How to Select a Decent Karaoke Song

You may have experienced that sinking feeling when you go to a party or bar, and there is karaoke singing going on.  At some point, you’ll be pestered into joining, and you dread the likely auditory pain you suspect you will inflict on your companions.  What to do?  It’s good to have a few karaoke song choices in your back pocket that you can pull out in these times.  If you’re prepared with a few song choices that you’ve tested out in advance, you won’t have to fret. 

What makes a decent karaoke song?  Consider the following criteria:

•   Avoid the overplayed songs like Sweet Caroline and Margaritaville.  Similarly, while show tunes are universally known, we’ve all seen the Sound of Music more times than we can count.  Spare us.

•  Have a sense for your vocal range.  Do not pick a song that will cause you to shriek into upper registers and that you have no business attempting.  In other words, Mariah Carey is generally the only one who can pull off a Mariah Carey song.  If you’d like to test your vocal range in advance, here is a handy link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IejHKpfHso

• You want to pick a song that people recognize and will enjoy, but are not tired of.  If you like a certain group or artist, target one of their lesser-played hits

• It’s no longer the 1990s.  You might want to listen to some current music every now and then so that you have a few choices from at least this decade

•   Have a care for total song length- don’t make the audience suffer through Freebird or Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

•  Be very careful with certain genres such as rap or country.  These are very hard to pull off well, and are at great risk for inflicting auditory pain

• Move a little while you’re singing.  Don’t stand there as if your feet are glued to the stage.  Even better, if it’s a song you know well enough, you don’t have to stare intently at the monitor for the lyrics, and you can interact with the audience a bit

• Finally, for a few of you readers out there (and you know who you are), don’t be a microphone hog.  If the Sony executives haven’t come to knock on your door yet, you’re not that good.  Variety goes a very long way in enjoying  karaoke

Enjoy!