Karaoke Forums

I was reading a topic on the SC board about this topic and I thought hey lets find out what people really think...keep up on all the new hip hop there is no way to avoid the swear words it seems this music was made for it......personally I dont think anyone should tell someone they cannot sing a certain song because of the words ..come on people grow up ..you may not like it and i may not either but this a free country and everyone has the right to express themselves how they want..i get a lot of crap from one of the bar owners about the heavy metal..and my comment is it brings people in and it does ..like it or not...$$$$$$$$$... that the bottom..personally i dont let anyone control the type of music at my show..that one of the reason..Gemini Karaoke does so well..I have stuff other dont and I dont censor...come on this is 2008...if you too old to hear cuss words then take some exlax and go to bed..you shouldn't be up past your bed time...

I don't censor in my home room but do in my new quiet one. A guy wanted to do "Down With The Sickness" in the quiet room last time I did karaoke there and I didn't let him. And he was cool with it. I don't think he was expecting me to allow it anyway.

It's all in what's appropriate for each venue. Each place has it's own personality.

As a musician I've never been one who likes to be told just what I could write or sing about, and I wanted to carry that freedom of expression concept over to karaoke.

What I wanted was singers to be able to do material like "Aenima", "What I Got", "Shake That", "You Oughta Know". I was never expecting the phenomenon of things like Tenacious D or The Dan Band as karaoke. But when you open the door you gotta take it all.

I had no idea that there was even Tenacious D available on karaoke when I started. I remember early on when a guy asked me to get some. I said " No way will that be out on karaoke!" But he told me that yeah it was, because he had sung it somewhere in Portland.

And he sure was right.

No, you grow up. (And learn to use some whitespace and stop using run-on sentences. Are you a child?)

Respecting the right of people not to have to listen to those types of words if they don't want to is just as important. If the venue owner or host chooses to have a no-swearing policy, who are *you* to tell them they can't?

[font=verdana] Gemini, I take offense at your reference to ‘older people’. Just because we have a few years on you and came from a generation with some class, is no reason to put us down. I am in my “Golden Years” but that doesn’t mean I can’t party with the best of them, I would just prefer to do it with out verbal air pollution.

The fact that this kind of behavior is condoned, even encouraged by the younger generation doesn’t make it right or acceptable to the majority of the population. I know of several karaoke shows that do not allow any vulgarity and are very successful. These shows have as many young people as older. That is the kind of show I am striving to establish. I’m not going to make a big scene if someone drops the f-bomb, but prefer to rib them a bit in hopes they get the message. Of course, if they had taken the time to read the rules at the front of my books, they would already know that vulgarity is not acceptable.

What is interesting, is many of these people who use filthy language now, do grow out of it and become mature adults on the back side of thirty. Maybe you should “grow up!”
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Dusty Rose
Blue Rose Classic Karaoke
More Sound! More Selections! More Fun!
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didn't take long for Gem to start up with his antics...

Certain Venues restrict karaoke or bands participation, due to customers. It's not a matter of growing up. Profanity is by it's very nature RUDE. You know, that word that you accuse others of being.

Many people are offended by this. From the very old to the very young, from the wealthy to the poor... and that's why MANY don't allow hip-hop to be done, by it's use of such words.

so if we don't agree with Gem, we're "too old". I think it's more in line with the fact that we have taste not to use such songs in our clubs.

For the record, I am against censorship, but I think that common sense should also raise it's head. Do they have the right to MAKE such music? Absolutely. But I ALSO have the right to not play it, nor do I want to hear it. I DO sing some songs that have a SINGLE word or phrase in them that might be offensive. But I tell ya, in NEW venunes, I won't sing them. Around a new place where I don't know the clientel, I won't sing them.

Because I don't want to offend if I can avoid it.

Okay I'll bite.

Songs with profanity are show specific. If you are doing a childs party of course it isn't appropriate. If it is in the song and appropriate for the audience I see no problem with it.


Some KJs censor their books. That is their choice. If they don't want to do venues that want that type of music that is their prerogative.

So what's the big deal? I don't think it's worth arguing over.

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I am not a youngster but prefer to describe my age as "years of experience in the entertainment industry." I have always felt that excessive use of cussing (1) indicates a lack of better vocabulary, and (2) is an attempt at attention getting.

Not to get into the psychological aspects of it because that's not what this board is for, but purely from an entertainment perspective, things like F&&K Her Gently from Tenacious D was funny the first time and in the right environment gets HUGE applause from the crowd - but of course this is 100% crowd dependent. At other times, the expression on the faces of the audience is, "Oh gawd, when is THIS going to be over..."

Kind of the same topic (words that people can't seem to get out of their vocabularies), a really nice restaurant opened up near us recently. Clean, modern, great menu, etc., etc. All young kids working there. I had a discussion with the manager who got apps from upwards of 600 people for the 33 positions they had available. He said the process went very quickly initially with the first round of cutting because the applications were full of spelling mistakes, the script was not readable in many cases, they gave phone numbers that they didn't answer, etc. Those were immediately thrown in the discard pile.

The second round of live interviewing was almost as easy, he said, due to issues such as poor personal hygiene, inability to speak looking straight in the eyes of the interviewer, and CUSSING DURING THE INTERVIEW! Of much less significance is the fact that of those he hired, every single one of them refers to the clients as "you guys." I mentioned this and suggested that it wasn't consistent with the style of the restaurant. He agreed and immediately began 'retraining' the servers NOT to use the term "You guys." "How's the food, YOU GUYS?" "Can I get YOU GUYS anything else?" This is the best one "YOUR GUYZ'S food will be up in a minute."

It would seem that this type of language is very deeply embedded in "kids these days." Let it bleed over into your life at all and you could lose or not get a great job because of your inability to control it. Free country, sure is, but remember every time you open your mouth someone is listening.
(PS: Cuss words are part of my vocabulary but not for public consumption)

I could be wrong but I don't see songs with alot of swear words as keepers, i.e. songs that will last more than a couple years.

Interestingly, a cd store that I go (went) to used to have a huge selection of music from a wide variety of genres--classical, jazz, pop, you name it. A few years ago, I asked one of the guys who worked their what sold the most, and he said hip hop had become really popular. Ironically, he said they were also having a big shoplifting problem--people stealing hip-hop cd's! Go figure. I got to see the back room where they had photos posted of all the shoplifters. The wall was literally wall-papered with photos. Pretty depressing. This store was in a downward spiral for several years. It was clearly visible. Now they are out of business. Short term profits do not always mean long term success.

It's simple. If kids are present, no swearing. If the venue says no, no swaering. Other than that everything is game. The audience will let people know what's acceptable or not. It matters not to me. I'm flexible either way.

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I was all grown up many years ago 20 to be exact, I'm 53 now and consider myself very tolerant to many forms of music and open to listen to just about anything except songs with excess vulgarity in them.

I'm far from a prude but the folks that thrive on singing vulgar music are doing it to get a rise out the crowd good or bad. I have a broad range of age groups that attend my shows and private parties and we seem to get along just fine without the vulgar stuff. I have had many successful long term shows in my 9 years and never once has limiting vulgar songs become an issue with my venues or my customer base.

I have said numerous times that once the 20-35 set gets to be older I'm probably going to be out of business because I will not play that stuff in my shows, and that's ok cause by that time I will have had a long run in this business anyway. Some folks will condemn me here but this is where I draw the line. A song with one F word or even a couple is just fine but some songs of this nature are pure filth and do not belong in a public karaoke show IMHO

If I'm doing a private party that is different as long as I have permission to play that type of stuff but before I do I check it out with the people giving the party.

As Matt stated I not into censorship either, on the other hand I have a business reputation to uphold and reserve the right to protect it by controlling the level of vulgarity of music played at my venues.

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FlipSide Karaoke
Scott

A lot of great responses to this topic that i completely agree with. It IS rude to curse in public and the youth of today seem to use it to get more attention, even if the song only calls for one or two curse words.

Rather than battle the few that either don't mind it or the ones that thrive on it when drunk, i post a sign in BIG LETTERS under the singer lcd tv that says "Please don't curse, swing the mics, scream, or cupp the mics."

It doesn't always work, but most people with any common sense understand and are reminded that they are/can be judged by what comes out of their mouths.

I think cursing is akin to screaming on the mics- it's rude and most people would rather not hear it.

I have a woman who comes in almost every week. she changes the words to several of her songs so that every other word is the F bomb. 99% of the patrons love it , laugh and sing along. I have had 1 complaint from another patron in the last 6 months. another has told me she is less than impressed but understands that people enjoy it. she takes the "be and let be" approach. There is a bar about 10 blocks away also doing karaoke at the same time, they have poor sound, and a much smaller selection and less overall energy to there show. they have a pretty strict no swearing policy so the two balance out. the shows are enough different that we only have a few people who go between the shows.

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I've sung "You Oughta Know" but I clean up the words (see some of my earlier threads--I know I've talked about this before). I still try to put a lot of angst into the song, though!

I'm not that familiar w/Tenacious D, but once I was at a karaoke show where there were a few videos during a break, and one of their? his? videos came on and just about EVERYONE in the room was singing along ('cept me; I didn't know the song). I found out from someone that the artist was Tenacious D. Sorry, I don't remember the song or anything about the video--just that most of the people there seemed to be familiar with it.

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Once again we must endure Gemini's immature twaddle. At first, the topic appeared to be a legitimate topic asking if we let people sing songs containing cuss words. Then it all falls apart from there. The song content really depends on your clientele, I suppose. If you have a hip-hop crowd, that kind of comes with the territory. Those songs contain that language. I wouldn't spring that onto a country crowd or an oldies crowd or a pop crowd. Usually, one person will attempt a song out of the ordinary mix and if done well, it'll be accepted. I can see swear words in songs if it's part of the story line (like Allanis Morrisette's song You Ought To Know), but some just get written for purely shock value. Now, you didn't have to go on your little tirade on older karaoke fans and KJs. That really showed us what the post was really about, to incite others on this forum to react. Well, my small minded twit, you got what you wanted and now don't you feel just wonderful with yourself. Your over-inflated ego has hoisted yourself upon your own petard. Well, like most petards, it soon fizzles out and comes back to Earth. Just because you can get a lot of low-life thugs to come and scream obscenities into a microphone and drink all night, doesn't mean you are a success. When you have a show that has lasted the years that these fine people on this forum have, then come crowing about your success. Yeah, it is 2008, I figured we would be moving forward in intelligence, not regressing into base behavior and vulgarity. Oh, by the way, I don't need Ex-Lax! I crap just fine.

Karen I've been saying "you guys" for 25 years. I'm hardly a kid. I wish.

I always call a table of singers "you guys". I dunno... is that offensive? Maybe I overdo it.

Nope, no swearing at our show. Any genre is allowed including hip hop, however if there is any cussing in it, it does not go into the book. It is the clubs rule & since they are the ones paying me, they have the right to say WHAT can/cannot be done. We used to allow all songs - including the f-bomb songs. We also used to get a large rowdy college crowd. We used to also get some kind of a problem (usually a fight of some sort) almost nightly. What were these problem children singing> The F bomb songs! The manager & owner both got fed up & at that point told me to not only pull any songs with profanity but also ALL heavy hard core rock (this I eventually got overturned). I did argue that we would lose our big crowds - which we did! What I did not expect was GAINING a larger more well behaved SINGING crowd that spent more money & with no problems anymore (we average a fight about 1-2 per year).
Today we have bigger 'singing' crowds & most understand & accept why these songs aren't played - so it seems our low 20-mid 30's crowd HAS 'grown up' because they do not need to sing these songs to have fun!

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Once again, Lonman, ya proved my point.

Thank you Lonnie for posting that! I have said all along that my refusing to allow it would have very little impact on business, and usually if your show is a good one...it's like having your hand in a bucket of water, when you take it out the bucket, it quickly refills.

Interesting that you note that you had more bar fights and problems associated with it. I never really thought of that but I can understand how it could. Respect for themselves as well as others goes a long way! Something I think is missing in our youngsters these days. Don't get me wrong, I was a rebel when I was younger but I always respected others and especially folks older than I was. This was something that my parents passed on to me and have passed on to mine.

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FlipSide Karaoke
Scott

Took the f#%*@#* words right out of my mouth! Great answer Babs.

I can substitute words easily in the songs I do and not change the integrity of the song. Songs like:

Radioheads- Creep ( you're so VERY special )
Teslas-Signs ( BLOCKING up the scenery )

They're a few others, simply not an issue unless you make it one. My *%# .02 Rudy.

So Lonnie, these songs I mentioned in my previous post are not available in your show? Pearl Jams-Evenflow also? I just hate to see great songs excluded for one word. These are not college crowd songs and are totally different than some of the curse laden songs that are out today.

I wouldn't not frequent your show if some of these songs were not included, it would just be a shame to have to censor these songs because of the other ones, I guess you have to be consistent to be fair. Rudy.