Songfacts®:

• The Ting Tings are Katie White (guitar, vocals) and Jules De Martino (drums, vocals). Katie White told the Independent newspaper February 29, 2008 about this song, which is about clubbing in the Manchester area where she grew up: "It's a frustration song again, about alleviating the boredom."
  
  She added that it was about a venue they went to where they "danced a lot, during a stressful period of time."
• "Great DJ" was originally released in 2007 as a double A-sided single with the song "That's Not My Name" by the independent record label Swirchflicker. It then became the duo's first major release after signing with Columbia Records.
• The video is reminiscent of the Talking Heads' "Road To Nowhere." White told the Independent: "I saw Tina Weymouth and I found her inspiring because she's feminine, but not bimbo-y." De Martino added: "Then we found out Toni Basil did the choreography for it, and Katie was saying to everyone, 'Can we get her to do the video? It would be fantastic!' In the end, we had this choreographer who was a nightmare so the director told us to come up with something, which we did."
• Despite selling in vast quantities, because this single had been given away for free in online stores before its proper release, it was ineligible for the UK charts.
• After being re-released as a single, following the UK chart-topping success of "That's Not My Name," this reached #33 in the UK.
• "Great DJ" was the first song that Jules De Martino and Katie White wrote together as the Ting Tings. "This song was the raw foundation for our new band," White told Songfacts. "I found myself right. I owned the moment on these chords. I'll never forget the huge steps we were taking at this point as writers, producers and more importantly, performers."
• Jules De Martino told Songfacts how the song came together. "Katie wanted to play more guitar live," he said. "She had no idea, so she used limited chords and swung the guitar around her shoulders when she punk'd out. Her way of finding her energy and expression. In the midst of such she converted a D chord into the sub chord on the intro and by mistake created that chord sequence while we were attempting to rehearse for one of our first shows at our studio in Islington Mill, Salford, Manchester. I figured out what she was playing and we recorded it shortly afterward."