40 Songs That Always Get a Party Dancing (By Decade)
Some songs are practically guaranteed to get people out of their seats. Whether you’re building a playlist from scratch or setting up a fallback list for a SongUp room, this decade-by-decade list is a reliable starting point.
1970s–80s
- “September” — Earth, Wind & Fire
- “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” — Michael Jackson
- “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” — Whitney Houston
- “Billie Jean” — Michael Jackson
- “Livin’ on a Prayer” — Bon Jovi
- “Ain’t Nobody” — Chaka Khan
- “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” — Eurythmics
1990s
- “No Diggity” — Blackstreet
- “Wannabe” — Spice Girls
- “Mr. Brightside” — The Killers (technically 2004, but plays like a 90s anthem)
- “It’s Tricky” — Run-D.M.C.
- “Groove Is in the Heart” — Deee-Lite
- “Waterfalls” — TLC
2000s
- “Hey Ya!” — OutKast
- “Crazy in Love” — Beyoncé
- “Mr. Saxobeat” — Alexandra Stan
- “I Gotta Feeling” — The Black Eyed Peas
- “Sexy Back” — Justin Timberlake
- “Toxic” — Britney Spears
- “Ignition (Remix)” — R. Kelly
2010s
- “Uptown Funk” — Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars
- “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” — Justin Timberlake
- “Party Rock Anthem” — LMFAO
- “24K Magic” — Bruno Mars
- “Shut Up and Dance” — Walk the Moon
- “Levitating” — Dua Lipa
2020s
- Whatever’s currently trending on TikTok and the charts — this is the one category that changes fastest, and no static list stays accurate for long.
The problem with static lists
Notice the last category — the current-hits list goes stale within months, and even the “classic” list is a guess at what your specific crowd wants. A 25-person office party and a college house party will react very differently to the same song.
A better approach: let the crowd decide live
Use a list like this as your fallback playlist — something reliable that plays automatically when nobody’s actively requesting songs — but let the actual room drive the queue in real time. With SongUp , guests scan a QR code and search for whatever they actually want to hear (including this week’s new releases), each adding a few songs at a time so it stays fair. No list, however well-researched, beats a room requesting its own songs live.