SONGS FOR KARAOKE
Ahhh karaoke. A word where the second A and the E make the same sound but the two As make different sounds. The phonetics of karaoke make as much sense as some of these submissions. Before dumping all over your song choices, you must understand what makes a great karaoke song. Karaoke is an art form, and clearly for some of you, this lesson could’ve come a few days earlier.
- Simplicity: Just because you were in the church choir in 3rd grade doesn’t mean you’re capable of performing a worthy rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” No one wants to hear you butcher the greatest songs of all time. On the flip side, if you’re a Juilliard School alumnus, no one wants to see you swing your big dick around to “Ave Maria” making everyone look worse than they already are. Embrace mediocrity.
- Interactiveness: Karaoke should be a good time. That includes everyone in the room. This isn’t your American Idol tryout nor is it the time to debut your cousin’s new original song. The best songs are popular and catchy enough that everyone wants to sing along with you. This also serves the secondary purpose of drowning out all those notes you are missing.
- Duration: Sometimes in life, people will complain that 3 minutes is not long enough. Karaoke is not one of those times. People didn’t come to the karaoke bar to watch your 9 minute power ballad. This also pertains to songs with unnecessarily long instrumental portions. Karaoke is awkward enough, we don’t need to make this more painful by watching you flail about during a 2 minute air guitar solo.
- Familiarity: Know your song. Don’t wing it with a song you heard on the radio in the uber to the bar. The words on the screen are there to catch you if you fall, not drag your lifeless performance to an excruciating end. If I wanted to watch people read words off a screen, I’d watch a 7th grader give his first class speech. Pro - tip: You also can’t read as fast as you think you can 7 white claws deep.
Tier 1
I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys, Livin’ On A Prayer - Bon Jovi, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye, Mr. Brightside - The Killers, Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver, I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor, Piano Man - Joel
These are the songs that don’t immediately make you cringe when you hear “Randy to the hot seat to sing ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys.” Anyone with a little enthusiasm and stage presence can turn any of these songs into a respectable karaoke performance as the crowd sings you on. Put a little heart and soul into “I Will Survive,” and you’ll feel like a superstar. Even a mediocre performance can be carried by the greatness of these songs and the inevitable audience participation. Picking one of these songs is basically saying the next song is for the entire building.
Tier 2
I’m Gonna Be (500 miles), Friends In Low Places, The Longest Time, Wagon Wheel, Bohemian Rhapsody, Sweet Caroline, Don’t Stop Me Now, Don’t Stop Believin’, Barbara Ann, Shallow
Tier 2 songs are good with the potential to be great. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a classic and can bring the house down, but can just anyone give a worthy 6 minute karaoke performance? The answer is no, and odds are you aren’t one of the few that can. The good news is the song itself is great enough to carry you. Songs such as “Wagon Wheel” and “Barbara Ann” will have the crowd singing along from the first word and likely through the last. Tier 2 songs are like your significant other - good, but you could’ve done better.
Tier 3
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, My Own Worst Enemy, Since U Been Gone, Ice Ice Baby, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Drops Of Jupiter, Man I Feel Like A Woman, Sugar, We’re Going Down, Africa, Two Princes, Fishin’ In The Dark, Love Shack, Zombie, Pour Some Sugar On Me
At some point in every Tier 3 song, the audience is going to be pumped. It may be the moment you realize you know what the song “Two Princes” is or the opening riff in “Man I Feel Like A Woman.” The bad part is that excitement will only last about 30-60 seconds, like any sexual encounter with Ben. Songs like “Zombie” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me” would be perfect for “Chorus Only” karaoke, but they don’t have the substance to justify their 4-5 minute run times. Everyone will perk up for “Ice Ice Baby” but wish Vanilla Ice melted by verse 3. Like your birth, Tier 3 songs start full of potential, but by the end you’re going to let everyone down.
Tier 4
Torn, You Oughta Know, I’ll Make A Man Out Of You, If I Could Do It Again, What Is Love, Lose Yourself, Paradise By The Dashboard Light, A Little Bit Alexis
Tier 4 includes such karaoke hits as “Torn,” perfect for breaking down crying in front of a crowd of strangers after being dumped by your boyfriend, “Love”, perfect for repeating the same 13 words for 4 minutes over Eurobeats, and “A Little Bit Alexis”, perfect for convincing the 85% of the audience who never saw Schitt’s Creek that you are having a seizure. Tier 4 songs are not bad songs. They are bad karaoke songs. If you had to perform any of these songs in public, you might as well be cold and shamed, lying naked on the floor.
Tier 5
Eastside, Sister Christian
Tier 5 songs have words. That’s about as close as they get to being good karaoke songs. Was “Eastside” submitted as a joke? Was the actual song created in the first place as a joke? Both equally likely. The only playlist “Eastside” belongs on is my funeral playlist, as for the 27 attendees, having to hear that song might be the only thing to exceed the pain of losing me.
“Sister Christian” is such a disaster of a karaoke song that the band members themselves couldn’t even understand the lyrics, and its (intended) namesake wanted to change her name as she was so dreading having to potentially sing it at karaoke.
"After we started playing it a lot, Jack turned to me and said, 'What exactly are you saying?' " Keagy recalled. "He thought the words were Sister Christian, instead of Sister Christy, so it just stuck." He added that the real Christy was so mortified when the song came out she nearly changed her name.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Night-Rangers-revisit-Sister-Christian-and-San-2595773.php
The best thing that can be said about “Sister Christian” is that for just a moment it tricks you into thinking it might be an 80’s song you’d be excited to sing along to. The beginning 7 seconds are generic enough that if you’re not really paying attention you might think it’s Bon Jovi or Journey. By the time you realize it’s not, it’s too late. You’re already 14 choruses deep with 33 more to go. The only saving grace of “Sister Christian” is the guitar solo that breaks up the 47 repeating chorus segments is just long enough for you to motor on over to the public toilet to drown yourself while the TERD that picked this song rambles on like a broken record until the end of time.
Conclusion
The good news is this playlist has some karaoke bangers. The upper echelon of these songs are some of the best you can get. Plow through a couple of these bad boys to start and your group is the golden child of the karaoke bar. The bad news is, at best, the 3 hours of music in this playlist could keep a karaoke bar in business for 1 hour. Maybe angry rapping “Lose Yourself” to your girlfriend turns her on. Odds are if you sang it in front of a crowd of drunk strangers they’d turn on you. Are the above rankings perfect? Probably. Disagree? Email PlaylistPowerRankings@gmail.com to reserve your time slot for a zoom meeting to perform your selections in front of a panel of judges.
Sing On.
Best: “I Will Survive” - Gloria Gaynor
Props: “Mr. Brightside” - The Killers
Worst: “Sister Christian” - Night Ranger
Playlist Rank: 7.1/10
Previous Rankings
Songs That Make You Want To Dance
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No Bens were harmed in the writing of these rankings.