80s Mix!!!! tell me what you guys think?

[Dj VJC]

Hey Guys!
I hope you enjoy this 80s mix i made as much as i had making it. This is my first attempt at doing 80s and boy is it hard finding songs thats work well with each other.

Everything was done on the fly using Traktor S4 and my trusted Midi Fighter :P

Track List
Nu Shooz- I can't Wait
Madonna- Holiday
M.A.R.R.S - Pump up the volume
Dead or Alive- You spin me round (like a record)
Flying Lizards - Money ( thats what i want )
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams ( are made of this)
New Order - Blue Monday
Starship - We Built this city


Feeback plz!!!!

[Nicky H]

Not bad mate.

Some of the mixes are a bit off but 80s stuff is hard to mix.
Enjoyed it

[JesC]

i have to peeps this, I spin 80s all the time.

[Dj VJC]

Thanks guy, glad you liked it... Im going to try for an hour set in the near future...

[JesC]

Not bad mate.

Some of the mixes are a bit off but 80s stuff is hard to mix.
Enjoyed it

I spin 80s every weekend, its not hard to mix, just dont trust the sync button

[IPM]

EEK!!, I dj'd all through the 80's it's not difficult to mix at all, you just have to find tracks with similar bpm and similar sounds. Your mixes were off beat and you could hear the track pitch speeding up and down.

The only tracks I dj'd with that you've used is:
Nu Shooz- I can't Wait
M.A.R.R.S - Pump up the volume
New Order - Blue Monday

But not at the same time, these were from different times in the 80's

Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh but it's true.

[Dj VJC]

Its all good IPM any feedback is good feedback, Im going to try again once i got some more idea on my hands, hopefully the second mix will be better with this feedback, would of been fun spinning in the 80s its been fun trying to find cool new songs from this era

[Dj VJC]

OH yeah IMP think you could make up an 80s mix so i could get some ideas how to mix it better

[IPM]

Hi Dj VJC

Actually, I wished I could turn the clock back to yesterday, I shouldn't have replied so harshly, I had a few glasses of wine yesterday before I came on here, never a good idea. So apologies for that.

The thing about the 80's is that the music scene moved really fast with lots of different styles going on. Unfortunately when people think of the 80's it tends to be what we had in the top twenty. I seldom played anything from the top twenty at the time.

I personally would have mixed stuff like:
Timex social club - Rumors
Gwen Guthrie - Ain't nothing going on but the rent
Oliver Cheetham - Get down saturday night
Jocelyn Brown - Somebody else's guy
Indeep - Last night a dj saved my life
Fatback band - any track would be great
Cameo - Any track but "strange" is a killer
Shalamar - Again, Any track
Luther Vandross - Again, Any track

I could go on for ever, these were the sort of tracks that we played in decent clubs in the 80's, we never really played the the top twenty stuff. Unfortunately most of the 80's cd's that get released these days are full of stuff like Aztec Camera, Madona and Depech Mode which was the really commercial side of the 80's. There's a wealth of dance tracks but the dance tracks from the early to middle eighties was Soul Funk and Jazz Funk etc.

I'm hoping to try and put a mix or two together, I must admit, I'm discovering new music now though, I've only just started again recently since I bought my VCI 100 se a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been dj'ing since 1990. so a lot of catching up to do. I'm only starting to come to grips with new technology etc.

As far as mixing it better: what you were doing was actually fine I was just being picky (again blaming the wine lol ), it just needed tidying up slightly with more attention to detail i.e. try and play the songs as close to the speed they were recorded at other wise it sounds off and just keep the beats a tad tighter. The music back then wasn't like it is now with thumping bass lines and driving drum loops which make it easier to mix, it was a bit more subtle.

Another little snippet: There was also the Hi-NRG scene which came along, add Hi-NRG with a bit of funk and you have the beginnings of house music.

Hope this helps.

all the best
IPM