Karaoke Forums

I am a home karaoke guy with a pretty professional setup. I was wondering how you guys might go about staying current with popular songs?

I pretty much don't. When I first started as a KJ, I bought the monthly discs to the tune of $90 a month.

What I found is that with rare exception, people sing the new songs for about 3-4 weeks, then those songs are pretty much never heard of again.

I have a little under 15,000 unduplicated songs, and my Compuhost stats show that only about 1100 unique songs were actually sung at my show last year in 104 shows.

I have dialed back my new music budget to about $200 a year, and just keep some credits on hand at Ticerasoft and All-Start Karaoke. I have a sign-up sheet where if a patron wants a new song, I generally have it ready for them the next week, and I try to buy the 10-15 biggest chart hits about every three months. Otherwise, you will figure out that the vast majority of all the music people sing all around the country are the basic karaoke standbys.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Like TopherM, I only buy requests and the older stuff I don't already have. I only have 3000 songs in my book and can down load on the go from Ticerasoft and All-Start Karaoke to get what I don't.

The "oldies" rule (60's to 90's)

I rarely buy anything before it is requested these days. Singers can text me a song request and I will see if it is available. I will buy it as a digital download from KaraokeVersion.com - karaokedownloads.ca - or directly from the manufacturer site if available and let them sing it that night.

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-Chris

It's a good thing, for the most part, that nothing new has much staying power because with current production problems there might not be much new stuff available.

I still buy the new All Star discs when they come out & a handful of popular artists (meaning multiple songs get sung regularly - ie Miranda Lambert, Christina Aguilera, Toby Keith, etc) if I see something new from them. Otherwise like the rest I buy on a per request basis anymore as well. I have a clipboard out & ask people to put songs they'd like to sing on it - if I can find it, I get it - often that night in a download format, then I do re-purchase the song again when I have enough to fill up a custom disc!
I just topped 16,000 (non-dup'd) song titles over 20 years of buying music. 1,000 were just last year alone oddly enough, probably the most productive year as far as individual requests go - well ok to be fair I did buy a handful of discs off of customers that wanted to sell but that only counted maybe 150-200 titles. This year I'm already up to 769 new song purchases of which more than 3/4 were all singer requests.
Adding to Tophers year figure, I had 3,344 individual songs titles sung at least one time last year. That's in a 7 night a week show.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

i only buy requests anymore. gave up on trying to predict what they want so i use Karaokedownloads.ca, Karaokeversion.com, allstarkaraokedownloads.com to buy what is asked for. buy it on the fly and thy can do it by their next song. much less expensive in the long run over buying a $18 disc for 2 songs, but be careful....it can get addicting.

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

Exactly what Paradigm Karaoke said.

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DJ Don

At this point, I would advise buying up what you can, where you can, on original mfr. discs. Whether to fill in older stuff or to plan ahead. I truly feel - and it seems to be coming to pass - that a huge music dry spell is on the horizon.

For this reason I am even buying tracks that I don't feel will be truly utilized for a year or two. If I'm wrong I have some extra tracks. If I'm right I will have what no one else around me does.

Call it a risk based on speculation based on current events....

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

I agree with Joe 100% on this. I recently resumed an active search for bulk buys of karaoke music. In spite of believing that digital downloads are the future, the music houses are forcing us to rely on discs for our music by picking off the karaoke companies and forcing the overseas folks to limit production of some music. Given that the bulk of karaoke music sung at most bars is stuff that was produced on disc at some time or another, it just makes sense to buy what you can now until this all gets sorted out.

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-Chris

Holy Cow Chris, I just realized I gave you the 1000th "like". Which you accomplished in short order. Congratulations!!!!

Thanks guys, I have a weird setup being it's my home and it is prewired in a way where I can't really have a control center computer where I can find songs while still running the show. I have a kiosk touchscreen setup with remote requests and I have everything on autorun. If someone request something, I can't really get in there without stopping the show. Usually not worth it.

One great thing that has come out of the always at your fingertips revolution is that people are used to paying for songs now.

If someone requests a new song at a show, I look it up and tell them yeah . . . it's available for instant download only $2.99.

7 times out of ten they say here's 4 bucks . . . get it for me please.
Not only do I get the song free to add to my library, I get a 1.00 tip to boot.

Notice . . . I never say you HAVE to pay me to download it. I just mention the price when I tell them I can get it right now and many of them offer the money on the spot.

Especially nice when it's a song you know no one else at any of your shows will ever sing so you are not out the coin for a butt load of boat anchors.

What sucks is now Judas Priest can be considered "Oldies"!!! We have an oldies station, and I have heard Led Zeppelin and Priest on it. Not good!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Yes, it is hard to think that the 90's was 24 years ago. Just think hardly anyone had a computer, and cell phones (smaller than a shoe box) didn't exist. How did we set through the day!

I was never more inexplicably sad then when I heard the song that was #1 on the pop charts when I was born being played on an oldies station. I might have yelled at the radio for the entire length of the song.

I am officially an oldie now.

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

Taking two relatively recent songs, are these available for karaoke? Are they being sung?

All About That Bass, Megan Trainor
Neon Light, Blake Shelton

Karaoke Version has both.

All About The Bass is getting sung pretty regular (I actually use the All Star version), I don't have Neon Light yet, but no one has asked for it yet either.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Same here--"All About That Bass" has been done and so far no requests for Neon. Just thought I'd throw in that I have the DTE version and the screens don't come up in time for the next rap part to start--the usual CB/DTE problem. Luckily the ladies that did it knew it by heart so they were ready but anyone else would have trouble.