tidbits 1: karaoke is political

When you do karaoke with late 1960s and early 1970s born people and mostly men, sing heavy metal rock songs: Metallica, Deep Purple, or the most attainable ones (reachable by pop vocal range): KISS especially “Beth”, Rolling Stones, or Queen. In the most desperate times, pick The Beatles. Where there are more women, choose The Tremeloes kinda songs or early Celine Dions. More choices are melancholic songs with a bit of guitar riffs and endless desperate rising part, i.e. Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of nothing at All” or Meatloaf’s confusing song “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”.

With late 1970s and early 1980s, sing Indonesian band songs in their golden years: 1990s of course. Like the first café band ever recorded: Java Jive, “Kau Yang Terindah”, “Gadis Malam”, or Protonema, Kahitna, GIGI, and Dewa when Dhani was sane. Mid 1980s have preferences of singer songwriter genre Jason, Jack, John; pop punks, J-Rocks, or challenging solo vocalists such as Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson. To put some jokes in it, choose Warna’s “Ada Cinta”, or Nicky Astria’s and fellows songs. To put some local groove, ME’S “Inikah Cinta” and Titi Kamal’s “Jablay”. I don’t sing current Indonesian pop chart, even Kuburan and other current trending bands are too bad to become jokes in karaoke room.

Choose your songs based on your audience and they will like you and think you like the same songs as them.