Calling 50+ year olds to check my songs out!

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

I'm planning my wedding and reeeeeeeeally want a punk pop/emo theme going on in the night!
We've created a list of songs, with a mix of stuff everyone will know, but also stuff that we really want. If you're over 50 (especially over 60!) can you tell me how much you know from my list! Also, your approx age please, if you don't mind! I really don't want to annoy half the crowd!
For reference, I'm almost 40 and there will be lots our age there, but also lots in their late 50s and 60s, and a few 70s.

Reef - Place your Hands
The 1975 - Tootimetootimetootime, I'm in Love With You
Drowning Pool - Let the Bodies Hit the Floor
Tina Turner - Proud Mary
The Killers - Mr Brightside
Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Meatloaf - I Would Do Anything For Love
Walk the Moon - Shut Up and Dance
Def Leopard - Pour Some Sugar
Lynyrd skynyrd- Sweet Home Alabama
Bon Jovi - Always
4 Non Blondes - What's Up
Busted - What I Go to School For
Don McLean - American Pie
Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue
Paramore - Misery Business
Blink 182- Always, Feeling This
Fall Out Boy - Grand Theft Autumn, A Little Less Sixteen Candles...
Oasis - Cigarettes and Alcohol, Whatever
Good Charlotte - The River
Sum 41 - Fat Lip, In Too Deep
Avril Lavigne - sk8r boi
Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag
Blur - Girls and Boys, Parklife
Panic! at the Disco - I Write Sins, Lying is the Most Fun...
All Time Low - Dear Maria, Weightless
All American Rejects - Gives you Hell, Dirty Little Secret
New Found Glory - My Friends Over You
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Smash Mouth - All Star
The Dandy Warhols - Bohemien Like You
Lit - My Own Worst Enemy
Bullet For My Valentine - Hearts Burst in to Fire
American Hi-fi - Flavour of the Weak
The Offspring - Pretty Fly, Original Prankster
MGMT - Time to Pretend
James - Sit Down, Laid
OPM - Heaven is a Half Pipe
Bowling For Soup - Girl All the Bad Guys Want

I think this proves how you can't please all of the people.
I am 50 and would be happy with your list. Has anyone suggested Tainted Love, Soft Cell? I agree with the poster who stated Mr Brightside was a must at the end of the night, and Redflagsabounded
suggestion to avoid a 60's segment. No one wants to 'Twist' or do do 'The Hippy Hippy Shake"!

Soft Cell a good call.

I absolutely fucking hate Erasure. Sometimes is one of the worst songs ever made imo.

I absolutely loathe Mr Brightside, cannot see for the life of me why it is so popular but accept I'm in a small minority.

I am 60 and I love most of your songs, well the ones I know. I also like the suggestions other pps have made.

I'm over 70 and know 12 of them.

Late fifties here. I don't know many from your list at all, and think of punk as an earlier genre. That said, you should have what you like. When else will you get to choose the playlist?

Love Bon Jovi best, but more likely to get on the floor to Living on a Prayer than Always.

I agree with this. The OP has chosen mainly very niche songs that you'd only listen to if you like that genre (mainly pop punk, indie, alternative). If most of the guests aren't into the same music there'll be no one on the dance floor. We had a very rock/metal themed playlist for ours but 90% of the guests were into that so we knew it would work.

If you want emo and wedding, you really need to have 'Summertime' by MCR on that list.

I know most and like most of your tracks, and I'm 56.

I'm 59 and know four of them - or, at least, four of the specific tracks. I obviously know more of the artists, just not those specific tracks.

"...want a punk pop/emo theme"

Emo is a bit after my time but some others that might fit the list for "punk pop" might be the likes of:

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
The Undertones - My Perfect Cousin
The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love
Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster
The Stranglers - Golden Brown
Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach
Blondie - One Way or Another
Blondie - Dreaming
The Jam - Going Underground
The Jam - Eton Rifles
Bow Wow Wow - Go Wild in the Country
The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

Other similar groups from then that you may wish to think about are (more ska):

The Specials - Too Much Too Young
Madness - (just about anything), but possibly One Step Beyond or My Girl
The Beat - Mirror in the Bathroom
UB40 - One in Ten
.
.

But then the list you give veers off into other things:

"Meatloaf - I Would Do Anything For Love"

Yeah, that's okay, but I would suggest perhaps "Bat Out of Hell" instead.

Others from that same period that you may wish to think about are

Dire Straits - Money for Nothing
Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall
The Village People - YMCA
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver's Army
.
.

Def Leopard - Pour Some Sugar
Lynyrd skynyrd- Sweet Home Alabama

Well, if you've got the likes of Def Leopard and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the list then that changes everything.

I absolutely love Sweet Home Alabama, but you may also wish to think about Freebird (also by Lynyrd Skynyrd).

Then, if you're talking Def Leopard, you've really also got to think about the likes of AC/DC, Rainbow, Motorhead, Scorpions, Whitesnake, Saxon, Blue Oyster Cult, Status Quo, Slade etc etc

I could list so many tracks that would be good, but to limit it to just a few:

Rainbow - Since You've Been Gone
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
AC/DC - Back in Black
AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
(I have a thing for AC/DC)
Motorhead - Ace of Spades

Status Quo - just about anything but if I had to choose one then it would be Caroline, (or maybe Down Down or maybe Whatever You Want)

Slade - if this event is taking place near Christmas then you have to have "Merry Christmas Everybody", if not, then Cum on Feel the Noize
Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper
Saxon - Wheels of Steel (corny, but I like it)
.
.

Or go back even earlier to the likes of Deep Purple etc (all the boys I knew when I was young, the first thing they learnt to play on guitar was the opening riff of "Smoke on the Water")

Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
The Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction
The Kinks - You Really Got Me
The Kinks - All Day and All of the Night
The Who - My Generation

and then, finally, entirely differently, you may wish to include a couple of Police tracks, like Message in a Bottle, Roxanne, Walking on the Moon, Every Breath You Take etc

or Electric Light Orchestra - Mr Blue Sky

.
.

Just a few thoughts for some more tracks to think about.

Very much agree with this.

60 and know 17 of them, mostly because my children liked emo stuff in about 2006/7. There's no actual real punk music in there. I'd only want to get up and dance to a couple of them. I think 70s disco classics get people of all ages onto the dance floor.
My son and his wife did what I thought was a good idea at their wedding, they asked everyone when they RSVPed to let them know a tune that would get them on the dance floor, it meant there was a really good range of music as guests were all ages from teens to 80s, they also had plenty of their own favourites too.

I'm 56.
If you are trying to hit the music that someone of my age would relate to, then it is an odd list. One or two that I would jump up to dance to (meatloaf - but other meatloaf songs are better for dancing, Witney too)

But there are loads I don't know.
There is nothing from my era really, I was at uni in late 80s and none of the music we danced to is on this list.

So depends whether you want your taste, or whether you want to hit the demographic who are there, or whether you want general popular songs.

and I cannot agree more with the person who said that not everyone will dance, not everyone can dance and in between they want to talk and catch up, so please have somewhere slightly away form the dance floor where they can talk.

I know about half of them.
I loved Blondie, The Jam, The Clash.

I agree with this, and with your comment too.

Yes, it is your wedding, but, as you have asked on here, I presume you aren't confident that all of your guests will either know these songs or want to dance to them.
Most people have said that none of them (or only one or two of them) are songs that would make them want to leap on to the dance floor.

Up to you and your dh2b if you want a great party with lots of people dancing, or if you want to listen to a soundtrack of songs you like, but most people, across the generations probably won't dance to.

There seem to be quite a few comments like this:

My idea of punk would be Stranglers.

....The Jam, The Smiths, The Clash, Buzzcocks ??

...not for a moment would I have associated this playlist with punk or emo. Personally I love Sweet Home Alabama and don’t mind American Pie, but punk they ain’t. I’d be more on board with The Jam, The Cure, New Order, New Romantic bands maybe?

I wouldn't call any of the ones I know punk though

No real Punk? No Ska or Two-Tone? No Misfits? Ramones, Blondie, The Damned, Pistols, Clash, Eddie & the Hotrods? It's all a bit, umm, Magic FM.

I'm not sure what you mean by punk pop but none of those are what my generation would consider punk or even punk-ish.

I think quite a lot of them are too niche for many people to recognise tbh.

why not play some of the popular 70s and 80s music, your list sounds a bit obscure to me @Newterm has a good list, that most will have heard of

I think that both @Newterm and @murphys made very good suggestions as to alternatives.

You mentioned about "punk pop". I'm really not sure what that is, but I would guess it is punk that is sort of danceable to?

I provided a list of tracks above that sort of meet that requirement, but they are a mixture of punk and ska/two tone groups.

You then mentioned Def Leppard, a heavy metal band, and I provided some other alternatives (eg AC/DC, Rainbow etc).

But, I must say, as much as I was into punk (and also ska) back in the late 1970s when I was in my early teens, I don't know how much I would want to dance to that music today.

Equally, I went to my first live concert when I was 16 and saw AC/DC, Whitesnake and Blue Oyster Cult play live. I also saw Motorhead for the first time that year as well.

Yes, I still really enjoy listening to these types of music (in fact, I may still have some original vinyl albums and singles from back then) but, when it comes to dancing at a wedding, that is generally not what I would choose to dance to these days.

Although there are always exceptions. Put Blondie on, or The Jam or The Specials then that will get me up to dance (or even something like Madness).

Or other tracks from that time, like Dire Straits - Money for Nothing or The Village People - YMCA

But other groups from back then are more likely to get me on the dance floor these days - which are totally different types of music. Bands like:

Dexy's Midnight Runners - Geno (if you put on "Come on Eileen" instead then I will only dance under protest!)
Human League - Don't You Want Me (or Fascination)
Adam and the Ants - Literally anything
Duran Duran - almost anything but Girls on Film, Rio or Hungry Like the Wolf
The Communards - Don't Leave Me This Way
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy,
Madonna - Material Girls
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
Wham - Wake Me Up
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
Nena - 99 Luftballons
Kim Wilde - Kids in America
Yazoo - Don't Go
Abba - almost anything
Queen - any of their singles
Men At Work - Down Under
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax
Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men

and finally, a bit of an odd one:

Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F
.
.

Then dare I mention that word... "disco"

The Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive
The Bee Gees - Night Fever
The Tramps - Disco Inferno
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Village People - YMCA
Michael Jackson - Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
Kool & The Gang - Celebration
Chic - Good Times
KC & The Sunshine Band - That's The Way I Like It
Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
Kool & The Gang - Get Down On It
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - it was later covered by Jimmy Somerville in 1989
.
.

I'm a lot more likely to get up and actually dance to some of these songs than those that are the sort of the music that I listen to at home on my own.

Is anyone else updating their spotify playlists from some of these suggestions?

I'm not the age you asked about but just have to say I'm late thirties and LOVE this selection! Absolute class playlist!
(Can I come to your reception? 😄😄)

Much better

OH I would come to your party any day!
Yes this is a dance playlist from my era!

69 and recognise only 11, despite having kids in their late 40s.

One additional is 'Proud Mary', except the original (and better in my opinion) was by Creadence Clearwater Revival

YES! YES YES! 👏👏👏 I’m late 50s and I’d 100% prefer this list to yours OP!

I think your list has some very strange choices, OP, if you want danceable punk/emo vibes. I only knew about 20 of the songs anyway so can’t really comment on the ones I don’t know. Of the ones I did know most of them would be rubbish to dance to! How do you dance to Sweet Home Alabama exactly? That’s what we used to call a floor emptier where everyone takes the opportunity to go to the loo or get a drink! 4 Non Blondes, decent song to listen to in the car, but how do you dance to it? I could say that about most of your choices that I know. And as for Bon Jovi Always, that’s a slow ballad surely? Please use Newterm’s excellent list and you won’t go far wrong. (Keep Mr Brightside in…people go nuts fo that!)

Good list from Another2Cats as well!

Definitely what @Another2Cats has said.

If you wanted me to say what I'd listen to when driving, or at home, or asked me what my favourite 20 songs are, the list would be very different, but you are asking about music that people of different ages will dance to at a wedding. Completely different list from "Name some great songs".

You list needs to be "Great songs for dancing to, for all ages".
Her list is a very good start.

I watched episode 1 of Joan last night. Some great 1980s tracks on there if any posters interested.