I’m a pretty decent singer? However, my background is literally Anglican plainchant, for which you are not meant to shine. I have decent pitch-matching and I blend into the sound of other people very nicely, which is very useful in choral music and completely useless for grabbing a microphone and causing people to REALLY UNDERSTAND Kate Bush. There are worse problems to have, but it would come very quickly to my mind if I encountered a wish-granting octopus.
My cousin, however, is an actual singer-songwriter, and has the pipes of a goddess. You’d think she would do karaoke 24/7, but she doesn’t! “It’s weird,” she says, “it’s weird when you’re actually a singer, and you want people to mostly say AH A SINGER IS IN OUR MIDST,” so as a result she only does jokey stuff at karaoke. She kills, every time, don’t take her seriously.
But if you’re more retiring and less talented, you may have a particular image in your mind. Mine goes back and forth, but it’s always a duet. I either want to be the chick in “Paradise By the Dashboard Lights” (STFU with your judgment) or, as discussed, Kirsty MacColl in “Fairytale of New York.” I’m sure that means something really significant about my psyche, that I want to be a sidekick and not a soloist, but there we are. It’s how I feel. But what is it, really, about karaoke, that reveals your true self? Are you a diva? A woo-woo girl? Do you harmonize, or do you take it to the next level? Do people clap for your part, or are you bulking out the ensemble?
I am open to hearing about what you actually sing at karaoke, and what you fantasize about singing at karaoke. Or what the best karaoke performance you’ve heard someone else give? I’ve always worried I spend too much time engaging in an elaborate inner fantasy life, but the return of Walter Mitty has been reassuring on that front.
If it seems like I’m rambling a little, it’s because I had a friend’s engagement party last night, and came home full of revelations. Here are two of them, and then a lot of music videos:
3 oz bourbon
2 oz Creme de Gingembre
1 oz Epsa Sour Cherry soda
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 dash cherry bitters
1 tsp superfine turbinado sugar
Rolled over ice and strained into a martini glass
3 oz white rum
1.5 oz St. Germain
1 oz San Pellegrino orange
2 dashes peach bitters
Rolled over ice and strained into a martini glass
Got it? Make, serve, drink, click. Probably not at work, but this is the deadest week of the year for most people, no one would judge you.
The original music video for “Fairytale of New York”:
A live concert version (because you’d be even better live):
A documentary about the song, which would be even more exquisite had you sung it yourself:
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Tags: drink recipes, fantasies, karaoke, music, the pogues
I am not a terrific singer, but on the right night and with the right crowd, I can get an entire bar jangling to “Hey Jealousy.”
♫♪♬ There’s only one thing I couldn’t start… ♫♪♬
Tell me, do you think it’d be all right
If I could just crash here tonight?
THIS IS THE ONLY KARAOKE POST YOU ARE ALLOWED TO WRITE ALL YEAR
The playas gon’ play / Them haters gonna hate
“I didn’t like it when it was America’s Next Top Hobo, I didn’t like it when it was Hobo Eye For the Straight Guy…”
Calendar year? Fiscal year? Academic year? Chinese new year? She’s got a lot of outs, is all I’m sayin’.
Rosh Hashana is next week–she can put up a special karaoke post just for Jewish readers
I’ve only sang karaoke three times in public. Once it was Best of You by the Foo Fighters, and the other two times it was Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. The worst thing about karaoke is that I picked songs that I thought I knew pretty well, and that I could sing because they were fairly repetitive.. All of a sudden there’s a weird bridge in the middle and I have no idea how it goes and I get confused and wonder if I should run away. In my karaoke fantasies I sing an epic ballad and do diva hand motions, but the reality is that I just bop around awkwardly.
everyone does this, you are not alone
*solidarity fistbump into the void*
The very premise of karaoke is terrifying to me; I understand none of this.
I used to go to a karaoke night in Seattle that was a guy with an organ and a songlist of really bizarre things. My specialties were “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us” by Sparks and “Aphrodisiac” by Bow Wow Wow. I was a total hyperactive diva. It was the best.
I really miss that night. Mostly because the things I really want to sing at karaoke – Pet Shop Boys, Ted Leo, the Magnetic Fields, Kirsty MacColl – aren’t stuff you normally find at karaoke. When I do go to a place now, which isn’t that often because it isn’t big here, I usually go with “Lovefool.” Everyone knows Lovefool and it’s a blast.
Lovefool sounds good! I have 2 people in my social circles who like to try and force karaoke on groups, and given that I am an acceptable at best singer I’m always looking for a song to fall back on in an emergency.
It’s great because it’s fun to sing (love me, love me, saaaaaaay that you love me) and everyone knows it and parties during it.
Lovefool is also my go-to karaoke song!
Can we stop making my heart ache? because all the karaoke bars in my city close down after a month, and I’ve been deprived from karaoke for three years.
But for real, though. I’m the same way. Get me hyped up on alcohol and give me a microphone and some Journey.
My social circle has never elected to go to Karaoke bars so the closest I have is playing Rock Band. From that limited selection, my favorite is always Alanis Morissette “You Oughta Know.” My dream Karaoke song is Salt N Pepa either “Shoop” or “Whatta Man.”
I have been there but let me just say keeping up with “Whatta Man” is a lot harder on stage than it is in the car/shower/etc.
Really good to know. Although there are things worse than trying to show off and failing, it is high up there on my list of anxieties.
Oh wait here is something I can contribute:
2 oz mezcal
1 oz orgeat
juice of half a lime
some bitters you’re feeling good about, in my case, Fee bros aztec chocolate bitters
shake, strain, consume
I lack the ovaries (and pitch) for bar karaoke, but when I was a teenager, I lived in China and frequented an Asian-style karaoke place, meaning private rooms. They had the rights to nothing, I’m sure, so all the songs were shown over generic video of pretty women on beaches, in waterfalls, wearing gauzy dresses etc. Anyway, my jam was Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants.” For some reason.
Oh man, in high school my friends and I used to go to an Asian-style karaoke place with private rooms and the weirdest generic videos. We always had to do ‘Calendar Girl’ because of the video of two women (one in a milkmaid outfit, one in an army uniform) doing softcore spanking and other type stuff in a library.
Well NATURALLY, who doesn’t know the bawdy tale of the milkmaid and the soldier? (No that’s amazing.)
Mine too! There really wasn’t much else to do at 16. It was the best.
The closest I’ve ever gotten to singing Karaoke is playing Rockband, so I’m pretty much tops at singing Maps, but that’s about it.
“Portions for Foxes” is my jam, but nobody else ever wants to play it.
Shani Hilton and Bobby Finger and I discovered separately on Twitter that we are each OBSESSED with “Portions for Foxes.”
$5 says that you were all early Grey’s devotees that stuck around watching it for much, much longer than it deserved.
Yes. YES. YES. YES. I love “Portions for Foxes”.
Ha, yes, I love to sing that one too, but it totally shuts the party down for some reason.
My mom told me once that I was not a solo singer, but had a great voice for chorus. Thanks, Mom!
That said, I have gained some confidence in my singing abilities at karaoke. I like to sing “Lovefool” by the Cardigans, “She’s Like the Wind” by Patrick Swayze, and “Part of Your World.” That last one’s the best because if you’re at a karaoke place with the rooms in the back and you’re singing at the bar, girls will literally come pouring out of the rooms to sing it with you.
A guy I know once directed Patrick Swayze in a reading, and they went to karaoke afterward, and Patrick Swayze sang “She’s Like the Wind” at karaoke, and this makes me love him more.
I sing “Build Me Up Buttercup” but if no one comes in on the callbacks I get very very sad.
“I have decent pitch-matching and I blend into the sound of other people very nicely, which is very useful in choral music and completely useless for grabbing a microphone and causing people to REALLY UNDERSTAND Kate Bush.”
This is me, too. My go-to song has always been “Keep on Lovin’ You” in the fabulous style of REO Speedwagon ;).
Me too! My voice isn’t anything special, but it really does sound good with other voices. The highlight of my school singing “career” was when, during a regular full-choir song, my friend (who also had an unremarkable voice) and I sang one verse as a two-part duet. And we sounded fantastic every time and it made us so happy.
I wouldn’t sing “Keep on Lovin’ You,” but if I did I would sound great. Maybe we are the same person?
Anyone with a cheese-related screen name can totally be the same person as me <3.
Cheese is binding, after all. 🙂
salt n pepa: none of your business
always n forever
First off: private rooms only. Take it from the people who invented the damn sport.
I completely DESTROY it on I Would Do Anything For Love, so much so that the lead singer of the actual real band I’d just scene got me afterwards to tell me I was amazing. That was nice.
I also have a special karaoke buddy who I do a magnificent performance of ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down” and Maximo Park’s “Our Velocity” with. I have a deep singing voice for a lady and he sings tenor, so I’m Gotye and he’s Kimbra. There are backup vocal sections and planned verse switching and it’s great. He’s a big tall Mormon dude who looks kind of like Ryan Gosling, so it’s extra great when he does rap songs, radio edit style, self-bleeping all the cusses. The best way to karaoke is to have a special karaoke buddy, is what I’m saying.
My best karaoke experience was when I was singing Fiona Apple’s “Never is a Promise” (why yes, I graduated high school in the year 2000) and for the line that is “you’ll say I need appeasing when I start to cry,” the lyrics onscreen read “you’ll say I need a shaving when I start to cry.”
A hilarious, low-key version of “Fuck and Run” which causes Kristen Stewart to fall desperately in love with me.
That one feels neither love, nor pain, nor heat, nor cold….
The only time I’ve ever gone up and done karaoke in a bar and not in one of those private room places (in which I always goof off with my sister and duet songs from movies, like “pop goes my heart” and “the elephant love medley”), I sang Evanescence’s “Bring me to life” (IT WAS POPULAR FOR THAT ONE WEEK) and I freaking nailed it. Drunk. With some random guy I have never met doing the rappy part. Oh god, that song.
My go-to is Amy Winehouse, usually “Valerie”, but last time I was at a karaoke bar I did a very spirited “Blister in the Sun” sooooo pass judgment accordingly?
I’ve never done it myself, but I’m of the belief that the only perfect karaoke song is “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. It is appropriate for any crowd, on any night, sung by anybody.
That is the perfect karaoke song indeed. The whole bar will sing with you, and as everyone is generally very drunk, they sing it like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXKIECZpvqg
For a bit of Bonnie Tyler diversity, I once did “Holding Out for a Hero,” which is such an epic song. Come on, with lyrics like “Where’s my street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?” you can’t not get the crowd going.
I completely, unabashedly love karaoke. I love the bad singers, the great singers, all of it. Sometimes you just have a song in your heart and you need to get it out, you know? Karaoke lets you do that.
I have had two karaoke fantasies. One, that someone hears me on stage and finds me at the bar later to ask me to be the lead singer of their band. Kind of like “Glitter” but rock and roll. The second is that I’m walking down the street minding my own business and a stranger will stop me to say, “Wait, don’t I know you? YES! You are the girl who did [insert song] at karaoke six months ago!”
These are very silly fantasies, but as of last week, BOTH of these fantasies have come true. I may not have kids, a fulfilling job, or good cuticles, but I have this. Don’t let anyone tell you karaoke can’t make dreams come true. Karaoke is a fantasy fulfiller!
I’m with you on the Meatloaf Karaoke fantasy, Nicole! I always want to do “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” but mostly end up staying safe with “Say You Love Me” – Fleetwood Mac OR “Lovefool” – The Cardigans (also prominently featuring the phrase “say that you love me,” hmmm…what does THAT say about me?)
I did do “Jumpin’ Jumpin'” once at the Buddha Belly because, “I remember knowing the lyrics really well in middle school.” Oh girl, no. That song feels like it’s six minutes long! And you’re no turn-of-the-millennium Beyoncé.
A group of friends and I once did “Summer Lovin'” at a karaoke place in Dallas. It sounds like a great idea, but that song is hours long and gets really annoying by the end, so go with something else.
I mostly use karaoke to work on refining my Bob Dylan circa Blood on the Tracks impression.
We went to private-room karaoke in Boston recently and they had the most amazing generic footage for their videos: 1) soft-porny 80s office scenes for “9 to 5” and 2) just straight up dad footage for “Papa Don’t Preach.” Literally: A Dad changing his oil, then looking into the distance pensively. A Dad looking concerned while carrying groceries.
I hope it’s not weird that I have a list on my phone of approved karaoke songs – ones that I have tested out (either at an actual karaoke bar or just at the top of my lungs whenever I am home alone) and know I can rock.
“Heart Attack” Demi Lovato
“Domino” Jessie J (personal fave)
“Next to Me” Emeli Sande (went to a wedding that guaranteed karaoke at the reception and KILLED. IT.)
“Put Your Records On” Corinne Bailey Rae (other best fave)
“Take a Bow” Rhianna
“Midnight Train to Georgia” Gladys Knight
“Landslide” Fleetwood Mac
“Fergalicious” Fergie (keeping those cheerleading-honed spelling skillz fresh 2 death)
I was looking for “Next to Me” the last time I was at karaoke! That song is the fucking bomb. And I tried to do “Take a Bow,” but it didn’t quite work out. What I’m saying is, we should go to karaoke together.
My co-workers want to do team-building karaoke next week. I can’t decide whether to dread it or be excited. I like karaoke, but… with co-workers I feel like it’ll just be SUPER awkward.
Obligatory link to the greatest song about Karaoke ever written: http://mariancall.bandcamp.com/track/love-and-har…
NOT GONNA LIE IT ACTUALLY IS WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
Although I’m pretty sure my chops are now diminished because living with a manfriend/without a car severely curtails Kate Bush singalongs.
Also, it’s devastating to me that “Hounds of Love” is never available because while it lacks the True Classic quality of W.H. it’s a far superior song for karaoke.
you are correct yes it is and so is Running Up That Hill.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Love me some Pat.
My second favorite! That last “fire awaaaaaaay-ay-ay,” man.
Bar karaoke forever! Karaoke bars have the best regulars. I do a mean Sweet Child ‘O Mine, credit going to the teenage years I spent blasting GnR in my basement and imitating Axl Rose. I am NOT a good singer, but I get really into it, and people usually go nuts.
Other faves: Toxic by Britney Spears, Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys (I had to practice for hours to get the timing but I can do it pretty flawlessly now), Shoop, This is How You Remind Me (I love imitating Chad Kroeger’s monotone), New Orleans is Sinking by the Tragically Hip.
In fact, one of my fondest wishes is all night Tragically Hip karaoke, but I have yet to meet anyone who is game.
And then there are the songs that I love to sing but are definitely not karaoke crowd-pleasers, like Downeaster Alexa by Billy Joel.
I only do Korean karaoke because I am a huge ham who cannot sing. I like doing backing vocals on other selections, and rapping. My signature karaoke rap is Gettin Jiggy Wit It, but only because they never have Mo Money Mo Problems.
I’ve never been to regular karaoke, but my brother’s band plays live karaoke once or twice a year, and I kick ass at “Seether” and “Gigantic.”
I wish I had the ovaries to do “I Touch Myself” by the Divinyls, because it is perfectly in my limited vocal range and I know all the words. But I’ve never managed to do it.
I did have a pretty embarrassing go at “Semi Charmed Life” once though. Definitely did not know the words as well as I thought I did.
I once killed on “I’m gonna be (1000 Miles)”, surprising myself and everyone I was with.
I might need to hit the karaoke bar for my NoLongerSingle party.
Spice Girls all day every day
Mine is Eternal Flame but I am so so so terrible at it, however the song gives me ALL THE FEELINGS (much like consuming alcohol does)
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY.
I’ve only karaoked once, and I drunkenly assumed I knew Bootylicious well enough. I did not.
However my favorite thing is to sing pop songs in the broadest possible version of my Aussie accent. Beyonce and Cypress Hill sound hilarious/awesome in this way. So if I ever do karaoke again I will attempt to do it in my accent.
You continue to be my hero for this.
I love the karaoke and try and go once every week or two in Seattle. I’m one of those bastards who keeps adding songs onto my song list because I like trying new things. Current favorite is “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” from Jet or “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” from Barry White. But when my friend shows up, we like to rock “Under Pressure,” but I need him to carry the Freddy Mercury part. Sadly, no fancy cocktails at the place I sing, so I have to make do with whiskey sodas, grayhounds, or Rainier.
I am easily bored at karaoke, so I do ALL the songs. I’ve done both of your fantasy songs (not in the same night!). My theory: i don’t always sound great, but if I have to listen to your damn country song, you have to listen to my rendition of System of a Down, followed by Flagpole Sitta, or whatever random shit pops into my head.
One of the reasons I can never leave Japan is that I love karaoke way too much. I'm also really into Japanese music, so I song a lot of that at karaoke. There is one more traditional karaoke bar that I go to in the city, and my favorite English song to sing there is Queen's Seven Seas of Rhye. It's incredibly fun to belt out. Also, my BFF and I always sing Another Day from Rent. I'm Roger, she's Mimi.
I actually think my love for karaoke stems from (in addition to my attention whore nature) the fact that I used to have a car and I would go on long drives with the music turned up loud, singing along. I don't drive here, so I've gotta get that out somehow.
Man, now I really wanna go to karaoke.
Ha, yes, I love to sing that one too, but it totally shuts the party down for some reason.
Hey, I’m going tonight! My rule is generally that I have to do something new every time, and my goal is not to sound like a warbling asshole (I’m a professional classical singer, so it’s a serious hazard). I like to open with Bonnie Raitt’s “Give it up or let me go” and from there I’ve done everything from Cee Lo’s “Fuck You” to Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” to Queen’s “Somebody to Love” to Young MC’s “Bust a Move.” But some of my favorite times have been singing Heart’s “Alone” and the Philip Bailey/Phil Collins duet “Easy Lover” with a friend from high school with whom I used to sing duets in choir. Harmony, hell yes!
Another rule I have is that I have to rap during long instrumental breaks. I usually use the Fresh Prince of Bel Air rap.
Hey, I'm going tonight! My rule is generally that I have to do something new every time, and my goal is not to sound like a warbling asshole (I'm a professional classical singer, so it's a serious hazard). I like to open with Bonnie Raitt's "Give it up or let me go" and from there I've done everything from Cee Lo's "Fuck You" to Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" to Queen's "Somebody to Love" to Young MC's "Bust a Move." But some of my favorite times have been singing Heart's "Alone" and the Philip Bailey/Phil Collins duet "Easy Lover" with a friend from high school with whom I used to sing duets in choir. Harmony, hell yes!
Another rule I have is that I have to rap during long instrumental breaks. I usually use the Fresh Prince of Bel Air rap.
Yes. YES. YES. YES. I love "Portions for Foxes".
There’s this place I used ti go with my friends for karaoke when I was in high school and tried to cover rock or metal songs. Most of the times it turned out to be a disaster but finally the booze helped a lot to forge those all. Good old days!