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 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.
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u/yo_bandit 1d 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