Save me from Simply Red.

[BeachedWhale]

We're having some lovely friends over for dinner tonight. I need some ideas for nice music to play during dinner. One of our guests is a music buff and as a group there will be a fairly eclectic mix of people.

Every time we have a little soiree I forget about music in my rush to cook and clean the house, I sit down at the table and DH switches on the music and it is ALWAYS Simple Red Greatest Hits. Without fail. We have been married for 13 years. Somethin' Got Me Started...... every bloody time.

If I sit down tonight and hear the dulcet tones of Mick Hucknell again, I swear I will beat DH over the head with the soup ladle.

What do you like to listen to during dinner? Or maybe no music at all? All suggestions gratefully received. Thanks!

Hilarious

So easy to slip into thoguh.

With me it tends to be full blast Creedence Clearwater but I am old hippy fart.

Norah Jones-lovely
Jack Johnson-lovely
Any clasical CDs?
Cesaria Evoria, Bebel Gilberto (mournful Portuguese type stuff)
Compilation CDs fine for soiress, even if people cringe at thoguht (good because aural equivalent of a gentle massage)

Hell, I even have found myself lloking at those compliations they sell in garden centres (where oyu can press button for sample)
Stuff like 'Spiritual Pan Pipes' or 'Dancing with coyotes:Native American chants'

There is no hope. Once i was never without my NME.

The trick is to get yer pile of CDs sorted before they gewt ther,e then you don;t end up half pissed, rooting desperately throguh piles with eyes half shut to decipher spines.

Have you got an ipod?

If so, you can do a dinner party playlist. I've got playlists for all occasions!

It depends whether you want the music to just blend into the background - in which case an album - or be a conversation starter - in which case a playlist with stuff on it from when your guests were younger, some new stuff (so they can say "what's this?" and you can feel cool!)

I usually bung on Eels, Kate Rusby, Mumford and Sons, Hot Chip, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Paolo Nutini, The Buena Vista Social Club...

HTH

Bin Mick NOW, so he doesn't get a chance to resurface ever again!

I favour something with a ska / reggae beat myself, 'tis quite relaxing. DH not so keen though... 50's and 60s cheesy Dean Martin / Doris Day type stuff is good background music.

Aye, give Mick the heave ho.
I like a bit of reggae/ska as much as the next girl but am not seeing stuff like 'Stand down Margaret' and 'Mirror inn the bathroom' as being terribly soothing to take in along with the crudites. Beleive me, i have tried.

lol Moondog, that is so true about the pissed rifling through CD collection. Usually accompanied by slurred squabbling with DH (no, you're not bloody playing that miserable shite - where have you hidden MY CDs, you know, the ones that are good )

L
M
A
O

Cider

That is a cannily accurate description of what happens chez Moondog.

Then there is always the invitee who after a vat of wine takes it upon themselves to control the music and you scream inwardly as they press 'play' and theink 'Christ, i have 6never^ played that cd in my life'

Then you lurch in what you hope is discreet manner to music and turn it off. cue fight, albeit good natured..

ah now Mirror in the Bathroom's more of an early evening getting in the mood type one!

I like Latin too - just keep the volume low or you might accidentally do some embarrassing salsa dancing, and that would be BAD...

You've been there eh Cider?

One of revelations of middle age is how much of an arse one can make of oneself in privacy of one's home.

Some great ideas here. Thanks. I'm going to do a little iPod mix.

Talking of drunken music selection, I remember my parents having a party for all the neighbours back in the 80's. In an effort to show their friends how "with It" they were, they took it upon themselves to rifle through my sisters record collection when pissed at 2am in the morning and put on Frankie Goes To Hollywood Relax special 12" version.

My sister and I lay awake in our bedroom in horrified terror waiting for the middle bit with the extremely sexually explicit lyrics and liberal use of the f word to begin, while my parents no doubt were bopping away oblivious to the embarrassment they were about to unleash........ There was nothing we could do to save them!

Off to bin Mick now before DH gets his hands on it!

oh yes Moondog, embarrassing singing, dancing and forgetting to talk quietly about the neighbours

I reached my middle class/middle age/sad act zenith when I found myself on the floor in front of my friend's Aga doing the rowing boat dance to Oops Upside Your Head.

x 200

Fantastic

rofl at parents going
'When you wanna come............whuuarghhhhh!!!'
My party trick is to do Mick Jagger style strut (all flappy hands and pouty lips) to 'Brown Sugar'.
i inherited it from my mother though.

I always mean to get into Cat Power.
She's been around a while now eh?
Is she sort of like Dusty?

Unexpectedly hilarious thread

Not that we ever have people round for dinner, but when DP and I are eating stuff like Mice Parade, James Blackshaw, Nina Nastasia gets played. Recently there has been a bit of a Laura Marling (me)/Nick Drake (him) divide. Also Four Tet, Pilote, Aphex Twin (Selected Ambient Works stuff, not so much Analord unless you've reached the drunk raving part of the evening ), Roisin Murphy, Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac.

I went off Nick Drake a bit when I inadvertently played him a lot over one Christmas.
It rapped everyone into a major bummer (unsurprisingly)

I leanrt my lesson the following festive season and wisely stuck to Wizzard and Slade.

I like a bit of Burt Bacharach meself.

Then I waft around in a kaftan whilst fluttering false eyelashes, proferring cheese and pineapple on sticks to guests.

Once in a while.
Tis proper incense from Middle East though.

Very Talitha Getty.

Now I defy anyone not to feel their blood stir with a bit of Motown (but that is for when table is strewn with post dinner detritus, and chairs are pushed back.

Then the middle aged mum & dad dancing can begin.

Gotta be Goldfrapp CD Seventh Tree. Wonderful, ethereal soundtrack to a dinner party; also calms me down beautifully during a stressful day x