On the back of Melvin & Janette's exit last night I got thinking about whether favoritism plays a part when music is designated to the couples.

For example, "Moving on Up" as a Tango is a ridiculous choice. As soon as I saw it, I said "Bye bye M&J" and here we are. At other times, you get a perfect piece of music which gives the pro loads to work and inevitably heightens the performance. Such pieces are given to possibly favored pros and/or competent celebrities...case in point being Jay & Aliona dancing to "Misirlou" from Pulp Fiction for their jive last year

Now, I could never have seen Jay & Aliona being given "Moving on Up" as a Tango option. But I could see Danny & Oti being given "Misirlou" if it were to be used this year.
From a pro perspective, I couldn't see the likes of Aljaz, Kevin, Natalie or Aliona (in her day) being given some of the questionable choices Janette, Karen & Ola (in her day) have had to suffer.

Am I making a point here or is it just my imagination. Do you think musical choices are influenced by favouritism?

to a certain degree used to think that too - ie but some pros just cope with bad music ie Kevin and that samba to hip hop music - the awful harry potter music for paso - ommp pa pa for a vw whilst other pros with good music ie Anton just waste it.

But out of the choices for movie week last year I would have bet my mortgage on Pulp fiction being the highest mark of the night - easy theme and great appropriate music

Will be interesting to see what Danny gets

THIS all the way.

I was not a fan of Jay & Aliona but I called it easily that they would top the Movie Week leaderboard as soon as the musical choices were announced. - great music, iconic costume & make-up etc. I don't think it was an accident that their routine was last that night...

You're imagination. Jay had to dance a Quickstep to 'My Generation' ... awful, awful, choice.
'Little Red Riding Hood' for an American Smooth wasn't great either and there were a couple of others.
Nearly everyone gets bad songs or unsuitable songs at some point but then, some of the choices that I've thought are terrible turn out to have been personally requested by pro or celebrity.

Natalie had to dance a tango this week to an even worse choice than Janette did.

Two very good examples which I had forgotten about so you have a point.

However, I am talking about on the whole - no one can have 100% the best or worst.

I thought the pros were given a choice of a couple of songs per dance..........

if Moving on Up was the best choice I dread to think what other monstrosity Janette was offered

Personally I think that its partly down to music and also the choreographers interpretation of that music

I didnt think G&G's tango to Ghostbusters would work and was very skeptical until I watched and, in my opinion, Gio made it work

Well the running order would have been decided by the Producers after seeing the run throughs, so no, it wouldn't be an accident at all.

However, given Jay and the fact he could be either brilliant or meh with little in between it could easilly have gone belly up on the night.

The music/dance choices for the first two dances would have been made known to the pros at the very commencement of the rehearsal period a month ago. Are you suggesting that favourites had been chosen before anyone had even taken a single dance step?

Unless a piece of music is simply the wrong time signature there really should be no problem adapting any dance style to fit. The better professionals simply do this better. Any explanation beyond that is simply unnecessary.

Apart from Misirlou ... what brilliant songs did Jay get in your opinion then? Cuba is a great Salsa song but other than that he had a lot of songs that weren't particularly familiar and some clunkers. 'When Doves Cry' is a brilliant song ... but not exactly what comes to mind for a Tango and it's been used before ... more than once so not even innovative. 'It's my Life' is not a great Paso song though in both these cases Aliona choreographed great routines.

I really wish they'd let the pros have more input over music choices! There seem to be a lot of not so great to dance to songs chosen for 'popularity' the 'pop hits' and 'terrible cover versions of golden oldies' etc. I think the tango suffers the most from this as it's such a destinctive rhythm its hard to get a pop song that really fits it.

Nah, any old soft rock song will do

Some of the best tangos on Strictly and DWTS have been to wildly inappropriate music. It's what brings the best out of the pros. Leave things alone!

The producer chooses the music.

The pros get a bit of choice, but it'll be "Hobson's choice."

The BBC want a "balance," weighted in favour of the younger generations.
Older ones are dying off and they want to attract "new blood," to keep the ratings up.
Suitability for particular dances will be considered, but it is not the primary objective.

It's been like this for a decade or more.

You can see J&A dancing their jive to a completely different and little-known song on their Keep Dancing tour on Youtube, and the dance still looks really good. It might not have had quite the same impact or memorability with such a large part of the GBP, but they'd still have topped the week 3 leader board with that level of dancing.

And yeah- My Generation! Little Led Riding Hood!! Terrible music.

I think it's only with hindsight that people can say "that was a banging tune- [x] had such an advantage with that". Most weeks I get excited by one or other great song and then am really disappointed by the dance that's then done to it. I absolutely love "Forget You" and "Pencil Full of Lead" but was pretty meh about Daisy's and Anita's dances; and plenty of people dance to great Show tunes like "If They Could See Me Now" but very few pull off a dance like Tom & Camilla did.

In fact that would be a great weekly poll: "Which song would you bet your mortgage on coming top of the leader board this week?"

Not strictly true because I was THAT sure Jay & Aliona would top the leaderboard as sonn as the songs were announced that week. It was an absolute no brainer. As for Melvin & Janette, the VERY first comment I made when I saw what they would be dancing to was "taxi for Melvin".

It's interesting that people never say "It's a no-brainer- [x] will win with that". It's always said in the past tense- never the future tense. At least not here on DS- where people can actually see it, rather than have it reported after the fact.

And Melvin's dancing was all you needed to know he'd be an early casualty. That, and his low profile- people have been predicting his first boot from mid August.

I completely agree with this, they have an orchestra with a variety of instruments and I don't think they use it to its full advantage

Pre 2010 there was a lot of brilliant tango music used on strictly, using pop songs is my only real dislike of the show currently

Agree with much that has already been said. I guess I'm old fashioned but I particularly love the dances like Paso Doble, Tango and Latin party dances to have a traditional soundtrack.

My own musical reference is classic rock but it really doesn't work for many dances. I can only assume they who choose the music are trying to please the wide age range of audience, however, some things JUST DON'T WORK and would certainly influence the voters.

I almost cheer when an American Smooth is accompanied by a true Hollywood style crooner or a Paso has a Spanish flamenco flavour, and I also agree with Len about all the faffing and props which are used these days.

Yeah gone are the days when Dave Arch actually rearranged the music to fit the dance, now it seems to be the pros role to just make it fit. A good arranger can make any song, pretty much some exceptions, fit a certain style. I loved in Tom&Camilla's show dance how it suddenly went into a tango, brilliant yet simple orchestration. But then if he did that they wouldn't be able to sing all the songs, which for me personally would not be too big of a loss!!!

We've said this for years, but it's not about dancing, it's about ratings. Has been since the BBC won the battle with this against the X-Factor.

I think he should jive to the Emmerdale theme tune

For the second year running it seems they are using any old song they want for the tango. With so much good genuine tango music around why do they force couples to try to fit the routine to some soft rock ballad or 1 hit wonder boy band anthem.

It's infuriating.