Songs that fit any environment

[grassbath]

A rare thing - a song that goes down well for any crowd. You've your fingers on the laptop at the party, 10 seconds before the music runs out, the next song is on you. Too pissed to think tactically. What are you gonna do?

I give you Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams.'

Crisp dance beat, fat bassline - you can boogie to it. But introspective and nocturnal enough that it will hang like smoke over a living room draped with burnouts in the early hours. It's sexy - borderline make-out music - but any guy or gal going home alone will be living in those bittersweet lyrics. It's a 'cool' choice, or at least not a mainstream one by today's standards, but that chorus is ubiquitous enough that any ear will perk up that's been anywhere near a radio in the last 20 years. And you can take your pick of the seasons - those '70s FM vibes drip with L.A. sunshine, but mist and frost swirls through the spaces in the mix.

What are your reliable fallbacks?

P.S. I'm not suggesting that you drop 'Dreams' in the middle of a techno set or something. I ask only for songs that are remarkably flexible in mood. Don't take me super literally. God!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Unfunky UFO.

[Sin Agog]

All my attempts at DJ'ing have been miserable affairs.  I can read the room, but I can't be the room.  It's a career strictly for extreme extroverts.  Some old Nigerian funk or rocksteady compilation or possibly something like Jeff Mills Live at the Liquid Room usually ends up having to do all the work for me.  That said, there is one song that only an avowed anti-beats kind of person can't love, and that's Eddie Bo's adorably funky Check Your Bucket: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x3beRHU-DB4

[Lordofthefiles]

Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison

Never fails... even at funerals and anal rape trials.

[Better Midlands]

Rolling Stones - Miss You works well, for similar reasons as Dreams.