This is, I think, the single most stupid reason I have ever heard, bar none.

If it's that easy to play, you should have it down in no time and never have to worry about it again. And if audiences like it, you can pull it out when you're tired, desparate or just feeling like taking it easy.

If you're worried it isn't a challenge, trust me, there'll be songs you need to do which will provide all the challenge you need.

Okay, yes, there are songs that everybody leaps on that maybe they shouldn't. But, that's the exception, not the rule.

If "all the other bands" have been doing the song for ten years, and people still get up and dance to it, you should really ask: "Why do these bands do the song?".

Maybe it's because people like it?

• Doesn't anyone else in the band sing? Even the best vocalists need breaks during a long gig.
• What?!?!?

I heard this most recently about Mustang Sally. From two different bands. I guess all those bands who are playing out every week with a woman singing Mustang Sally must be getting it totally wrong, then.

In my experience, this is a total non-problem. Female singers singing most popular songs which were originally male vocals will be fine with the audience. Most people just want it to sound good.

On the other hand, of course, the same is not always true of male vocalists singing traditionally female songs. A woman can sing Mustang Sally and - as long as she sounds good - no one will object. But let one guy get up and try to sing Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. People will be offended. Especially the women in the crowd.

This one can be legitimate. Certainly you don't want to be doing Mozart concertos in a rock-n-roll club. But more often than not this is used as a way to put an unreasonable limit on the music being done in the band.

Too Old. The song may, in fact, be twenty years old. But it may also be a classic that everyone wants to hear. This is one where you have to go carefully. Some songs certainly fade out of popularity, but others persist. It doesn't take a lot of thought to work out which are which

Too New. Seriously? Not doing a song because it's from after some arbitrary year is, well, arbitrary. This, in my experience, is usually a dogmatic rejection of new music not very different from what our grandparents said to us.

Not all new music is good, but not all good music is old.

Really, the lameness of this one is function whether it's an excuse to avoid thinking about a song on its own merits