How not to suck at karaoke

Because you’re not just hurting yourself — you’re hurting others

Going to a karaoke bar is a big risk. A good crowd can result in an unbroken chain of singalongs and applause, but good karaoke crowds are rare. Singing in public is scary, and scared people surrender their decision-making processes to the lizard parts of their brains, which are great for, say, skittering away from marauding gila monsters but not so keen at social interaction. When that happens, karaoke turns from a non-judgemental talent show into a howling waste of everyone’s time. This is not ideal.

Because it’s so dependent on the kindness of strangers, karaoke requires a greater-than-usual level of decorum than, say, just going out to a bar. You must become a kind of musical socialist, at least for one evening, if only because the alternative can leave you standing alone, drunkenly croaking your way through an encore performance of “Friends in Low Places” while the rest of the bar collectively fantasizes about beating you to death with your own microphone. No one wants you to be murdered, if only because the paperwork would just be a pain. Fortunately, proper karaoke etiquette is actually real damn simple.

1) FOR CHRISSAKES, MAKE SURE YOU AT LEAST HAVE A PASSING FAMILIARITY WITH THE ENTIRE SONG

Watching some bro’s mounting horror as he realizes that he never paid attention to the actual non-chorus verses of “Livin’ La Vida Loca” is painful. It usually ends up sounding like this:

“She’ll make you take your clothes off and [pause] godancingintherain/She’ll make you uh um er/take away uh/[silence]/BULLET THROUGH YOUR BRAIN/COME ON!/OUTSIDE INSIDE OUT”

This makes him and everyone else listening to him incredibly uncomfortable. It’s a bit like listening to one half of a cell phone conversation in public — your brain has to do extra work to make up for the parts the singer doesn’t know, and your brain hates that shit. Honestly, the lyrics are right there in front of you. Ricky Martin never had any trouble with it and he’s barely a sentient life form. There’s no excuse.

2) DON’T HOG THE MIC

We have a dude at my local karaoke place* who is notorious for killing the flow every time he goes up to sing. He’s got a great voice, but he insists on singing these lengthy proggish ballads. Yes’s “I’ve Seen All Good People” is nearly seven minutes long, and that’s one of the shorter songs in this guy’s repertoire.

This is secretly one of the rudest things you can do at karaoke. Not only are you guaranteeing that people will clear out for a smoke break around minute five or so (thereby culling the audience for whoever follows you), but you’re basically singing two songs. I live in Connecticut, a state notorious for its early bar closings. Microphone time here is a precious, non-renewable resource. The only way you can get away with singing “Achilles’ Last Stand” is if you are literally Robert Plant. Keep it to five minutes. Seven if you’re singing a duet, ‘cause that counts as two.

*OK, one of my local karaoke places. Plural. This one just happens to be my favorite. I have a problem.

3) PICK A SONG WITHOUT LENGTHY INSTRUMENTAL PARTS

“Knights of Cydonia” is a great song that you should never sing at karaoke, because there is very little actual singing in it. It’s cool to hear instrumental breaks if the actual band is playing them, but unless your karaoke bar incorporates a live band, you’re just going to be standing around while everyone watches you awkwardly shuffle to a lowest-bidder electronic facsimile of the song you want to sing. Once you see “MUSICAL BREAK — 40 MEASURES” come up on the screen, you might as well tell everyone to stop paying attention.

4) PICK A SONG THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY KNOW

This is mostly dependent on your audience — you can get away with nichey songs in nichey bars — but that song you had to specifically ask the DJ to download because it wasn’t in any of her nine songbooks is a total mood-killer. It might be a great song, and you might absolutely own it, but in the end, you’re singing something that no one can sing along to. You’re not involving the crowd. It’s like stopping an orgy to take a Skype call from your grandmother.

5) DON’T TALK SO DAMNED MUCH BEFORE YOU SING

Stand-up comedy is difficult, as anyone who’s tried it can attest. The really good comedians — your Patton Oswalts, Stewart Lees, Richard Pryorii — work constantly on their timing and delivery and revise their material until they eliminate all the unfunny bits.

You haven’t done any of that, so if you use your pre-song time to make a joke about the song itself, or the guy who sang before you, or how you used to listen to this song with your ex-girlfriend, it will definitely suck. Shouting out to your friends is OK, but turning the bar into your personal HBO special is not.

5) TONE IS CRUCIAL

Someone at my second-favorite karaoke bar once sang “Brick” by Ben Folds Five. “Brick” is a song about abortion. Don’t sing songs about abortion at karaoke.

6) IF YOU CAN’T RAP, DON’T RAP

This is broadly similar to Rule No. 1, but it’s even more crucial, because if you’re not good enough to keep up with the flow and you lose your spot, you’ll never be able to pick it back up. Rap is often brutally difficult, even the songs that seem easy. The karaoke version of “Rapper’s Delight” is seven minutes long and complicated, and it seems like everyone who tries it at karaoke only bothers to remember the first line.

Look, it’s OK if you can’t sing. That’s fine. You have to realize, though, that the least funny thing in the world is someone trying to rap who can’t rap. It’s like forcing everyone in the bar to watch an Adam Sandler film, and not even one of the tolerable ones.

7) DON’T BE A DOUCHE

A short list of things I’ve seen happen during karaoke:

A woman grabbing an extra microphone from the DJ in the middle of my friend’s song and shoving her way in front of the screen so she could sing instead.

A guy (who would sing Madonna songs and open conversations with people by asking them for bathroom threesomes) pushing a woman to the floor during the middle of “Into the Groove” and subsequently fleeing the bar before the cops were called.

Several people refusing to leave the stage or give up the mic after their songs were done.

A guy pretending he was blind in the manner of Stevie Wonder during a Ray Charles song.

A guy singing “Piano Man” by Billy Joel who used our actual bartender’s name in place of the bartender in the song, which doesn’t sound so bad until you remember the bartender in “Piano Man” is basically suicidal.

This one dude who loved my choice of “Come on Eileen” so much that he tried to sing over me, which was throbbingly rude and also pointless, ‘cause I had a microphone and he didn’t.

You’ve got to allow people their moments. This is key. Putting yourself out there in public and singing in front of strangers is incredibly difficult. Anyone who works up the courage to do it deserves your respect. Even if they’re absolutely awful, well, so what? We’re all there to have fun. The least you can do is applaud them for trying.

Unless they sing “Somebody to Love” by Queen, because that is my song. You boo that person until they run from the bar crying.