Nobody Likes Getting Played

There are a couple of reasons why Shakira and Beyoncé's "Beautiful Liar" is primed to be the biggest karaoke song of the summer: 1) It's peaking right about now, meaning that it will be widely available in most clubs by May, which is prime karaoke time; 2) it's a duet in which the vocals are split 50/50, which certainly helped "Promiscuous Girl"; 3) it actually includes the lyrics "Shakira/Shakira" and "Beyoncé/Beyoncé," which is awesome; 4) most importantly, everything about the production is minimal—the fake horns, the timid acoustic guitars—and frankly, kinda cheap-sounding. It's sounds less like a major-label hit single, and more like a tinny karaoke backing track that just happens to be performed by two professional singers.

YOUTUBE: "Beautiful Liar"

Calling All Crooners

From a 3/29/07 post on Craigslist:

MTV is bringing back one of their most popular shows: "Say What ? Karaoke!" for TWO one hour specials taped live in MTV's Time Square Studios.

"Say What-Karaoke" was THE ORIGINAL national / in studio singing competition!

Now SWK is coming back better than ever - with a brand new look - AMAZING prizes ... fun - new show elements .... Celebrity judges .... audience / viewer interaction. Now all we need is YOU!

Details:
Are you a great singer? Have amazing style/ look and attitude?
Love to sing / perform in front of an audience?
Are You between the ages of 18-25?
Live in the greater NYC area?

Yes, yes and yes! And, well, no. But then: Yes! Those hoping to audition need to inform the producers about their desired style of music ("choose between Rock/ Pop and R&B/Hip Hop") and must prepare "an ACCAPELLA verse and chorus of TWO songs." And, because this is MTV, they also want a JPEG and maybe a MySpace or YouTube link. It could be worth the effort: According to IMDB, alumni of the first installment of Say What? include Ashlee Simpson, Shia LaBeouf and Jerry Springer.

Chinafrown

Don't look for any mentions of Haunted Karaoke in your highfalutin' new English-language Cahiers du cinéma: With no jolts, no jokes, and very little actual singing, this 1997 import is possibly the worst Hong Kong karaoke-horror-comedy ever made. Set one year after a devastating karaoke-club blaze, Haunted follows two dimwitted cops who are tormented by the ghosts of the victims. But the physical comedy is painfully strained (the actors look as though their only directorial note was "keep bungling!"), and the special effects are just slightly better than Freddy's Nightmares; the only real highlight is the scene in which a singer is attacked by multiple karaoke microphones. By the time the movie gets to the not-at-all-dated Tamagotchi reference, you're about ready to throw your region-free DVD player to the curb for bulk-trash day.

Still: Much, much better than Duets.

Rocking 'Til The Sun Goes Down

Mike has Flickrd a bunch of pictures from the 3/7/07 Punk Rock/Heavy Metal Karaoke show at Southpaw in Brooklyn. At one point, the gentleman on the right knocked out a version of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" so spot-on, it could have made the remaining Darkness members second-guess their recent career change. But the highlight was a guy who showed up toward the end, dressed exactly like circa-1991 Johnny Depp; when he refused to turn around and face the crowd during his performance, it was like being serenaded by a boho-honky Miles Davis.

The Motherload

Thanks to the wonders of Craigslist, I now have a crate of more than fifty out-of-print karaoke laserdiscs; it's a collection that was being sold off by a party DJ who had moved on to easier-to-carry compact discs. The discs come from a variety of manufacturers (Pioneer, MegaStar, Digital Freedom), and it looks as though more than half of them feature original karaoke videos, which are nearly impossible to find these days. It will take me weeks—not to mention a laserdisc player—to sort through all of these, but it's truly a score, and $225 well spent. Just take a look at one picked-at-random tracklisting:


The best part is that even the so-so holiday songs come with videos, meaning I have approximatley 200 hours of karaoke-video viewing in my future. I'm especially excited for LaserKaraoke—The Professional Series Volume 4: R&B, which features both Jody Watley's "Real Love" and Prince's "Delirious." It's like the screening room of heaven!

Maybe He Should Have Gone With "Red Headed Stranger"

- Wilmer Valderaama tried to woo back Lindsay Lohan with a karaoke dedication Sunday night in New York City. Unfortunately, he did this with a Matchbox Twenty song, and she left un-wooed.
- Of Montreal will perform an indie-rock karaoke set in Brooklyn on April 14th.
- Electronic Arts has purchased online karaoke company SingShot.
- Former American Idol star Justin Guarini is going to guest-host something called WebcamKaraokeTV.

A Fortune In Feelings

A quick vacation stop in Chicago yielded only one karaoke jaunt, but it was a doozy: Carol's is a five-star dive bar, the kind of place where they order you another pitcher when you're only at the half-way point, and where at least a few patrons look as though they lit their first cigarettes off the flame-licks of the Great Chicago Fire. Foreigner's "Cold As Ice" was boldy re-interepted as a two-person state-of-the-relationship summit, while one renowned mystery scribe hit new lows (in a good way) with her vocal take on Cameo's "Word Up."