Organizing a West Coast Swing DJ Library

It's very easy as a DJ to fall into a trap of playing songs from two buckets: newer, popular songs and older, comfortable throwbacks. While I try to regularly shake up both categories, it's still hard to shake that feeling of repetition and monotony at times.

The easiest fix most DJs reach for is brand-new songs, and this can work great in moderation. After a night of moderate experimentation I often get feedback like: "I didn't know many of the songs tonight. Some of the new stuff felt familiar enough to dance to but I was a little outside of my comfort zone." I generally prefer that to "I knew every song and was bored all night", but I still feel like I can do better.

How? Through a grueling, time-consuming, yet ultimately inspiring process: going through and re-sorting my entire library. Yes, my entire library. Just south of 7,000 sorted songs, and closer to 9,000 if you include new additions needing to be catalogued. Did I listen to every single one? Yes, at least enough of a snippet to decide if it's worth keeping and where to put it.

Were the majority of the 9,000 songs great and worthy of reviving? Absolutely not. A good majority got shuffled out of my folders and into permanent retirement. But the gems I re-discovered will be worth all the hours it took. By giving my library a proper re-examination, I'm better equipped to find the right vibe I'm looking for, and it will result in more loosely familiar songs from the past making their way back into my playlists organically, broadening the range of throwbacks without having to rely on the same 100 classics.

I hope this is an interesting look behind the curtains of DJ organization. Remember that even if it looks like we're just hitting play sometimes, that playlist could have taken days (if not weeks) of research, discovery, downloading, cataloging, organizing, testing, and playlist creation.

Although I would have infinitely more money today if I had never started DJing for WCS, the journey, the experiences, the artistic expression, and that electric energy when a song hits at just the right moment in a crowded ballroom makes it worth every hour spent.