Mixing Pop: Play whole track or half?

The short answer is DJ’s choice, with some rules. I tend to play the whole track, using loops & cue points for my mix. If it’s a request, play as much of the track as you can. Don’t mix just to show you can, if your crowd wants pop music chances are they don’t care how you mix your next track in.

pop music songs arent that long to begin with ,mixing in during breaks might make the songs too short, so be prepared to play a lot of songs in a short time if thats your intention , it is fun to mix shorter pop songs and radio version because the time is short and makes it a bit more challenging as a dj and also cool for the crowd as they are probably not used to seeing a dj do his thing on those kinds of songs

The purpose of good mixing in my – as always very humble – opinion is to make transitions between tracks less obvious and even surprising the audience by moving them from track A to track B before they really realize what is happening. It helps create and maintain a “flow”. That said, there are moments in most nights I play (as a mobile DJ, but also in my days as club resident) that you need clear changes, moments where you want the audience to be conscious to a change, moments where you want to almost force another tempo, genre or mood. Those are the moments that other mixing skills than beat matching come into play. This can be something as simple as a 4-beat silence, possibly combined with a nice accapella drop, sample or even mic use.

Clearly with digital DJ-ing there are plenty of options to remix, reshape or just lengthen a track on the fly, using loops, cue points, flip (or comparable other options), fx, etx.

While music selection will always trump everything else, with a margin, having a well-stuffed toolbox will help you make the most of whatever kind of music you want to play.

Thanks for sharing this mix! I’ve been trying to figure out pop mixing as well. I’ve also felt like it’s giving less room for creativity and performance features, and that it’s more about seamless transitions, like what Vintage describes above..

– Tord