Karaoke Forums

During my show I am sometimes asked to play a current popular dance tune by one of the patrons in the club. I usually do my best to accomidate them especially if they don't sing and are supportive of the singers. I myself like to see people up and dancing to the music and enjoying themselves. My question is : Is this the norm at most shows? Should I reserve a few dj songs througout the night to play? My rotation usually consists of about 20-25 singers. I would Like to hear your thoughts.

There is no way in this world I would put up filler music, or songs between singers with a rotation that big. You may be making that one person happy, but I guarantee your 25 singers don't appreciate it. As a singer, if you did that at a gig I was attending, it would certainly be the last time you saw me there. Maybe your singers are different than the ones I know, but my singers come to sing, and sing as much as possible. They will tollerate a long rotation if they have to, but will not tollerate the situation you described.

Felix the KJ

This one gets brought up a lot. My feeling is that if you have a karaoke show with 20 singers, you need to take care of those singers to honor them coming out.

As long as we are on pet peeves, I will talk about this one which is mine. People talk about "taking care of the non-singers by playing DJ music". If people were coming out for that, you would see tons of DJs in bars playing music. You don't see it, other than for dance, because it doesn't bring people out. Karaoke is what brings them out.

Karaoke works because the singers provide the startup crowd. People come into a bar, see people, and think "there's something happening here". When the bar is empty, they often turn around and leave.

We have a little town where there are two bars. One has karaoke on Thursday, one on Wednesday. One is dead on Wednesday, one is dead on Thursday. They don't have more than 12 singers most nights, but the place is packed. If the other bar could play DJ tunes and cop some of the crowd, wouldn't they?

Then you have the hosts who announce a start time and don't start then. Some are actually *there* then, they just don't start. Why? According to them it's "because I want to wait until there are a few singers". Well, why would any singers show up if they aren't going to get to sing when they get there? The start gets later and later. I think some of the shows survive on the bar's business and the latecomers.

There is another host I love who is always there early. He will start on the minute. One singer or 15. If he has lots of singers he will often start early. As a result, people show up a half-hour early. He always has singers at start time.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The answer is unequivocally... YES! Here is why you should, and why everyone (mostly) will love you for it... even the singers!

As the night goes on, bringing up one singer after another can get monotonous.

Get people off the bar stools and out of their chairs and get them moving and the blood pumping for a song... maybe two.

You've just had whiskey lullaby, and kiss the girl (sung poorly) right in a row, what are you going to do to wake people up?

Yeah, yeah, I know, you other KJs are so perfect no one ever gets bored at your show...

The best time to do this is at the top of your rotation, it set a break from the rest of the show. Announce it! "All right we've got Tim and Rhonda coming up, then you guys need to get up off those bar stools and work off that alcohol with a Cupid Shuffle!"

Let me also say, YOU need to learn the dance steps and get out there and do it too! You may be the only one, so take a microphone with you!

I WILL go up to the sexy ladies and pull them out of thier seats... especially a table full. Getting hot chicks to dance is a good thing for your show... trust me.

Let me also say, if your crowd is young this will work better than if you're playing at the VFW That also means you need to keep abreast of what dance songs are hot, and what are not.

Cupid Shuffle is ok, but it may not play well... as is Booti Call. More current songs will get the ladies on the floor than something old hat and over played (i.e. Hot in Herre).

Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow is hot. Black Eyed Peas - My Humps is not... so learn your crowd.

Trust me, getting the blood pumping in the middle of your karaoke show adds excitement and DOES NOT detract from the singers. You'll know this when they are on the dance floor laughing and smiling.

Know your singers. Maybe someone in the rotation is good enough to pull off a dance tune! I've got three very attractive ladies at my friday show that pull off Lady Gaga, Chistine Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson and Beyonce with astounding skill, and PERFORM as well as sing! This'll work! Don't be afraid to ask certain singers to sing a dance tune if they've got the pipes! What could be more exciting than dancing to a well done LIVE performance? The only down side is you can't count on them being there every week.

Also, I'm not saying to do this at the top of every rotation. Maybe once or twice a night tops... a great thing to do is to save yourself 10 minutes at the end of the show for some dance tunes... by that time the alcohol is in full effect, and your folks NEED to get up and move a little to work that through.... Plus they'll be more up for it by that time, and the girls will be wilder...

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

We are a 7 night a week, karaoke format only club. No dance music - the people coming in are singers or are people with singers knowing that they are going to hear singers all night. ESPECIALLY with large of a rotation like 20-25, I wouldn't put any regular music. Yes I get asked on occasion for a regular dance song, I tell them we are karaoke & point to the dance floor that is packed with dancers stating, you CAN dance to karaoke music. If you are advertising karaoke, then that's what you should play. If you mix it up with dj on occasion, then advertise karaoke/dj music - even if you do not actually PLAY the regular music, you can let the people that are going in to sing only that they COULD POSSIBLY expect to hear regular dance music.
On the extreme RARE occasion that a regular dance song gets played, will usually be something of a line dance type song or two.

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

If the rotation was 20, I would fear for my life if I stuck in a dance song. But I do like dancing and excitement--I would just rather see it done as getting a singer to do the exciting dance song rather than just play it. But The Koyote way evidently works for him.

IF there's a rotation of 20 singers, no way am I doing that. I use DJ music for one reason at my shows, to ensure there is no dead air. DJ Music plays for the time it takes from the end of one singer until the next singer's song starts, that's it. The only time I will accomodate requests like that is if it's a small rotation and the singers in the rortation have sung quite a few times. Then I'll joke with them about giving them a break and explain that someone asked if they could hear the song.

Getting people up to dance is great, however not at the detriment to my singers. I'm there for the singers first, and while I aim to entertain everyone in the venue (as I do consider that part of my job) the singers take first priority. I will try to get folks singing or dancing to songs that are being sung, but I'm not going to put the singers on hold to try and get a dance floor filled. That's not why I was hired and it will anger the singers.

One recent time where i did play a requested track was last week. I had 4 birthdays in the house and at one point in the night my rotation got a little light (had the same 6 repeating) so I first got the club to sing happy birthday with me and then announced that two of the birthdays were a couple and had asked to dance to their wedding song. I invited everyone else to join them on the dance floor and we had a few couples come up. It worked out well and there was big applause at the end. However, had the rotation had more singers or new singers, there's no way that would have flown. If you're going to do this, you better know your audience and be very careful. I've been on the other end of it and I can tell you first hand it pisses me off. If I'm waiting to sing and the "DJ" plays a block of DJ music, I'm leaving but not without complaining to the bar first.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

I have worked both types of places. I started out in Vermont. There the clientele wanted both. About every hour we'd play two (maybe three max) dance songs. Of course the owner wanted this ‘cause it made people get hot and thirsty and they were at the bar more often.

I since I've moved to Arizona, it's "either" - "or". You’re either offered 100% karaoke for the evening or 100% dance music. I've yet to see a place here in the valley that provided both in the same evening; unless of course the venue has separate room for each.

Form a singer's point of view, it bothered me that the rotation was paused for dancers.

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EveningStar Entertainment & Events
JR & Michele LaPorte
Peoria, AZ

We are pure karaoke our rotations is usually a minimum of 15 singers. It's amazing you can dance to karaoke as well as DJ. We have people dancing all the time.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Before I became a "singer," I used to go to karaoke just to listen and dance. I liked it better than a band because the band they used to get in wasn't too good yet and karaoke at least mixed it up a bit--even if the singer wasn't that good, at least the backing track was. That's why I don't understand why you need to put in DJ music to dance--karaoke IS dance music. In fact one badge of honor when you are a singer is if you get dancers during your song, slow or fast.

For a crowd of 20 or more singers it's kj suicide to waste everyone's time on a dance song, especially if it doesn't work.

If you DO play a dance song, Koyote made some good points- know what will absolutely work and what won't, and make sure you have more than one request for that song.

Overall, I think it depends on the size of the venue as well as the "age" of the crowd you're playing for.

Some places have little or NO dancefloor area (too close to singer) so people are reluctant to upstage the singer or put their buttz in table 1's faces.

Young people have a lot of hyper-energy and they tend to leave if the songs get too slow or sappy. Sure filler works- for 10 seconds, then if it's back to slow songs the young people won't hang around.

More mature singers want to maximize their singing and their time and don't usually like filler or dance music, in my experience.

If it's a slow rotation i will add myself in and sing a dancable upbeat song, or request a regular to SING something like Old Time Rock & Roll, Low by florida, Baby Got Back, Electric Slide, or the good version of Cha Cha Slide.

That way the older folks can't/won't get upset because someone IS singing. Just make sure you, as a host, don't sing if your rotation is large.

DJ music is nothing more than filler music in my case. I do straight karaoke shows now that require zero dance music to fill in spots for singers. EVen if I was still doing the mixture of Filler and karaoke, no way would I alienate the singers just to please a non singer if my rotation is that big.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

My crowd would hang me from the rafters if I played DJ music. With 20 - 25 singers your talking a wait of over an hour to sing. I have very serious karaoke singers that would pitch a fit. I personally prefer just karaoke myself as a singer and won't return to a place that plays music sets. Some others may prefer to have both. You have to decide what works best for your crowd.
DJ music and karaoke does work for some venues.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Me too. I also agree that both will work, just please advertise it as such & not JUST karaoke so a singer might know what to expect - even if dance music isn't played every night. I cannot stand going to a place that advertises karaoke & go in hearing them play dance tunes in between every singer or breaking out dance sets every so often. I go to a karaoke advertised place to sing karaoke!

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

In direct "opposite" of what most on here discribe...being that this is a karaoke board, I too would get hung from the rafters...or worse I would have have one table with two people at it saying...where did everyone go?!?! A "straight" karaoke show would no way work in my area, a "straight" DJ would work, but only on certain nights...not week after week after week. To clarify, I work in super small towns and bars, mostly. There has been nights when I've only played 3 or 4 dance songs, there have been nights when there has only been 3 or 4 karaoke songs. The whole cue here is that you need to be able to read your crowd and provide what they want. I get asked over and over....why do you play karaoke, just play music! There is so many 'krappy karaoke' haters in my area, it's sometimes difficult to get any singers. If I had a rotation of 20 singers, the format would change and adapt. I provide karaoke, because there is a following, it brings people in, it keeps people coming back. I know I will get some people here saying, just play karaoke...you'll get more singers. The sad truth of that in my area is.....I wouldn't be around long enough to get more singers! My 2 cents...MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

As a KJ are you hired just for the SINGERS ? or are you hired to entertain and bring in money spending customers to suppor the bar.
If you worry only about the 20 singers and not the majority of people in the bar --you can be in trouble. I wouldn't play DANCE MUSIC just for the sake of it ...but if someone or group is requesting it I would play it. If that same person put up a slip to sing you would give them their 4-1/2 mins ...so why not give them there requested song????? SURE some of your singers are going to say its KARAOKE ...but the owners/managers want ALL customers to be happy !!

Don't play dance music for the sake of it....
Play dance music if people are requesting it and dancing to it......

Most singers won't mind a dance set or two ...you just don't over do it ...
The singers who do have a hissy fit..... ( they need something to complain about)

Ya know, this is a host deal. Some can get away with it, some can't. Its all in the presentation and the timing. You've got to "feel the room" to know if its appropriate or not, you've got to pick the right time to introduce it, and you got to announce it.

I don't think singers are are going to be upset if its handled correctly. No one walks out of a baseball game when they stop it for the "Seventh inning stretch".... I mean those folks are there for baseball!

I do this at all FIVE of my shows, and everyone loves it. Five different bars, and it works, but as always do what works for you.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I am hired for karaoke. That is what they contracted, that is what they wanted when they hired me.


See I will not, especially since the dance floor is packed with dancers during the karaoke songs, absolutely NO POINT to break up the singers to play some regular music. Our bar owner cannot stand any kind of rap or music with cursing in it and would not allow it & chances are what would be requested would have either. I had a host a few years back who thought the crowds wanted dance music as well & played some, the crowds bitched because they were there for karaoke, the manager bitched because we were hired for karaoke. I told him if he did that again, he was done. We are not there to dj!

Then that same person can sing it or find someone to sing it! No 'regular' music breaks - period! We are karaoke 7 nights a week - since '94, our crowds know it, they either are there to sing, are with people who sing or just to sit & watch & enjoy.


Sorry, no dance music!

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

But the 7th inning strecth is a tradition, everyone knows it's coming. Not a good analogy. When a bar advertises karaoke & the kj plays dance music, that is not expected. If the bar advertises karaoke/dj, then one would know exactly what to expect! Simple as that. I don't care if a kj plays dance music 1 time a night or makes it every other song, just do not advertise the show as karaoke only, advertise it as karaoke/dj!

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

Lonnie where is the BEATING A DEAD HORSE AVATAR

It all comes down to what your customers and singers expect and are use to.

There are 2 types of singers

#1 goes out to have fun and sing
#2 goes out singing to have fun

#1 don't mind a dance set
#2 will throw a hissy fit if they think they are waiting an additional 8 minutes to sing

NOTHING AGAINST EITHER ONE OF THEM !!!