.

I don’t mind doing requests mainly because umm it might introduce me to something awesome that I have over looked. But I won’t play the request if it’s going to change the Energy and the vibe when it’s good other wise you shutting down a dance floor to impress one person. If I can I will work my way to it. For example a little while back I was doing a pretty good bass house set that everyone was into. But this one girl was begging to play runaway by pusha I kept telling her to chill we will eventually get there. I ended up playing it as the final track for the night and eveyone lost it and sing along the timing was perfect!

D@rcy

The Smiths - Panic

Jonathan Blake

In the middle of deep tech/progressive set (I was playing Martin Buttrich's 'Rhythm Acupuncture') I got a request for Culture Club's 'Karma Chameleon'. Seriously.

popuman

Doing some intense big beat/techno/trance/nineties set on a nineties/oughts-themed night and someone asked me to play "Despacito".

HzHz

At a party I had put on some fine reggae stuff, the dance floor was celebrating the music, someone came up and asked if I had any Bob Marley songs.

Deftool

Who let the dogs out! Nuff said!

denIzen

Worst request worse ask...One of my first big Oakland house parties. I'm spinning mostly Breaks and Nu-disco the floor is bouncing and packed I see a very blond, very intoxicated woman, minimal sequined dress, wobbling a b-line across the floor to me. About 10 feet away she starts yelling incomprehensibly When she gets to the DJ table I do the 1-finger-1-sec thing, ...lean in "ish my birfday ( of course it is) can yuu pla Journepenarms?" I go to nope her... she goes down. Think trapdoor, that fast. She was getting helped off the floor While I'm still trying to figure out ****** just happened End of the night I find out apparently a combination of alcohol and a stiletto heel fail took her out.

TLaw

I was playing a gig in Parkersburg, WV. It was the first night--a Tuesday or Wednesday--for a weeklong gig. We had to load the entirety of our equipment down a narrow staircase to the downstairs pub. Not fun.

Few people were there. As is always the case, we wanted to conclude with a bang--to get folks to come back, and with friends, as so often happened. We typically packed places to the gills by the time the weekend came around.

We get to the last track of the evening, and the bar owner comes up to me at the front of the stage, literally grabs me, and tells me to "Play that f'ing Cocaine." I told him that that was not a song on which we preferred to end, and he retorted, "Play that f'ing cocaine or I will fire your ass." Uh, OK...

So, we play it, and not with much zeal. (Hard to get any for that two-chorder!) And lo and behold, because I had not immediately agreed to play it, he approached me after the gig with, "Now load up your f'ing ****** and go back home."

After many calls with our agent, whom I had to wake up at 2am, we decided to comply.

As I left the bar at 4:something a.m., the owner and his buddies were surrounding a table...snorting coke.

Lovely! She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie!

Enjoy,

Tim

David Chung

I was playing at a techno event when a young lady approached me and asked if I could play some RnB. I politely declined...

Kaiwan_NI

@Michael Vant Veld says

It was right up there with when I got asked to play the Macarena.

oh no not the macarena ⚰️

Kaiwan_NI

@popuman says

Doing some intense big beat/techno/trance/nineties set on a nineties/oughts-themed night and someone asked me to play "Despacito".

ngl I'm glad 2017 is over 😆