DJ LIFE‘s got 10 wedding bangers that are guaranteed to fill your dancefloor in July 2026, as brought to you by Herbert Holler.
You’re deejaying weddings, now, dude. Congratulations. You got over yourself, you put your dreams of the coolest motherfucker on Earth aside, and you’re now focused on earning an income to feed your family, your kids (the ones you know about), pay bills and put money away in a Roth IRA. (If you don’t know what that is, I’ll write about it later.) Welcome! I fucking love deejaying weddings, playing for people you would never get the chance to, and you will, too. Lemme help you by providing the biggest dance-floor fillers right now. You’re welcome.
DANCING QUEEN
ABBA
1.1B views. That’s all you need to know. Your task at hand is to get whomever feels like dancing at this fucking wedding onto the dance floor—you gotta find songs that everyone can come together in agreement on. A song whose YouTube video has 1.1B views is probably gonna do it. Every time I drop this record, no matter when, no matter how tired and old and crusty and phone-locked someone might be, they run to the floor. This is that song. It wasn’t always THAT song, but TikTok has helped tremendously. Old, young, in between, deaf…Doesn’t matter. Play it. Watch.
DANZA KUDURO
Don Omar ft. Lucenzo
“Another one.” (DJ Khaled.) I guess, you know…In terms of YouTube views, this shoulda set it off, as it has 1.7B views, .6B views more than “Dancing Queen,” but it’s a much faster tempo, not as easy to get into unless you’re probably lubed, not-to-mention they’re not speaking English and that might alienate some of the paler audiences, so I would say ABBA still wins. But this is a close second. I’ve never seen hands go up or faces go coo-coo faster and more on cue than any other song.
I WANT YOU BACK
The Jackson 5
This one only has 101M views on YouTube (“only), but it absolutely can go blow-for-blow with the top two. And it’s close enough to “Dancing Queen’s” tempo that you might as well let it rock on our about then. Michael Jackson’s younger voice, a mean bass line and happy, whimsical guitars? Nothing better for celebrating. If the crowd is very pale, they might first seem reserved, but once all cylinders of this song are firing, they won’t be able to help themselves. MJ will beckon, the iconic pied piper, and the little mice will line up and follow.
WE FOUND LOVE
Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris
“Yellow diamonds in the skyyyy!” If the electronic chords or whatever they’re called at the beginning of this song doesn’t bring them running, then those lyrics and Rihanna’s carefree, youthful, nothing-matters-except-right-now pitch will. It is the alarm, and when you sound it, the 30-somethings flock, but truthfully, I’ve seen a whole heckuvalotta grey-hairs love the song, too. It’s become a classic. Don’t fight it. Let it play. 1.1B views, and counting.
GIVE ME EVERYTHING
Pitbull featuring Ne_yo, Afrojack and somebody called Nayer
I don’t know who the fuck “Nayer” is, but cot damn did they luck out with placement on this record. 1.3B views on YouTube and counting. And it couldn’t go be a better transition from “We Found Love.” Just do it. Just mix the two. And do it every damn time you play “We Found Love,” because you won’t find a better follow up track nor blend than those two records, one after the other. That’s the thing, right? You might get someone saying, “he always plays those same songs together,” but fuck them, because my job is to make people go crazy, and until those two songs back-to-back stop doing that, I’m not stopping doing it. Go sit down and Tweet, bitch.
SEPTEMBER
Earth, Wind & Fire
We’re all a bunch of Pavlovian lab dogs, hearing those horns set in, and automatically responding like addicts. It’s crazy. 885M views. The classic of all classics. Some people are actually sick of this song, but you still see those people pulled onto the dance floor, by some primordial call, something they can’t fight, with a look on their face that says, “yeah…well…you gotta dance to this song, right??” I’ve seen people bring their dinner plates on to the dance floor, to be on the dance floor when this song comes on. “Why were you playing it while people were eating?” I wasn’t, but some people would rather eat than dance—that steak be hittin’ hard, sometimes.
I LOVE IT
Icona pop featuring Charli XCX
Charli XCX will not make this list, otherwise. And miss me with the “hater” shit, or the weird cult following she has. Her songs are NOT hitting like that, and you know it—get over yourself and your social-media motivated musical tastes. (And I’m still enjoying my wayyy late-to-the-game membership to the Robyn cult. “I keep dancin’ on my owwwwwwwwn!”) Be thankful I mentioned her. Be thankful Icona Pop (who?!?!) hit this one hard. 257M views. More than “I Want You Back,” which is a crime, but such is the way of the world and its “basket of deplorables.” (I’m sorry but we all know HRC was right.) This song rocks the F outta everyone in the room. People who shouldn’t be jumping and pumping fists jump and pump fists. And it’s a great segue into some classic 80s jams.
DON’T STOP BELIEVIN
Journey
I saw this video had 379M views, and I was like, “no way.” Too little. But then there’s a live YouTube video of this song, and that has 460M+, so yeah…We’re good. Now…I call “Mr. Brightside” the modern-day “Don’t Stop Believin,” and I do need to say, and be honest, that sometimes, if not played at the right time, Journey’s Planet-Earth anthem might not hit as hard. Gotta be honest. People will still dance to it, but if you don’t wait until people are properly lubed, you won’t get them to open up to this song and allow it in.
DON’T STOP ‘TIL YOU GET ENOUGH
Michael Jackson
You know what I really like about this song? Not that it’s Michael. (LOVE Michael.) Not that it’s a classic banger. (People STILL scream when he does in the beginning.) Not that it’s fun and soulful and funky—everything I love. No. It’s that they took proper care in titling the song grammatically correct: “’Til.” The apostrophe goes where the “u” and “n” should go, a place marker for the “un” in “until.” I really appreciate that. (A lot.) I remember a client telling me no Jackson 5 or Michael Jackson because of the accusations, and I almost fired back with, “do you know how many of your favorite artists have allegedly done despicable things,” but I didn’t feel like going there. (“NO FRICTION” is my vendor-client rule.) Still, my dumb ass accidentally played “I Want You Back” (see above), at which point a very emotional extra guests ran up to and said, “the bride said no Michael Jackson!” Chill out, you fucking weirdo.
POISON
Bell Biv DeVoe
I’m legit shocked this one only has 42M views on YouTube. Shit…”Nothin’ but a Good Time” by Poison has 47M. (LOL.) I don’t get it. But whatever. THIS song is a banger. And it reminds me of the Yelp review some lunatic wrote once: “He plays ‘Poison’ at every damn party.” (She was sent to harass me by some fucking loser whose heart I apparently broke. In that same review, she claimed I also play R. Kelly because I don’t care about “little brown girls.” I swear…Some people really need therapy. And to have their internet disconnected.) But that review doesn’t detract me from playing this song AT EVERY DAMN PARTY. The 90s were everything. This song was everything. And thankfully, for me, it still is. “Little brown girls,” big white men, old people…Everybody loves it.