Birthday Party Playlist: Music to Celebrate Milestones and More

Celebrating a birthday soon?

While I always get giddy when I start to plan a birthday party—How will I decorate? What will I serve? What’s their favorite flavor of birthday cake?--it took me quite a few years to realize that even if the décor, food and drink are wonderful, the event isn’t complete without this missing ingredient.

Music!

If you’re lucky enough that live music is an option, go ahead and book that band or singer now. For the rest of us, a party playlist of birthday-inspired tunes can be exactly what our celebration needs to add a fun, festive vibe.

In the post below, I’ll share my go-to songs for a birthday party and offer strategies for selecting songs that can make the playlist more personalized.

Keep reading or jump to a particular section by clicking below:

• Top 10 Tips for Making a Birthday Playlist
• Save Time and Use My Birthday Party Playlist
• Why We Like the Music We Do
• A Proven Strategy for Personalizing a Milestone Birthday Playlist
• Add these Songs to Your 50^th Birthday Playlist

Top 10 Tips for Making a Birthday Party Playlist 

Building a playlist for a birthday party can be a lot easier if you keep these tips in mind!

1. Build your playlist a few weeks before the party. It’s a fun task, but much harder to do when you are pressed for time.

Save Time by Using My Playlist for a Birthday Party

Creating a playlist can be a blast, or you can end up falling down the rabbit hole and spend hours listening to songs you haven’t heard in a while (or maybe that’s just me?1)

If you’re looking for a playlist, feel free to copy/paste my collection of birthday party songs. You’ll find some pop favorites, classics and tunes that will make you want to get up dance.

Think of this list as your starting point. Review the songs, keep the ones you like and replace the ones you don’t like (more on that coming up!).

My Go-To Playlist for Birthday Parties

Unforgettable – Nat King Cole

Celebration – Kool & the Gang

Happy Birthday – Stevie Wonder

Forever Young – Rod Stewart

We Are Family – Sister Sledge

Birthday – The Beatles

Good Vibrations – Beach Boys

Don’t Stop – Fleetwood Mac

Hey Ya! - Outkast

Birthday – Destiny’s Child

Party Rock Anthem – LMFAO

Birthday – Katy Perry

Stand By Me – Ben E. King

Birthday Party – AJR

Happy - Pharrell

Stayin’ Alive – The Bee Gees

We Are Young - Fun

All of Me (Tiesto’s Birthday) – John Legend

Dancing Queen - Abba

I’m Yours – Jason Mraz

Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen

What Makes You Beautiful - One Direction

Party in the USA – Miley Cyrus

Everybody Talks - Neon Trees

You’re Beautiful – James Blunt

Don’t Stop Believing - Journey

I Got a Feeling - Black Eyed Peas

Sexy and I Know It - LMFAO

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet - Bachman Turner Overdrive

Macarena - Los Del Rio

Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond

We Are the Champions – Queen

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - The Temptations

Bust a Move - Young MC

Whistle - Flo Rida  (Note: get the clean version or have some explaining to do to younger party guests! )

A Birthday Centerpiece Attuned to Your Party

If you're someone who likes done-for-you playlists, you'll love this easy, elegant birthday centerpiece. In less than 5 minutes, you can have it set-up and ready to go.

Seriously easy party decor!
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Why We Like the Music We Do

Research has shown that our favorite music tends to include songs that we listened to during our high school years and into our early 20’s.

These songs tend to evoke strong emotions and result in remembrance—you can place where you were when you listened to the song.

Additionally, since so many life events happen from ages 14 to 25 (high school dances, football games, being able to drive, graduation, going to college, starting our first job and more), we’re more likely to remember this time period.

This finding resonated with me. Whenever I hear “Walking in Memphis” or “True Companion” by Marc Cohn, I can recall listening to the CD as a 21-year-old.

In a nanosecond, my mind flips to the memory of driving my light blue Honda Prelude (manual transmission!) up and down the East Coast as I made road trips to visit family and friends.

That period of my life was associated with so many firsts (first real job, first time living alone, first car....), that I can still taste the sweet memory of becoming a self-sufficient adult.

Personalized Milestone Birthday Music Made Easy

Using this insight, it’s highly likely that the birthday person enjoys the music that was popular from the time they were aged 14 to 25. 

As that’s still a wide range, you can narrow it down even more by picking songs that were popular when they were in high school, or even focus on the year they graduated high school.

Not sure what year they graduated high school?  No problem! 

We offer two ways to do this: a formula so you can calculate the year they graduated in or tables that you can look the information up in.

Use this formula to estimate their year of graduation:

1. Start with the year their milestone birthday occurs in
2. Subtract the number of the milestone birthday
3. This results in the year they were born
4. Take their birth year and 18 to it. (Assume they graduated high school at 18.)
5. The resulting number is the year they are likely to have graduated high school
6. Grab the most popular songs from that year and use them on the milestone birthday playlist.

To see how this might work, let's use my sister's upcoming birthday.  In March of 2022, she'll be 50.

1. The year she has a milestone birthday=2022
2. The number of her milestone birthday=50
3. Find the year she was born, 2022-50=1972
4. Take her birth year (1972) and add 18
5. The year she graduated high school is (1972+18)=1990

Use these Charts to Estimate their Grad Year 

The next two charts make it easy to find what music they likely listened to in high school. Simply:

1. Find the calendar year of the celebration  will be in (2021 or 2022)
2. Identify how old they will be on their milestone birthday.
3. Find their likely high school graduation year
4. Select songs from the year they graduated high school to make your milestone birthday playlist awesome!

Locating the songs that were popular when they graduated high school is as simple as popping that question into Google, Siri or Alexa. 

 Easy, elegant party decor that's music to your ears!

Add these Songs to Your 50^th Birthday Playlist

You can do this for any milestone birthday, but if we continue with my sister’s upcoming birthday as an example...

For her 50^th birthday celebration in March of 2021, I would include popular songs from 1990, the year she graduated high school. No doubt that adding “Pump Up the Jam” and “Nothing Compares 2 U” would be a throwback for her—and the other guests!

Billboard magazine’s Top 20 Songs of 1990