can be coaxed onto any dance floor for Hocus Pocus by Focus (preferably the album version, not the speeded up US single version), but suspect that this may not be a universally applauded choice...

For a bit of guaranteed indie floor filler, try The Breeders 'Cannonball' followed by Beck's 'The Devils Haircut'. It has never failed me.

"Out On The Floor" by Dobie Gray....awesome

As performed by the Flying Burrito Brothers. Familiarity gets 'em on the floor, assuming of a certain age, with the glow that it is the Burritos all your own. If winning, slip in Day by Day by Kevin Ayers, rounded off by Ball Park Incident by Wizzard and watch those air saxes a'blowing.
(I have a feeling what worked during my one spell on the decks in 1975 may have waned a bit but, hey!)

some of the suggestions above but make sure you have a copy of the "greatest disco lp ever" and you won't go far wrong. Sadly this sort of party dj isn't an opportutiny to show off your good taste and what seem like total classic may well have people sitting on their hands even your so called best friends, Two tone ska is worth a go and mainstrem big beat.

All such opportunities are opportunities. And remember, he was asked, rather than volunteering. If they don't dance, change your friends.

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
Well known but not so overfamiliar that you can resist getting down to it.

by Chic

... little lot I don't know what'll work:

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/once-again-its-time-disco

Here's a few to start with:

(I'm A Roadrunner)/Jr Walker & The All-Stars

Queen Bitch/Bowie

Son of My Father/Chicory Tip

Hot Pants/Alan Hawkshaw

Let's Stick Together/Bryan Ferry

Glass of Champagne/Sailor

Sunshine Superman/Donovan

It's raining men
YMCA
Boogie Wonderland
I will survive
Mambo No 5
The Locomotion
Reet Petite
We are family
Disco inferno
The Fletcher Memorial Home...

...there you go... sad but true!

PS I may have been kidding about the last one...

There are a decent ones - Go Home Productions Riders on the Rapture is great as is Soul Wax version of Dreadlock holiday/independent women. It's good to see folk dancing with a confused look. Ace of Spades and Paranoid for when they're pissed and will dance to anything.

Take your pic from Teenage Kicks; Eton Rifles (replete with reference to Bozza and Daveo); Unfinished Sympathy; One Step Beyond and Theme From Minder.

Just to show I can do the expected (Tsangirai?), a good game is to lull a sense of confidence into (onto?) the area under the glitterball with Olivers Army/Come on Eileen/loadsaMotown/Heart of Glass and then put on Superstition. Some smart alec, white, middle aged, drunk, will try and fit his feet around the clavinet riff. Priceless.
(Then play Tear Stained Letter?? Tempting........)

It cannot fail. In fact, I'm going to bring it on Friday.

As opposed to Word readers.
Apart from the obvious ones already mentioned, I’d find a slot for this: it combines the two music styles that are best to get people dancing - reggae and disco - and has short phrases that lend themselves to drunken singalong. There’s something rather wonderful about a psalm from the bible being turned into a reggae song and then, in turn, a glitterball disco classic. It’s not one of the biggest and best loved hit singles of all time for nothing. Sometimes mass public opinion is spot on. What’s more it’s timeless: if you released it tomorrow it would be an unstoppable No. 1; if you played it to a two year old they’d instantly get it and love it. (You could also flip it and play Brown Girl In The Ring too: did this awesome pop double whammy make the cut in that A & B side category we did a couple of weeks ago?)

Hmmmmm. Uncertain, Richard, as the one thing that is most difficult to predict is the unpredictability of "normal people", but thank you for being such a forthright defendant of their mores.
P.S. I note a remix of the song failed to chart in 1988.

but the original request was for suggestions for records to play at a disco for people who don’t necessarily have sophisticated or adventurous tastes in music, but want to hear records that are great to sing along and dance to. I’m not a defendant of anyone’s “mores” (the title of my post was a play on Stuff White People Like, a site which has been mentioned on here). I don’t even have particularly mainstream musical tastes - can’t stand Westlife, James Blunt, Robbie Williams etc. - but I think the rock snob maxim whereby anything that has mass commercial appeal is, by definition, rubbish is fundamentally stupid.
I’ve never heard the 1988 remix you mention but from what I can remember of late ’80s remixes of old ’70s songs, I imagine it was terrible. And I would stake my house on this record - if it was a previously unheard new release coming out next week - being No.1, all over Europe, all summer long. And I think it would go down well at our friend Handsome’s disco.

Altho', as per any God fearing rock snob, I prefer the version by Boiled in Lead. (Actually, as an uber-rock snob, I won't/don't admit to even a liking for rock, but, hey, broad church etc etc.

Unable to instinctively distinguish good records from bad ones, the Rock Snob has to use a strict code. Music is good if it ticks one or more of the following boxes: Difficult To Play, Difficult To Enjoy, Obscure, Merits Clear To Only The Enlightened Few, Made By Africans, Made By People Who Are Really Upset etc. etc.
The Pop Gourmet on the other hand approaches the groaning buffet table with an open mind, yet a sophisticated, discerning palate. The Pop Gourmet has Bobby Sherman in his i-tunes library next to Buffalo Springfield, but restricts himself to only two songs by the former and five by the latter. And the Pop Gourmet knows perfectly well that while “Rivers Of Babylon” is magnificent, “Rasputin” is ridiculous rubbish.

I thought you were serious until I read your last sentence.....

I'm veering towards a list that has:
Groove Is In The Heart - Deee Lite
Valerie - Mark Ronson
Girls & Boys - Blur
Over & Over - Hot Chip
Yeah - LCD Soundsystem
I Believe In Miracles - Jackson Sisters
Gimme All Your Lovin' - ZZ Top
Leave Home - Chemical Brothers
Soon - My Bloody Valentine
Waiting For The Man - Velvet Underground
Groovejet - Spiller
Around The World - Daft Punk

that sort of thing

by Apollo 440. It's essentially a Quo riff sampled and beefed up with some standard techno noises.

And it's good! Keeps everyone happy. Makes me smile anyway.

by Solomon Burke is a surefire winner. The DJ at an Indie disco I used to go to twenty years ago always played Got To Get You Off My Mind & it never failed to cause a stampede. It gets a mention in High Fidelity for that same reason. It just feels lovely to dance to, irrespective of your terpsichorean abilities. Oh, and don't forget Tainted Love by Soft Cell.

Here's a selection that is partly ripped off from a thread on another forum I frequent, partly my own work over the last 10 minutes and partly the contents of the playlist given to the hired DJ at my own wedding reception in 1999. Said DJ went 'off list' for about a minute and a half before the best man reminded him that we'd agreed he stayed on the list or he didn't get paid. The dancefloor was pretty much full for the duration

She Sells Sanctuary by the Cult
Song Two by Blur
Rockerfeller Skank by Fatboy Slim
Rock the Casbah, London Calling by the Clash
Brick House by The Commodores
Machine Gun by The Commodores
You got the Love by The Source feat. Candi Staton
Jump Around - House of Pain
Crash - The Primitives
The Only One I Know - The Charlatans
Curtis Mayfield 'Move On Up'
Dave And Ansel Collins 'Double Barrel'
New Order 'Blue Monday'
Happy Mondays - Step On, Hallelujah, 24 Hour Party People, WFL
Style Council - Walls Come Tumbling Down, Promised Land, Shout to the Top
Buzzcocks 'Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With'
Orange Juice 'Rip It Up'
Aztec Camera 'Oblivious'
Altered Images 'Don't Talk To Me About Love'
The Manic Street Preachers 'Motorcycle Emptiness'
The Who 'Substitute', Pinball Wizard
James Taylor Quartet 'Theme From Starsky And Hutch'
The Monkees 'A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You', I'm a Believer
Vic Reeves and The Wonderstuff - 'Dizzy'
Pulp - Do You Remember the First Time?, Common People, Disco 2000
Level 42 - Running In The Family
The Irish Rover by The Pogues/Dubliners
Dance Little Sister by Terence Trent D'Arby
Walk this way by Run DMC / Aerosmith
Labour of Love by Hue & Cry
Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode
Take on Me by A-Ha
Love Man by Otis Redding
I Can't Turn You Loose by Otis Redding
Superstition by Stevie Wonder
Call Me by Blondie
Town Called Malice, Beat Surrender, Bitterest Pill by The Jam
Baggy Trousers by Madness
Relight My Fire by Take That
Sometimes by Erasure
Victim of Love by Erasure
Tainted Love by Soft Cell
Geno by Dexy's Midnight Runners
Favourite Shirt by Haircut 100
Fools gold by The Stone Roses

I'll take a look at the playlist later and see if anything else suggests itself.

"I Want You Back"

Don't Let Go (long version) by Isaac Hayes.

And just about anything from Al Green's early seventies run, but especially Let's Stay Together.

Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones (dodgy lyrics these days, but a great dance track)

Also, Tiger Feet by Mud (so that people of a certain age can do the Thumbs In Belt Shoulder Shuffle), Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queeen (Jiving), 2 4 6 8 Motorway by Tom Robinson (Jumping up and down) and even Twistin' By The Pool by The Dires (er, twistin')

every time any DJ has put on The Mavericks' Dance The Night Away, the floor fills in an instant.

I, in turn, sit down.