Karaoke Forums

Thank You Randy for your suggestion.

Let's try again.  You been hired to host karaoke at your nearest theme park
(eg. Disney, Six Flags, Busch Gardens, Seaworld, etc.)

WHAT SONGS MUST YOU LEAVE OUT OF YOUR CATALOG?

Any song with so much as a curse word in it.  SC is better than most in this respect as they put a PA on songs that contain profanity - now they don't catch them all as I found out so I still would Google the lyrics of questionable artists, if they do it one song, chances are they do it in more, so you can weed those out - not necessarily the whole artist though.
Any songs with drug content/reference.
Any songs with sexual overtones/reference - this one would probably be the most lax as some of the song geared for young kids even from Disney channel have their own little sexual overtones.

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A friend of mine had a t shirt on that had a marijuana leaf on it.  He was told to change it or turn it inside out.  

You would probably have to watch the suggestive sounding songs too.   Nothing about drugs and maybe even drinking.      One bourbon,.....    Physical abuse.

I think i would pass on it.

yes, i already know the type of lyrics, generally speaking, that are forbidden (the theme park gave me the criteria before I bid on the job - just joking)

no, I can't rely on google:
 - the lyrics on the web are not always right
 - I don't know what artists to google
 - I wouldn't have enough time to review every track I now own, even if I wanted to use google
 - I never consciously ordered discs with "questionable" material and I never considered when I placed my order that there might be a need to review what I was buying before I made my purchase

So... I now own thousands of tracks, many of them newer material that might be a problem.  I would imagine I have hundreds of objectionable tracks that I am not the least bit aware of, and several dozen I could probably identify.

Surely, you each have tracks in your collection that you would advise me not to play when I do the theme park gig.  What are they?

I agree that doing the GOOGLE or YAHOO searches would not be helpful (especially if you are not familiar with half of the artists in your own library (I know I'm not).

Here's an alternate suggestion. Instead of worrying about whether a song may be too suggestive or vulgar for that type of setting, just put together a separate selection from your library. Set aside about 1000 songs (even 500 songs would be enough for a Theme Park/Amusement Park) of your choosing (from what you know to be the standard songs and most popular songs). After you put together your list, make up a few pamphlets listing these titles/artists/song codes.  

Here are some songs that you can include for the standards:
My Way..... I Will Survive..... Crazy..... Margarittaville..... Summer Nights..... Love Shack.....

Pick out a bunch of discs from these popular artists:
The Beatles... The Bee Gees.... Elvis Presley... Billy Joel.... Phil Collins... Elton John.... etc....

It will be easier for you to just create a new core library (as suggested above), than to have to worry whether or not some song has some taboo lyrics in it that will get you fired.

(notice.... I did not suggest PBTDBL)  :hi5:

get rid of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax"! !

Mostly, if a song came up I didn't know that had certain lyrics, I'd shut it off. Had to do that a couple times. I had a kid show and would regularily annouce that SOME songs had adult content or suggestive lyrics, and I would turn the music off if I discovered someone sneaked a song in. Or if they cursed on the mic for shock value.

POOF... YOU'RE DONE, dude!

It only took one time to show folks, and I'd tell the singer "You do that again, and you won't sing at my show!"

Done a gig one time for a school audiotorium. Was a nightmare, and I was beat when I was done... but I was glad the kids had a ball doing it!

No the lyrics may not always be accurate but as a rule they are generally pretty close - at least know which ones contain language.  I'm not saying go through every song in your book, you've been hearing songs enough that are sung to know which ones are ok & which ones are questionable to which ones are downright vulgar right off the bat.  Keep a pad of paper next to you for the ones you hear that probably wouldn't work in a G rated show.  Then from there you look at the artist & check the lyric content of the songs you have by that artist.  If Eminem has one song with profanity, good chances are he'll have more.

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There are many "artists"  that can be counted on for the same %#@& crap over and over.

Kid Rock, Snoop Dogg, Nelly

As suggested stay with the oldies...anything before the Rap and Hip Hop took off.


You will find out first hand the value of an edited song book.

Nolt all artists songs are vulgar, even Kid Rock has a couple that are ok.  Snoop & Nelly, yeah haven't found one yet that I could list with our club restrictions.

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If it were for pre-teens I'd go the other direction. What songs can I add? I'd put my catalog on one side of the screen, and selectively drag and drop files into a "G" folder. It would be far easier.

For teens it would be a different story. My 21 year old daughter and I went to a high school basketball game together last winter. During halftime the cheerleaders did a routine to "Shake That (@$%&#!) Girl" (50 Cent). A song that many of you probably wouldn't even allow in your adult shows.

It caught us both by surprise. Her comment was that high school sure had changed since she was there.

And that was just three years ago.

So I don't know what I'd do for that group.

Even though my book is wide open the two most done Kid Rock songs in my room are "Picture" (of course) and "Only God Knows Why" which I think is pretty clean. So you can't make blanket statements about specific artists being vulgar. It's a song by song thing.

I am actually befuddled!

If you were offered to play a regular job at Disney, for big bucks, none of you can come up with the nucleaus of a list of what songs you would EDIT OUT of your standard catalog?

Do an oldies book.

I would go through my book, song title by song title, and continue to edit it... no way would I catch them ALL... but I have a very good idea what songs I have, and what songs I would pull...

Nelly & Tim McGraw All in My Head and as for Snoops Sensual Seduction just has one F-bomb in it.

For rap it's mostly old school Run DMC, Young MC, Tone Loc, but now on the scene Chamillionaire is known for not using vulgar words or the N-bomb.  Ridin Dirty is his hit.

Only God Knows Why.   He had a great song until he added the word SH*T.


Put your money on the majority by the same artist to be bad.  It eliminates so much confusion.   You're not saying did they or didn't they.  You just "X" em completetly for what he's trying to do.

So does that mean that you don't allow "Only God Knows Why" in your room?

It's in my book.  :yes:  :O  And when it is sung the word SH*T is over emphasized in case the adults were going to miss it.

That's when you get good on the mixer & fade that word out quickly & it eliminates the over emphasis!  I have to do that with a couple songs that I have listed that are great songs except for 1 fbomb lurking in the middle.  Just a quick slide on the fader & it's edited.

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Anybody ever get mad about your little volume trick?

Nope!  They can still hear themselves on stage & don't even realize what the audience is hearing.  However most of our crowd knows there is no swearing rule so I make sure they know to either substitute any language words with something else.  9 out of 10 times I can trust the singer.  On the occasional singer that tries to slip it in, I do a quick drop raise of the mic on that word & they know nothing otherwise.  Then I will talk to them afterward & let them know if they try it again, they will not be allowed to sing.  Never have any arguments, they say ok & edit themselves the next time.

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