Rules of Karaoke

If you happen to someone in a major metropolitan area this will be something you’ll no doubt get subjected to at some point. You may be sitting in front of a cheap laptop. You may be doing dishes. You may be doing any number of things when you get that call. The call to arms, the call to bring your voice out into the open, unleashed on an unsuspecting populace will happen. It is only a matter of time. 

Oddly, your ability to sing is the least of your worries. Karaoke is not taken seriously in the United States, rather it is a way for people to bond and see how they act. Think of it how businessmen view golf. It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, but your actions as the game is played. Can you keep cool if you make a bad pick? Do your songs reflect a hope to engage others in song, or are they more selfish choices? In case your singing is particularly awful, are you aware of this or woefully ignorant.

Nothing I say or do can fully prepare you for when this day comes. Keep in mind that this is a very interactive sort of activity so you may want to be attuned to some of those surrounding you. Since it is Karaoke, you usually have never been to the place before and you’ll only know half of the people there. My personal experience has varied between being a fun work-related gathering to a way to hook me up with other people’s friends. But whatever your circumstances, you might want to follow these basic guidelines:

1.       The 80s – For whatever reason, 80 pop songs brings out the best in any group. Picking out a band like Wham!, New Order, The Human League, and various 80s pop hits strike a particular chord among people. Mostly this is due to people’s familiarity with the material, but also due to that decade’s insistence on fun and accessibility.

2.       Avoid contemporary pop hits – I can’t stress this one enough. Just because you listen to the radio on your way to work doesn’t mean everybody does. In fact, most people don’t. That’s why the older the pop hit, the better. Older pop hits mean that the audience will know it, from when they didn’t have a choice and had to listen to the radio. 

3.       Bohemian Rhapsody – Everyone knows this. It is like in humanity’s DNA. Your group might consist of a Yak herder from Mongolia, an Amazonian tribesman who’s never had contact with those outside a 5 mile radius, and an Amish farmer, and they’d all be singing along with this. Don’t ask me why this works, I feel like Freddie Mercury might have engaged in some serious genetic testing in the 70s to come up  with something that appeals to literally every living thing on Earth. When I told somebody that people just knew this, he stated “That’s nonsense”. When I saw him on Monday, he said the song kept on finding him on the radio and he was hooked. People just love this song.

4.       Avoid too many Musical references – Let me explain. I like musicals but I do not love them. How I feel about them is generally most people’s opinions. What happens when a musical nerd gets hold of that remote and programs in a bunch of musicals no one knows, oh geez. Prepare yourself for a harsh, difficult night. One of these may be acceptable, but do multiple ones and people will get drunk off their ass to numb themselves.

5.       Use Irony – Irony was made for Karaoke. People don’t pick their favorite songs for Karoke, they pick the corniest ones. I’m not a huge Doobie Brothers fan, but singing their contrived nonsense is great fun. Taking any popular AM hit and singing it works wonders. Plus, another approach is to take a song and have a ridiculous singing style to it. Do these only once, once is all that is needed for the joke to work, otherwise it gets stale.

6.       Don’t do Karaoke in the Philippines – This one is the only real one I have on here. People take it very seriously there, like life and death serious. A New York Times article described how one could get killed for poorly singing a Frank Sinatra song. So yeah, you might want to sing in Malaysia or something.  Getting beaten up for being a crappy singer seems like a poor evening indeed.

7.       Inflection – Use it. Even the most monotone of us has some kind of inflection. By not using it properly, you might embarrass yourself. I have an example: one of my friends can’t sing to save his life. Rather than realize this, he continued to pick out songs that specifically required important inflection on key words. One song came on, the Rolling Stones’ “(I can’t get no) Satisfaction”. As he was singing the “noes” he inflected incorrectly and made it sound like he just had an orgasm. Seeing what happened after he did that, please make sure to use it, at least a little bit.

8.       No Lady Gaga – Maybe this is a personal pet peeve, but whenever I’ve been out with friends and someone picks one of her songs, a few people decide that’s a good time to go to the bathroom. After enough time has passed, you can use her songs maybe. But right now, her music in particular is trashy without the fun needed to make it likable. I know I’ve stated “no contemporary” earlier, but this one is a definite buzz killer. Everybody does know her work, that’s not the problem. It is that it is still all around us and we have to deal with that garbage infecting our eardrums enough. So please, grant us an hour or two of salvation away from it.

9.       Pay your share – Uh, this one is after the singing. Karaoke translates for some people into “Leave early and have the host pay $400”. Thankfully this has never personally happened to me, but I’ve seen it done to others. It ends up putting people in a tough situation, and makes you less likely to be as close of friends in the future. So be kind, please make sure to pay your full amount before you depart into the night.

10.   Do this at night – I have no idea why this would be in the daytime. Apparently some people do that. That just looks like you’re currently unemployed or particularly bored. Wait until 5pm at the earliest. Just use the same cutoff time you have for alcohol. 

Hopefully this will guide you on the path to pure Karaoke enlightenment. I’m not guaranteeing that you’ll find perfection with this, but you can avoid a lot of the pratfalls that worry so many others.

Twizzle – Soda Fountain 7.9

I have no idea how to approach this little sweet EP. Each time I’d send it to anyone; they’d say it was so sugary that they got cavities from it. Consisting of Sir Mildred Pitt and Spacecake from Seattle, they make probably the cutest music known to mankind. Perhaps if evil dictators from around the world heard this they might decide to give up their wretched ways and start up a bedroom band.

Spacecake is the singer in this duet. Comparisons to Goldfrapp and Portishead are just, as songs like “Black Elk Mountain” definitely do follow those artist’s templates. Weird electronic effects begin and disorient you. The beats also sort of give away the duo’s linage (the EP was recorded in 1999). 

The samples are the biggest part in this. It is obvious that the two of them have good taste in what to pick out for building songs, like an even kitschier Solex. My favorite on here has to be the song “Barefoot Girl Pebble Road”. This song is so saccharine I have a hard time determining whether or not it is meant ironically. “I’d like to start a family” the male singer croons. Really, I think this is probably one of the greatest achievements of Twizzle, the fact that they created a song so confusing that you are completely unable to determine their actual motive.

But overall, this is a painfully short EP filled with a surprisingly level of quality. 

Here it is in downloading form!

Free Twizzle!

An American Hero: Ghost Writer for the Situation's New Book

 

Ghostwriters are anonymous people, floating around, hoping to earn enough money to pay the rent for a while. Usually they are decent writers who are simply working on their own stuff which might be a harder (or longer sell). Just because they have been unable to achieve commercial success doesn’t mean that they are failures. Far from it, they are troopers, continuing to slog through the muck, even working on books they aren’t interested in, in order to make ends meet.

That brings us to the Ghost Writer at hand. “Here’s the Situation” a book supposedly written by the Situation, one Mike Sorrentino of “The Jersey Shore” fame, works better than most ghost written books. Besides just having an over-the-top main character basically bragging throughout 153 pages, there’s that irony. And it is the ghost writer’s complete distain and open mockery of the Situation that brings this book up beyond bathroom book reading.

Irony has been done to death in writing of late. Usually this may be in part to its easy use. By keeping an ironic distance between yourself and your subject matter, you can sort of say “Just Kidding” in case the effort fails. It is a vulnerable sort of technique. Here though, it shines like pure gold.

Above you can see the ridiculous sort of language used. This one is about fist pumping and it even is helpful enough to include diagrams, in case you were too stupid to figure out how fist pumping works. By using words like “corpuscle” and “Battle it, bro” the ghost writer allows us to be in on the joke of “this guy is a total douche bag, isn’t he?” while still making it good enough for the Situation to approve. 

Most likely, we’ll never know who wrote this intentionally hilarious book. Whenever there’s a ghost writer for a subject so vapid and devoid of anything resembling intelligence, a non-disclosure agreement is signed. That means the publisher knows that it is an ironic, stupid, tacky book, and you can giggle to yourself about it, but you can never let anyone know.

That’s perfectly OK though. Heavy irony works best with the only two groups likely to buy this book:

1.       People who truly love the Jersey Shore. These people don’t understand how truly sad they are, and why there are people “hating” on them for being so ridiculous. Usually these people live in some alternate universe where people like “The Situation” are revered like folk heroes.

2.       People who truly hate the Jersey Shore. They will purchase the book purely for ironic purposes. At parties, they’ll read it to groups of friends who are also in on the joke. Everybody will get a good laugh as they drink PBR and watch awful 80s films, like anything with Ernest. 

Going on Amazon or searching for the book, you already see the two sides lining up. Most of the internet consists of the latter group, so you’re more likely to see such things as “Signs of the Apocalypse” and “When will his fifteen minutes be up?” My favorite has to be the Amazon tag for this as “euthanasia”. 

The ghost writer is so good that he has answers for this lazy criticism: “Haters: It’s been more than 15 minutes. The apocalypse is a multi-step process, bitches.” So the ghost writer knows how important it is that this succeeds. It may or may not; depending on how much of the Situation’s fan base can read. Sometimes I wonder whether or not the Situation is self-aware about how ridiculous he is, like some sort of meta-Joaquin Phoenix kind of deal. Reading the Amazon description of the book doesn’t exactly allay my fears either:

“Here's how to get your situation up to the level of the Situation

Listen, dawg. You're probably hitting the gym, doing your tanning, and picking up fresh laundry every day. And maybe you've had some success beating up the beat and creeping on chicks in the club. But do you really think your situation is where it needs to be? Be honest with yourself, bro.

this book here will take your game to a level thought unattainable, given your physical limitations (because we can't all look like Rambo, pretty much, with our shirt off). We start with GTL-the bedrock of life itself. And then we hit the GTL Remix-the rules for getting your personal grooming did. From there it's my guide to the Jersey Shore, battle plans for the club, a primer on grenades and wingmen, and tips for ridding yourself of all levels of clinger. Then I look at the big picture: how to cook the perfect lasagna, how to find a life partner, and how to deal with being one of the most famous people on the planet-which is guaranteed if you follow my advice.

This is the bible for Situation Nation. Read it, live it, and crush it. ”

I feel that if the Ghost Writer is capable of such absolutely ridiculous statements that he might want to try his hand in writing some sort of updated version of “Catch 22” except instead of World War II it would be about the shallowness of modern life. Most of the book reads like some sort of high-minded satire against its very subject. 

Kudos ghost writer, you have made the world a better place. Perhaps in some future point you’ll finally publish that bizarre ultra-ironic story you’ve always dreamed of.

Will “Steelywave” wash over us in 2011?

Lo-fi didn’t always rule over us with a rusty iron grip. Back in the early 2000s, there was a movement towards excessive high fidelity, up to the point of almost sheer absurdity. Part of that had to do with IDM’s fascination of perfect sound, the beginning of MP3 sharing of “bedroom musicians” and the glitch movement. Bedroom musicians used to spend inordinate periods of time on their music, making sure it sounded sure of itself and fully polished. Radio still maintained a greater importance, and you could find alternative kinds of music from major stations (though it did happen mostly at night). Glitch, although supposedly focused on digital error, ended up having some very pristine, highly processed sound.

            Now that so many bands sound like “they recorded inside a bum’s ass” there’s bound to be some sort of indie rejection of what has become a norm for so many bands. Certain bands have already caught onto this, cleaning up sound that had previously been messier, like Neon Indian on that one new song, Ariel Pink on his newest album, or Nite Jewel on her new EP. Eventually these outliers will become the trendsetters, if it already hasn’t happened.

            Part of this lo-fi came from nostalgia for the “unremembered 80s” but what about the “yet to be mined for material” late 70s? And now, I’m not talking about No Wave and Punk. Punk died. No Wave may be explored, but so far precious few bands have tackled the difficult style. I’m talking about light jazz-rock fusion, you know, Steely Dan. Steely Dan, that YUPPIE band which played the YUPPIEST of music to investment bankers and other assorted rich New Yorkers, is poised to make a giant comeback.

            In terms of comeback, I don’t mean their ghoulish faces haunting your children’s nightmares, though they are legendary for being hideous people. Instead, they might decide that now, with interest in disco coming back, light jazz-rock fusion might be next.

            How do they take advantage of this? Well, they can use their extremely obnoxious sense of humor, like they did once they sent a letter to Owen Wilson about his role in “You, Me, and Dupree”. Perhaps sending a letter to Pitchfork about how hard they suck it and with rewrites of their album reviews, to make those albums look thrilling. Basically, the heavy irony they already incorporate in their day to day lives (from being assholes) will help to build a following among young people everywhere.

            Marketing will be important, so they might want to do something to be funny and get it somewhere besides their embarrassingly bad website, which looks like it was designed by your grandfather. I’d suggest crashing a party, or acting like the creepy weirdos you describe in so many of your songs. Or just write parodies of your old songs:

“Driving like a tool out to Hackensack

Snorting coke off of a hooker’s crack”

-Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More

            Failing this, there’s an easier way: re-edits. They’ve already been done with equally cheesy music (disco) and you don’t have to write any new songs. Get Todd Terje to come on in, and re-edit all your songs. He can even edit out those things you hate in music, like passion, emotion, and raw talent. Instead, all that will be left is your unhip sound, made hip using technology. Think of it as a facelift for music. I’m sure your old-school fans are more than familiar with the procedure.