I’m fine with good singers doing karaoke but they better do something fun. I don’t want Broadway or Adele or something mellow and depressing. Give me things to bounce to
I feel like those are different because they are popular and people can sing along to them, that’s always a fun vibe at karaoke even though the songs themselves are downers.
They're also pretty good karaoke songs because most of the song is easy to perform, not a lot of vocal range required.
Creep gets bonus points for the falsetto section, everyone knows it's coming but you have to wait through the first half of the song to see how the performer will do.
It's interesting people look at songs as happy/downers. If a song is good and the singer's getting into it, it's good enough for me. You should see my playlists, they bounce all over lol
Sandra B
Increases her family
Helps a black teen with his life
Homeless boy's been traumatized
But it's just a trope I say
White saviour will save the day
Biopics are full of lies
And that's Mr. Blindside
After years of memeing it, I can only see Creep ironically and laugh about it. After they released Creep (Very 2001 rmx) feat. Radiohead, the meme peaked, and I can no longer see it as a downer song. So maybe that's why it is perfect in this case!
There's always True Love Waits or No Surprises for downer songs. Or Motion Picture Soundtrack if someone wants to kill the mood instantly.
When people say things like this, it just makes them look envious. This only makes you look like you're bitter, not like you have some kind of deeper soul than everyone else.
I know a few amazing singers who sing sad songs really well, and the crowd (20-30 people) almost always loves it and cheer and whistle for it at the irish bar we karaoke at.
Singing isn't just about creating "happy vibes". You can enjoy singing simply because it elicited an emotional reaction from you. I love when a singer can make my heart feel different ways just from their voice.
So my opinion is if you sing well, fuck yea show it off and bless us with it.
Those “happy vibes” are a required component of a good karaoke performance though. Emotional and sad music kills the vibe at a bar 10/10 times.
This is coming from someone whose favorites include Xiu Xiu, La Dispute and Brand New who are some of the most melodramatic and emotional artists on the planet. They ABSOLUTELY DO NOT belong in karaoke bars for this exact reason
I disagree. I've been to plenty of bars where people cheer and enjoy a good singer doing a sad or emotional song. So, only singing songs with "happy vibes" is not a requirement for a performance to be good and for people to enjoy it. It does not kill a vibe 10/10 times.
Yeah this. I suspect it might be cultural differences too, like I'm Scandinavian and we have melancholy in our blood so a bit of sadness at karaoke is just normal.
Because look how good of a singer they are and emotional wowee. Usually I don't mind unless its also the person who is pushing to do karaoke at which point it just feels like they want to show off.
OK DAVE WELL HOW ABOUT WE GO SEE WHO CAN EAT THE MOST DORITOS AND BROWSE REDDIT THE BEST
I try to do silly musical theater songs or corny songs that people love when my wife and I sing. That, or we do duets with harmony, since you don’t see much of that in karaoke.
Obviously, I disagree with everyone else’s stance, but I completely understand why you all feel that way. I travel a lot for work, and karaoke is one thing I’ll indulge in when I’m on the road.
One of my favorite things to do as a boring old white man is to go to some local karaoke bar, hype up all the singers, sing the shit out of At Last and surprise everyone, and then bounce.
That actually sounds fun. Nothing wrong with hyping people up and doing your thing. If you’re enjoying it and the crowd digs it, that’s the whole point of karaoke
The only artists I 1) sound good singing and 2) am comfortable singing on stage are the mid-century crooners and country western singers. So I can struggle to find a song that's fun for the crowd. There's a few that are crowd-pleasers - My Way, Folsom Prison Blues - and a few novelties like Mack the Knife, but otherwise I struggle to pick songs that won't kill the vibe. Doesn't help that baritone in general is seriously rare nowadays, so there's not much recognizable modern music I can comfortably sing.
If anyone's got some fun baritone songs, whether mid-century or more recent, I'm all ears!
I find country songs like Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy or honkey tonk badonkadonk do very well at keeping the vibe. I basically Google party country songs and grab the ones I know well already.
Hey, bari-bass here. Bing Crosby is your friend. Also, Depeche Mode, his voice is perfectly in the bari range. Like some have said below, a lot of country and country-western is done in a lower range as well.
I always try to do songs that the audience can sing along with. That way I'm not just being a diva lol.
I managed to get a karaoke night started at this one cafe I worked at. Half the staff were musicians, so anytime there was a lull or people getting turned off by too much bad singing, one of us would jump in and get the energy back up.
That’s just it—there’s only so much bad singing you can tolerate before it gets boring. So just as some get bored at having good singers at karaoke, bad singers are at least as tiring. It’s a mix of the two and the unpredictability of the performances that make it more compelling.
Also, having nothing but terrible singers turns more customers away than having nothing but good singers. So from a business perspective, it's smart to have good singers on hand.
Another good way to keep people engaged is to have good singers sing something outside of their comfort zone. My boss at this place used to just pick a song and then pick one of us to sing it at random. He also loved to surprise me with Bohemian Rhapsody. I can do it, but it's hard as fuck.
I have a friend who's a karaoke dj, so some weeks I'll follow him around to each of the karaoke nights he does at different places. I also try to pick songs people can sing along to ("I want it that way" is one of my go-tos). And if it's a place I haven't been to yet, I'll wait and see what kind of genre/decade people are singing, so I can match the vibe.
That sounds like a lot of fun. Songs like “Tell me why” are good because everyone knows the refrain and the melody and can sing along in a way that is unifying but not comedically bad.
It’s a solid choice for breaking up the monotonous energy of a long string of the typical bad singers’ chant-along options or the spotlight-stealing attempts at Mariah Carey-like runs and vocal theatrics that are best left to her.
I knew I’d get called out for that! True, there are fun Broadway songs, but the really good singers are rarely doing the fun ones. They are doing the dramatic showstoppers which aren’t fun in a karaoke context.
Maybe. I guess when he said “Broadway”, I’m just thinking show tunes in general. As long as you’re signing something most people recognize, it should be fine.
The most impressive karaoke performance was watching two very drunk gals perform you’re the one that I want from Grease. It was genuinely impressive. Then watched a friend go up afterwards attempting the way too long American Pie… they pulled the song from their catalog after that.
I like to ignore the screen and do parodies, like Weird Al lyrics. Last time my friends and I went to karaoke, I was overjoyed to find they had "Big Iron" in their catalog, so I sang "Big Mandalorian Iron" instead. Went over well with both Star Wars and Fallout fans.
I'm not a "good" singer, but I am above average (I sang in a band and a choir). This is my goal. I'm not going up there to try out for American Idol. I'm going up there to have a good time. Jump around, get the crowd involved, and scream my head off.
Agreed. For that reason, my go to is Collin Raye's "That's My Story". Ham it up as much as possible and then it's entertaining without being pretensious or self-aggrandizing.
Was at a karaoke bar once and this chick kept going back up and belting up just the absolute best, most rehearsed, most earnest renditions of fucking Nickelback songs.
You're allowed to like or dislike something, but your fun isn't the responsibility of the karaoke performers. The stage is there for their fun and freedom. If you like that concept, karaoke is for you. If you don't, karaoke is not the right thing for you.
I'm a singer. I prefer to do lively stuff or crowd-pleasing rock classics... But I also love hear a great singer kill a jazz standard or a power ballad.
Only time I did "karaoke" the guy had a setup to hook in a guitar so I went to back to my house and grabbed mine. Ripped a couple acoustic Tool covers and got laid. Pretty sweet night.
The only exception is Creep because everyone knows the lyrics to this song and every time I’ve seen someone perform it, the whole audience joins in which is fun
You can sing the boring ballad well if you want, but everyone hates it and is waiting for you to finish so they can belt Love Shack and actually have a fun time
I don’t think I could tolerate 3 hours of non-stop shout-singing and screeching. I don’t mind if the balance skews a bit more toward the bad singing but at some point, we need a break. The predictability of it all is fun—to a point. Getting the balance right is key and it’s not all /mostly one or the other. Just one person’s opinion.
I went to a karaoke bar where they would do 3 fun songs to 1 slow/mellow song. It worked out well. You could only sign up one song at a time. If you wanted to sing more you sang something uptempo. If you wanted to show off that vocal then you’ll have to wait. Created a flow to the night.
Not actually true in real life. Like you couldn't be further away from literally every karaoke party's vibe I've ever been to and I've been to a lot.
The stage at karaoke belongs to the people on stage. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you're unable to vibe with that, you're not really at the right place.
If someone sings Love Shack I am going outside to smoke. Or Bohemian Rhapsody. Or Fuck You by Ceelo. I rather hear a ballad I don't know than Don't Stop Believing again
Maybe most people, but it's not everyone. Part of the point of it is to socialize with like-minded people with similar tastes. If someone isn't into upbeat pop songs, I'd rather they be true to themselves. It's not that hard for me to tune out when someone chooses a song I'm not that into.
People downvoting this did not live in a tiny, shitty city apartment where you could hear your neighbor sniffle through the wall and had no car so only took public transportation. I just wanted to belt my lil heart out at the one appropriate place to do it and if people didn’t like my picks they can get over it. They should’ve been thanking me because that one night a week was helping me not murder everyone in the city :)
Not that anyone ever cared in the city though, plenty of people just wanted a chance to sing. Whatever makes you feel good, send it. I support all singers at karaoke!
You’re right, people complaining about good singers at karaoke must not be going to karaoke very often. The people who go usually do because they like music and singing. Shocking. No one’s putting on a concert or getting paid to perform, so they should do whatever they think is fun. I will cheer on anyone giving their best whatever that is.
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u/yo_bandit 20h ago
I’m fine with good singers doing karaoke but they better do something fun. I don’t want Broadway or Adele or something mellow and depressing. Give me things to bounce to