I am planning a relative’s 70th birthday party and need tunes that will get all ages dancing: what works?
Fantastic stuff: having an older relative as the birthday girl or boy is just the excuse you need to dust off those guilty pleasure albums and vintage recordings – though I would, of course, recommend that one ought never worry about being in fashion or not. Also, never underestimate your average 70-year-old. At 72, my mum is always the first one up on the dancefloor and the last to leave – 70 being the new 50 and all.

So don’t hold back. You want the Who’s My Generation, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones, Isaac Hayes’s Shaft, Katy Perry’s Roar, Happy by Pharrell Williams – even that old first world war song K-k-k-Katy, just to drive the babyboomers mad. The little ones will love it. Another thought: Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas.

What’s your budget here? Are you, in fact, a helicoptering billionaire, an entrepreneurial cash-flasher? If so, consider hiring a live act. Prince, I read this week, can be booked for a private show, and is a snip at £1.5m. If, however, you’re running at the slightly lower end of the budget scale, perhaps look around for a new kid on the block. With songs such as Good Time Girls and Wagon Wheel, the Irish country star of the moment, Nathan Carter, appeals equally to scantily clad teenagers and the “wiser” crowd. Still just under the mainstream radar for the moment, Carter has quietly been filling venues across the UK and America, and while doing so has been quietly outselling most indie darlings with his bevy of great sing-a-mosh-a-long tunes.

• Listen to Cerys’s playlist, and post your questions, at theguardian.com/music