Karaoke Forums

This is for all the singers. Not that I don't love my KJ brethren stories about other singers, but I want to hear it from the source. With that in mind...

What was your biggest song disaster?

No, not failing equipment or acts of gawd or any outside catastrophe, but a time when you picked a song you wanted to try and completely tanked on the delivery.

My biggest disaster was "Move Over" by Janis Joplin. I started too high, realized it halfway into the tune, tried to drop down an octave, lost the key, and went back to the original octave where I finished in a shrieking falsetto.

Just plain embarrassing.

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Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

I'd always liked the Gatlin Brothers song "All The Gold In California", and decided to sing it a couple of years ago at a colleague's show. Big mistake!

There's a point in the song where there's a significant upwards key change... and I missed it completely... absolutely blew it... so much so, that I couldn't continue.

Right then and there, I made the decision to never sing a song in public that I hadn't practiced at least once... a decision that lasted about a week...

Just last evening, one of our female singers asked me to sing a duet with her - Ray Charles & Diana Krall - "You Don't Know Me"... I'd never sung it before, but thought it wouldn't be too difficult.... Wrong!

Somewhere along the line, I'm actually going to take my own advice........... (maybe).

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

It's tough to pick just one.

In high school, I really loved Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones." Now, that's not exactly my range, but I figured I could fudge the key a bit. This is when I first started singing karaoke, though, and even though I knew the song inside and out, I relied heavily on the screen. At this point, I was already figuring out some overarching manufacturer preferences, so I chose the Sound Choice version--I think--and gave it a go. It was one of the rare tracks where the lyrics and music didn't synchronize, and threw me off so badly that the attempt was completely mangled. My best friend lead the booing from the bar, and it took me three years to shake the "Karaoke Kryptonite" stigma that song held in my mind.

The other... my ex may have been one of the worst karaoke singers in our grad school troupe. I mean, awful. Spunky, but awful, and usually lots of fun. There was one night we decided we should duet for once, and attempted a song neither of us had any business singing--"One Sweet Day" by Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey. We decided to fail in an epic fashion (I want to believe it was a conscious decision, but it may not have been). When we got done singing, we looked around the bar, and noticed that more than half of the people left.

Come to think of it, I probably have more karaoke disasters than successes... maybe I need a new hobby?

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Co-host of The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly), a karaoke-themed podcast

"No, not failing equipment or acts of gawd or any outside catastrophe, but a time when you picked a song you wanted to try and completely tanked on the delivery."

What day is it?

Depending on the venue, I will ask someone to pick a number on whatever disc is in the machine. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes the audience gets unlucky.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

After the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, I decided to start the show with "I'm Winning" by Stevie Winwood.

Horrible. I stopped myself and said "I'll spare you the rest".

It happens.

meh.

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Never the same show twice!

The very first song I ever did in karaoke, "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay and the Americans. Imagine an unskilled Johnny Cash-level baritone starting an octave too high anyway and running into the super-high part of the chorus.
I'd never heard of a key changer back then. I struggled all the way through, came off the stage soaked in sweat, shaking and traumatized.
But my friends, perverse bunch they were, got me to try another song and I blind-luck chose one in my key, and the legend was born.

had many of these, but my first song is memorable.
not even old enough and snuck into the bar, saw "Ain't goin down" from Garth and sang the chorus to myself saying "i can do this".
forgot the verses were so fast i was not even into country at the time....not sure what i was thinking.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

My partner & I used to do Karaoke Roulette when the rotation was non-existent. Since it was the DK library, we had one audience person pick a number from 1 to 99 and a second pick between 1 to 18. I don't count those failures - z!

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Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

I'm still standing by Elton John. Sunfly version is in the wrong key. Oooooo bad bad bad, all over the place trying to find the key as I sang. Pioneer is in the right key, if anyone is interested. Also did a Beatles number, I forget which, as the last song of the evening. Half way through, KDJ switched everything off to spare me and the punters. !

Oh man! Way too many to even name... I developed high blood pressure in my middle age and started taking meds for it. For a few months I couldn't hardly sing ANYTHING...

I finally figured out that one of the pills had a diuretic in it and it dried my throat and the rest of me out so badly that no matter how much water I drank, I was constantly coughing and unable to hit any high notes whatsoever. Now, I quit taking those particular pills about three days before I have to sing and then go back on them when the shows are over and I got my old range back.

Who wants to live if you can't sing and enjoy it?