Best karaoke songs

Cafe Society
1

This has probably been discussed before, but why not again?

I know karaoke isn’t that big in the United States, but I understand Japanese/Asian style karaoke is getting bigger these days outside of Japan (e.g. in individual booths) and it is definitely a major past time here in Japan.

I really love karaoke–strange for someone who was super-shy for a long time–but I can even do it sober now! Sometimes, you just really need to belt out a song. I went yesterday with a friend/kinda date and we sang karaoke for like 3 hours straight–it was ridiculously fun.

So the point of my post is this–what are your favorite karaoke songs? If you don’t sing karaoke, what do you think the best karaoke songs would be?

I have a few requirements for karaoke:

–Judge your audience. If you are with a bunch of girly girls, you probably don’t want to sing a non-stop diet of heavy metal.
–Make sure there are no extended instrumental breaks. It can be really awkward.
–You probably don’t want a song that is too repetitious. You start to feel like an asshole after the 3rd or 4th time, usually.
–Sing something that most people you are with might know. Karaoke is even funner if everyone starts singing, I find.
–If not, you’d better be a really good singer.

Keeping those things in mind, my favorite 3 karaoke songs are:

  1. Radiohead, “Creep”
    Pretty easy to sing and awesomely melodramatic. Practically everyone can join in! Karma Police is also excellent.
  2. Billy Joel, “Piano Man”
    Who can’t sing this song? You just keep singing most of the time so there’s no real repetition. This is an excellent end of the night song. You can put so much mournful emotion in it!
  3. Alanis Morisette, “You Oughta Know”
    Another blast from the past that practically everyone knows. At least for a girl, a ridiculously fun song to sing, since you can really put all your anger into it.

Other nominations include old standards like the Beastie Boys “Fight for your Right,” Oasis and “Champagne Supernova,” “Summer Loving” from Grease (yay for duets!) and my new personal favorite, “Y Control” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I was amazed and overjoyed to actually find that song at a karaoke bar in Japan. Singing it properly was probably the most satisfying thing I’ve done in ages.

So… do we have any other karaoke fans? Anyone?

2

I like your rules, and I have followed most of them unconsciously .

For me, “Wicked Game” (Chris Isaak) works for all but the oldest crowds. For them (older folk) I usually select “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” (Platters?).

3

Your rules are sensible for most situations, but I would submit that singing a totally inappropriate song is, on occasion, quite hilarious.

Most of Jonathan Coulton’s karaoke catalog is good for this, though I haven’t yet gotten the guts to unleash First of May on an unsuspecting crowd.

Last night I tried out Dynamite Hack’s soft rock cover of Boyz-N-The-Hood and got just the sort of baffled looks I was hoping for.

Symphony of Destruction is really fun if you can do the Dave Mustaine voice. It helps to pretend you’re a hell-spawned demon witnessing the end of the world and, at the same time, you’re extremely constipated.

On a somewhat more serious note, Hey Bartender has a very engaging opening riff and isn’t hard to sing. It’s a particularly good one to perform just after last call is announced.

4

My dream in life is to surround a college dorm or frat house or something with 50+ people in tattered clothing and gray make up while singing a karaoke version of Re: Your Brains on Halloween (with, of course, the 50+ people all singing at once at the chorus).

5

The best karaoke moment I’ve ever seen was when two guys chose this right before last call…at the time it was hilarious :smiley:

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