Many people judge a wedding based on two things: the food and the music. If the food is fantastic and the music has everyone out on the dance floor all night long, most guests will barely remember the venue, the time of the week, or even the bride’s dress. For many couples planning their wedding, the music is just as important as those things — after all, you want your guests to dance and have a good time, and that can be difficult if the music is terrible. So it’s no surprise that couples choose to ban certain songs from being played at the reception. And actually, the most banned wedding songs out there isn’t even that shocking.
FiveThirtyEight decided to do some digging to find out exactly what songs most couples don’t want played during their wedding receptions. After surveying wedding DJs, they came up with a list of the most commonly banned wedding songs, and it definitely makes sense.
As FiveThirtyEight says, most of the banned songs are “line dances, kitsch, the cultural detritus of the disco era, dictated choreography and the far-longer-than-you-thought-it-was ‘Love Shack.'” Although some of the songs were banned because of vulgarity, many are simply over-played, old, and just not trendy anymore. These are the songs that you’re used to hearing at almost any DJ event you go to, that you’ll halfheartedly dance to or ignore completely. The top ten banned songs are:
1. “The Chicken Dance” by Werner Thomas
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2. “The Cha-Cha Slide” by DJ Casper
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3. “The Macarena” by Los del Rio
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4. “Cupid Shuffle” by Cupid
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5. “YMCA” by Village People
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6. “Electric Boogie (Electric Slide)” by Marcia Griffiths and Bunny Wailer
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7. “The Hokey Pokey” by Ray Anthony & his Orchestra
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8. “Wobble” by V.I.C.
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9. “Happy” by Pharrell Williams
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10. “Shout” by The Isley Brothers
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Some of the other banned songs include “Cotton Eye Joe” (by Rednex), “We Are Family” (by Sister Sledge), “Single Ladies,” (by Beyoncé), “Baby Got Back” (by Sir Mix A Lot), and “Gangnam Style” (by PSY). You can check out the full list on FiveThirtyEight.
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These songs are incredibly popular, but it seems like that’s the exact reason they’re getting booted out of receptions. New Jersey wedding DJ Gregg Hollmann told the site that couples want music that is more unique and doesn’t make their wedding feel like every other wedding anyone has ever attended.
But this doesn’t mean you’ll never hear these songs at another wedding again. Hollmann said, “Many of these popular wedding songs also populate the ‘must play’ list — because they are fun and work on dance floors.” It’s true! You might roll your eyes when you hear the “Cupid Shuffle,” but are you going to feel like you should dance? Probably.