My Life With The Floor Filler Kult

[bav]

While responding to Sluagh's thread about songs you hate or think are over played, I started wondering about floor-fillers and why they are. It seems a lot of people love a song they hear at a club and will request it over and over and over. If the song isn't played, then they may pony up cash/offer sexual favors in order to hear it played.

You know the songs I'm talking about. These are the ones that you've heard every time you go to the local club(s) for the last 3 years, maybe even multiple times in a night. The ones that the DJs have grown to dread hearing from a patron's lips. The ones that people will listen to all week, and then want to hear them at the club.

Why is that?

Some of my thoughts:

1) Clubs have better soundgear: It's one thing to listen to it on your ear buds, in your car, or on a home stereo system, but the systems at dance clubs (presumabely in the case of City Club) will cost more than a lot of people's yearly income and are set up with the acoustics of the dance-floor in mind. You are able to catch more of the 'flavour' of the song while at a club.

2) It's got a great beat and I can dance to it, sorta: It's one thing to prance around to a song in the privacy of your room, but for a lot of people, they like to go dance at a club. Coincidentally, a not-unsubstantial number of these people also suffer from CRD* and/or shyness so they like to have their comfort zones while dancing.** So they request the songs they are familiar with and are comfortable dancing to. Additionally, having a copious amount of alcohol nearby doesn't hurt.

3) I'm in it for the nookie: The (predominantly) guys who will request a song that their girlfriend/date/random person they met at the bar has expressed an interest in hearing in the hope that by getting this song played will result in them getting laid.

Side note: This situation often seems to go hand-in-hand with the paying a DJ to play a song scenario.

Your thoughts?

* Caucasian Rhythm Disorder

** I have to admit that I fall into this category more often than I like

[mauraway]

I pretty rarely request anything at dance clubs.... but I will skip to the next part of the question. Why would I want to hear a song at a dance club that I can listen to at home anytime?

1- Sometimes, louder is better.

2- There is barely enough space in my apartment to walk, let alone dance. I don't care if anyone is watching or not. I dance for me, not for anyone else.

So yeah, I think you've got it figured out already.

[Fierce Critter]

Bav, you reached into my cerebellum and tore answers #1 and #2 out along with a good piece of cerebrum.

I've never understood the whole "request songs on the radio" thing. If you like a song well enough, you probably own it on LP/Cassette/CD/MP3 anyway, right? What's the big fucking deal with requesting and hearing it on the radio?

I own all the songs I'd request at CC in one form or another. I can listen to them any time I want.

Answers #2 and #3 are so apt, they don't really bear repeating.

But I will add another. Atmosphere is big with me. VERY big. It's why I keep going back to filthy/dirty/badsoundsystem/expensivedrinks/horriblebathroom City Club. Because no other place has an atmosphere that works for me the way CC's does. I said I rarely listen to the goth/ebm/industrial/related music I own except for the drive to and from CC. Because it just doesn't feel right to me sitting in a chair typing or driving around doing depressedsuburbanhousewife errands - and listening to lyrics about dead lovers, megalomaniacs, vampires, auslanders, etc.

The atmosphere of CC is the perfect venue for me to hear these songs. So when I'm there, that's what I want to hear - some of my favorite music that I only listen to about once a week (when I'm not homebound out of depressive BS).

I know I said I didn't need to repeat #'s 1 and 2. But I will anyway. Yes, I like loud. I am an overly-conscientious neighbor. I don't like to rock the neighborhood. I want to hear this stuff on speakers taller than me.

And I do love to dance. Even if I'm realizing that I really don't have a very long list of moves in my talent bank. And I can be shy - my mother used to make fun of me when I'd put headphones on and dance in the living room. So dancing at home doesn't happen for me anymore. (FREUD ALERT - sorry if I was too late with that.) You know, the only reason I drink at CC (I almost never drink anywhere/anytime else) is to shut my mother's fucking voice out and just dance like I really want to? So there's that. And I don't want to dance in grubby t-shirts, jean shorts and slip-on moccasins. I want to dance in corsets, lace, leather, stompy boots & dramatic eye make-up.

End.

[mauraway]

Feirce Critter wrote:

" If you like a song well enough, you probably own it on LP/Cassette/CD/MP3 anyway, right?"

Not necessarily. There's lots of music I like, but don't own.

[saechalyn]

In defense of “floor-fillers”:

I am probably not going to dance to a song the first time I hear it. I’m not much of a dancer as far as actual dancing skills are concerned, and it’s really only fun to dance (in public anyway) to a song I already know.

Also, at the club, I’m only half-paying attention to the music at any given point. I’m talking, drinking, scoping for hotties, whatever. So a song I know (and like) is going to catch my ear, and make me want to go dance.

It takes new stuff a while to catch on. I very rarely LOVE a song the first few times I hear it. It has to grow on me.

That said, it does get boring to listen to the same things over and over, and variety is nice. But it doesn’t surprise me when/why people flock to dance to the songs they know.

[Dollardave]

Daisy Chain for Satan and Days of Swine and Roses are overplayed if this is what you are referring to. I been dancing to daisy since I was very young tho and trippin on acid.

[Destroit]

Daisy Chain for Satan and Days of Swine and Roses are overplayed if this is what you are referring to. I been dancing to daisy since I was very young tho and trippin on acid.

Omfg...my ex-best and I used to go and pick up smoke and listen to A Daisy Chain For Satan, it was our little stoner song. But at the same time it pisses me off because people call it "I Live For Drugs" all the time and I'm one of those pompous dickweeds when it comes to petty stuff like titles of things

[Joey Deadcat]

Partly why I'm only at CC couple times a year. I'll stick to 2500 Club and SPAG-related events when it comes to hanging out on dj nights.

[Scary Guy]

It's more related to why any of us started going in the first place I think. For me it was escapism from my drunken mother (yes I go to the bar to get away from a drunk), and I also like my music louder. Now that I actually know people too there's a social aspect to it as well. It gives me something to do for a few hours rather than hang out at a coffee shop or coney.