About
About DJWS, sources and method
DJWS is a free site for people who pick songs: karaoke singers and hosts, DJs, trivia hosts, teachers and party planners. It is made and maintained by DJ Wonder Sean, a working karaoke host. It currently covers 30,568 songs and 2,535 artists. It has no lyrics and no audio.
Where the facts come from
- Titles, artists, albums and release years: compiled from public music databases (such as MusicBrainz) and reference sources (such as Wikipedia), then cleaned up by hand and by script.
- Lengths: the length of the original recording where we know it. A karaoke version can run a little shorter or longer, and a radio edit differs from an album version.
- Chart peaks: Billboard Hot 100 peaks, and peaks on other Billboard charts where labeled, compiled from public chart histories. A "#1 hit" tag means the song reached number one on the chart named.
- Karaoke availability and popularity: whether a karaoke version exists, and how popular it is, comes from the public KaraFun catalog. A karaoke link goes either to a specific version we have listed, or to a search on KaraFun or YouTube. KaraFun is a separate service and full playback generally needs a KaraFun subscription. We do not host karaoke tracks.
- Explicit flag: comes from the karaoke catalog. "Not marked explicit" means no flag was set. It does not mean a song is suitable for children, schools or workplaces. Preview the exact version before your event.
Known limits
This is a large catalog built partly by script, and it has mistakes. The most common: a release year that belongs to a reissue or remaster instead of the original single, and a length that belongs to a different edit. We are checking the best-known songs against original release data first. If a fact looks wrong, please tell us.
How themes work
A title-word theme such as "songs with an animal in the title" follows fixed rules, so anyone can check a song by looking at its title:
- The word has to be visible in the title. The highlighted part of the title shows why a song is in the theme. Artist themes work the same way with the artist's name.
- Plurals count.
- The same spelling counts, even when the meaning changes. A Watch is jewelry. A Bass is an animal.
- A compound word counts only if it splits into real words. Cowboy counts as an animal because it is Cow and Boy. A word that only contains the letters does not count.
- Themes are never exclusive. A song can be in many themes.
Holiday, genre and mood themes ("Songs for Christmas", "Yacht rock") are picked by DJ Wonder Sean.
How the song lists work
Pages under Song lists are built from fields in the data: release year, length, duet flag, chart peak, and karaoke availability. Each page states its rule. Songs are ordered by how well known they are, using chart peak and karaoke popularity. A list shows the 300 best-known matches; the Song Finder has all of them. Counts cover the DJWS catalog, not every song that exists.
Report a correction
Found a wrong year, length, artist credit, theme or karaoke link? Email sean@djwondersean.com with the page address and what it should say. Corrections are checked against a source before the site is updated.
Links and money
DJWS is free. Links to karaoke services are marked as sponsored in the page code as a precaution, and if we ever earn money from them we will say so on this page. DJ Wonder Sean also runs Minty Tees, which sells karaoke shirts, and The Circuit List, which lists karaoke and trivia nights.