your karaoke set list

Ha, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was another abandoned pick, so one guy who is a pretty good singer but a baritone stepped it to sing some of it in a lower octave and the rest of us including me tried to pitch in just to get through it.

do you have any songs that, when they come up, you know it's going to be bad (or good)

oh man yes? it's so situational though. most of the stuff that i groan at is when people pick the really obvious stuff, song after song, or go for songs that they are doing "ironically". i'd rather see people sing songs they genuinely like as that leads to better performances and sometimes honest emotion on stage. i have a whole thing about karaoke and public catharsis. you're not going to get there with "boom boom pow".

i love to be surprised, in the main. "You? doing that? wow. okay! we'll see how that goes!" is probably my favorite reaction to anyone putting a song in. the absolute worst shit is when a drunk dude late at night wants to do "tears in heaven" or johnny cash's version of "hurt" or whatever. like folks, this is supposed to be a party, come on.

Another ghost selection was “Hey Jude.” This was made worse by the fact that we couldn’t see the lyrics for some reason. It just seemed to go on for ever, feels like it is exhibit A if a hit that should be avoided by most at karaoke night. Truth be told even when listening to the recorded version I am sometimes looking at my watch waiting for Ringo to come back from his bathroom break.

karl btw i love your picks and want to have a spingsteen off with you some night! i sang electrolite a few months ago when i got terrible news from a doctor (turned out the doc was wrong but that was still a tough weekend and i had to get some thoughts about life/death outta my system) and absolutely no one had any idea what the song was, but fuck 'em, had to say my peace about not being scared into a microphone you know

i have attempted to dissuade more than one person over the years from doing hey jude. "you realize this is going to devolve into you saying na nananana nananana for about five minutes, right?" they still always end up doing it. the smart ones bow out with a couple minutes to go

Feel like maybe even somebody put that in just to mess.

Agree that people should basically like the song they are singing and try to sing it as well as they can without worrying about being perfect, even if there is some comedy element to their performance- “doesn’t the original singer have some weird elements to their style?” or “I can’t sing this as well as I’d like so I’ll throw some attitude on it and some funny stuff” - without doing the ironic ironing thing. The Replacements kind of did it right, but most do it wrong.

When people sing too well and too close to the original that can be another problem in The Uncanny Valley.

One older guy sang “My Way” pretty impressively, but there is still a part of me that remains unimpressed.

karl btw i love your picks and want to have a spingsteen off with you some night!

my other bruce material is Brilliant Disguise, but I also have been thinking about Thunder Road. it's down there deep in my links, and in the parentheses i put "hard mode" because it seems like one where you have to walk in ready to go

"dancing in the dark" is one of my karaoke standards bc i can sing with joy and conviction and dance at the same time

i love to be surprised, in the main. "You? doing that? wow. okay! we'll see how that goes!" is probably my favorite reaction to anyone putting a song in.

^^ why Alice Cooper's "Is It My Body?" is another fave. plus it's in my range!

i miss going out with friends for karaoke a lot :(

I forgot I was going to add a Bruce song and maybe should try some Alice Cooper, thanks for reminding me.

Karaoke scratches a certain weird itch that cannot otherwise be scratched imo.

Is there an Iggy Pop song people recommend? Thinking “Lust for Life” or “The Passenger” but then those are kind of repetitive.

passenger's a bit one-note. lust for life is a big energy song, probably great for karaoke! some weird sin might be good? i think passenger & lust for life are the only solo iggy's we have at my joint.

lachera - i also do dancing in the dark, i've done it a million times now going back to my early 20s. just one of my favorite go-tos. gotta be bruce's best yeller

Thanks. Do you actually have a karaoke machine? Place I go to just uses youtube videos.

Hey Ya
How do u want it
Toto

Na na na nanana
Nanana

Na na na nanana
Nanana

Nanana

Hey Jude

*checks watch, lookes at screen*

Thank, you Jude! Nanana

loving clay's posts itt

Yup

one time I went to a karaoke night (hosted by my recently departed friend, DJ Di), and this woman got up on stage, sang through an entire song, and as it ended, said "that was the wrong song", accusing her friend of signing her up for the wrong one after she'd already sang it. Di, never amused by foolishness, said "You're bringing that up now?" and the woman then said her dog just died and screamed "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU ALL!" on the mic.

Di then told me "her dog has died every week at karaoke night for five years now", as this person was apparently a regular.

OMG. Yes, there can be some problematic personalities.

most recently managed to pull off Chicago's "Make Me Smile", only to completely blow it the next time I tried. it's a tricky one

That sounds like a pretty hard one.

Although actually I saw a good bar band play it in the park a few weeks ago.

It was their opener!

Great song!

Not a big Chicago fan but kind of like that one.

Next question for clay: do people ever attempt proper two part harmony and if so how often do they succeed?

i have to say, last night we ended (in a friend's basement -- not in public) on a lovely 3-person rendition of End of the Road. I was the voice-over guy midway through the song who understands that his partner has cheated on him but is actually totally fine with that if she wants to come back, but also hurt, and then joined in on some of the harmonies in the chorus

I did a nice (for me) version of Electrolite and was told by a friend that it was his favorite "TBD karaoke song" now, so that felt nice. I love that song and yet it's not in my top 25 REM songs. it's really fun to sing. Golden Years was a strange mix of pretty good and disastrous. I really thought I could do the squeaky-high "angel!" parts, but no, I cannot, not reliably. Cate Le Bon went ok but I couldn't figure out which octave I was in. I wouldn't do that one in public because it's indie schmindie, but I was with friends so fuck it.

Wrecking Ball was a good one. again, wouldn't do in public, and wouldn't even do for most friends, but it was late in the night and we were at "singing karaoke while laying on the couch" mode, so it was getting quiet and it was ok, I think

my goto is Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly” and Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back”

i hate when ppl pick a song that they just know the name of but haven’t heard in 20 years and are awkwardly stunned when they’re still struggling through American Pie after 4 minutes

also will never forget going to karaoke the night after Prince died and watching this super drunk intense dude do “Erotic City” while trying to make eye contact with women in the room ughhhhhhh it was so creepy lol

Ugh

I did Erotic City once but only because I loved the song and would often sing Prince

Karaoke creeps are the worst.

I had some drunk guy once approach the stage while I was singing, then climb on the stage and try to hug me.

He tripped and fell and ate it and I just moved to the side and didn't help him up.

(I have a thing about personal space and had he not ate it, I would have moved away quickly)

Also got stalked once. This woman kept emailing the karaoke host asking her to give me my number and showing up looking for me (I was v much not interested).

Di shared the email with me. Was asking for my email, phone number, abd a "direction to call her". Di refused every time.

Avoided that spot for month til she gave up and stopped going/emailing.

Also got stalked once. This woman kept emailing the karaoke host asking her to give me my number and showing up looking for me (I was v much not interested).

was this after the Erotic City performance? :D

lol

Lmao

Actually was after Beezelboss weirdly

looks like a dull karaoke Saturday! I might start a 77 karaoke night diary thread if anyone’s interested. There’s a half dozen little stories every evening I swear

I am totally interested

cosign

i do zoom karaoke with a bunch of weirdos on mondays and fridays if anyone is interested in joining