Songs 2016

2016 in music: a year to dance the night away

Friends of DJ4, once again this year, it’s time for our musical round-up. The editorial team at “ilsussidiario.net” (one of Italy’s leading online newspapers) contacted us again in 2016 to ask us to write an article summarising the’musical essence, the trends, the hits (across the board: from pop to dance) of the last 12 months. Here is the article; you’ll find the link.

This article also includes a section dedicated to music dance, the one that, of course, is most relevant to our work as DJs for parties and events. In any case, we’d like to take this opportunity to explore the topic of dance music in more depth on our blog.

Songs of 2016: the year of Jamaican influences

Without a doubt, the past year will be remembered as the one that marked the rise, in the world of dance music, of the Jamaican dancehall style, which saw Major Lazer one of the pioneers, in 2015; in 2016, he repeated his success with Light It Up and Cold Water. In particular, during spring and summer, this “caliente” style took centre stage, with the Global Deejays (and their hugely popular track ‘Work’),  DJ Snake (Let Me Love You, in collaboration with Justin Bieber), Sak Noel (Trumpets), the Clean Bandit by Rockabye, and DJ Katch with the wildly energetic *The Horns*.

The dance scene, however, has not “converted” entirely to dancehall influences; amongst the artists who are “holding their ground” with the house and the Edm As usual, there were several confirmations, such as Bob Sinclar with Burning,  Axwell e Shapov (Belong), Calvin Harris (My Way), David Guetta, including ‘This One’s for You’ and the more recent ‘Would I Lie to You’. But we mustn’t forget to mention the new, up-and-coming artists who have had people dancing all over the world: Sofi Tukker with Drinkee (at the start of 2016), Alan Walker with Faded and Mike Posner (I Took A Pill In Ibiza). Just as is the case with pop music, dance music is also always very prolific in terms of cover songs from the past; many do not come close (not even remotely) to matching the success of the original, but the remake of Gigi d’Agostino’s *L’amour toujour*, released in February by Dzeko & Torres, in the Tiësto Edit, was really well received.

Hip hop got us dancing too

What’s also got us moving in 2016 are a few tracks that don’t exactly fall into the dance music category: the hit was hugely popular Can’t stop the feeling! by Justin Timberlake, 24K Magic by Bruno Mars, Cheap Thrills by Sia and the “Latin-flavoured” Ginza by J Balvin. 

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the many successes we’ve enjoyed in 2016! See you soon, Jody and the whole team at DJ4.