Karaoke Forums

I wondering if there is an unspoken rule whether or not there really are songs or artists which are considered to be taboo to sing at karaoke (and not smply due to ethnically offensive or profanity-laced material). Really long songs (like "American Pie" at over 7 minutes long would probably fall in this category). Any thoughts?

Not anyplace I have seen. Most of taboo has to do with language. And baby, we have had some discussions on that one. (There are two major camps on the ends -- one who "doesn't believe in censorship" and one who "wants to keep it clean". And a middle ground who do what the venue and crowd seems to want. )

Most people who try American Pie only do it once unless they are masochists or sadists. I don't have American Pie in my book, nor Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. Both hand-removed from my library and simply not on the disk. I also don't list Tenacious D, Adam Sandler, Red Philips, the Bloodhound Gang, or "The Rodeo Song" in my books, though at certain places after 10 or 11 I will own up to having a small bit of that type of material.

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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.

I don't actively discourage long songs, but I do sometimes say on the microphone, " so and so is singing one of the longest songs I have". That usually keeps others from doing the same thing

In the UK it is now Taboo to sing or even play material by a once popular 70's Glam Rocker called Gary Glitter. His penchant for child porn means his catchy songs are now never played or sung

which is frustrating for any girl who wants to do the Joan Jett version of "do you wanna touch me".

Mind you I think i give my audience too much credit.... most wouldn't know that was a Gary Glitter cover. Not chancing it though.

On Extremely busy nights, we flat out don't allow long songs after 12:30 that are 6 minutes or more.

As for censoring, we only censor those that are verbally offensive depending on the club or the type of audience we have.

We did have a bar owner that disallowed ANY gospel in his bar... if they put one in, we were instructed to send them to see him. He would explain to them that gospel has no place in his sports bar and that if they really wanted to sing gospel, they could only after they and the bar owner would open a beer in the front row of their Sunday church services. It shut them down very quickly.

The "censorship" should come from management and should be one of the initial conversations you have when you accept a gig.

As far as AMERICAN PIE or PBTDBL or other longer songs, As a KJ you may not like LONG songs but my opinion you have to let them be sung. Pbtdbl is a favorite of singers .....WHO USUALLY OR HAVE NEVER SUNG KARAOKE.

My Thursday night gig is all 20somethings and the customer love to hear and sing many of the new and older HIP HOP ...full of "N" words and "F" words etc.
Management doesn't mind and the people love it .... no harm no foul.
I HATE IT .....

True that ultimately it should come from management however, common sense and little decorum is also called for from the KJ. In a restaurant situation if it's early and there are children present, there will be no offensive songs - period. Once the kids are gone, it's pretty much open season.

As far as the long songs are concerned, we see our job as one that should allow as many people as possible to participate. Using up 2 time slots for a long song if there are those that haven't had a chance is something that we monitor. We'll tell them to change their song to a shorter one, we won't cut them out completely and they've never had a problem with it.

We have one guy that has an affinity for picking only those songs that are MORE than 6 minutes... so he picks them early and gets them out of the way.

wise man I would give that man a DB

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Like a lot of other questions posed on this forum, at our shows at least, my responses hinge on venue/crowd/time scenarios. Long stuff? I allow it occasionally but will often joke and respond to someone who asks if I have PBTDBL that someone sang it last week and we only allow it once a month. Or I roll my eyes back in my head when they ask...they get the hint. Let me also qualify this by saying that if/when we're jamming in as many people at the end of the night, those long songs are a no-no. No sense in punishing those who have waited to get in one more song.

As far as things like Rodeo Song, Letter to My (@$%&#!), etc., again, venue/crowd dependent. If there is a room full of dudes who've been out hunting or fishing all day and come in to lift a few, sure enough one of them will put up the Rodeo Song and 99% of the time that's okay with me.

I don't make pat rules because I even want to break them at times.

I agree - common sense should rule..... RESTAUARANTS are a special venue all together and also are BARS with FOOD before 10PM
But after 10pm in a BAR if you are someone ( NOT YOU ) who is sitting there drinking with CHILDREN ...you may have bigger issues

I have to really agree with Karen.

I have stated before that I don't like to be a Karaoke Nazi, and have too many rules. I try to treat every situation and venue individually, and hopefully correctly.

I just didn't realize the real reason I don't like hard rules. I may need to break them someday, or at least choose to break them. No rules, no breaking.

Felix the KJ

I do a pretty good One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer. During the long instrumental part I usually go on a comedic spiel giving props to the host, the bar staff and other general funny stuff. Never had a problem with the long songs although I won't take my usual two per turn when I do those out of respect. The long ones I do are:
White Bird by It's A Beautiful Day
One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer by Thorogood
Three Little Pigs by Green Jelly
Sweet transvestite and Time Warp together...I just have to. Ask Supercharged, he'll tell ya.

On my Wednesday night gig, I welcome "American Pie", all 9 minutes of it. This is when I get to take a short break without anyone realizing it. It gives me a chance to visit with some of the regulars. I have one guy that sings it everytime he comes in but lately he's not in every week. I look at it like this, let them sing what they want and they will keep coming back. To me that's good business.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

I wonder how many people were in there praying for their team to win?

I'm with rumbolt. Gives me a chance to take a break. Then again, different venues, different policies.

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Kevin

Hey! Would that mean "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" and "Holly Holy" would be taboo?

...and Norman Greenbaum's Spirit In The Shy and The Doobie Brother's Jesus Is Just Alright With me.

As a singer I sure wish some songs would be pulled that are 7 - 9 minutes long.

Total Eclipse Of The Heart is one of them. A lady sang it other night and seriously 5 people left that had been watching all night.

A bad songs even worse with a bad singer but it's all subjective really.

I felt bad for her she was trying and having fun.

Many people pick those LONG songs just because they are LONG. They feel like they are getting an extra turn because they are on stage for twice as long as many of the other singers. If three minutes of singing is fun; then eight minutes of singing must be even more fun. If I get to sing 3 times a night and I sing American Pie, Paradise By The Dashboard Light and Loadout/Stay, I'm on stage for about 25 minutes as opposed to some guy who mostly sings songs by The Beatles that are hardly ever over three minutes long. That guy is going to be on stage for barely nine minutes, if he's lucky. I would never do such a thing. I'm just using myself and those particular songs as an example. I know that karaoke is not a timed event. I'm just trying to understand the mindset of the people that always seem to be singing the longest songs in the book. I don't know if it's a coincidence but it seems that the worst singers are the ones that most often sing these long songs and then it makes these long songs seem even longer than they really are.

there have been hosts I've spoken with in the past that put time limits on certain songs. To me, it's about the singers and what they want.

Now I HAVE spoken with someone like Bruce is talking about, someone that just loves to sing LONG songs so they're up there LONGER. I had a regular I FINALLY said something to him about "you're taking up WAYYYY too much time on here. I'm getting complaints." He grinned and said he knew he was pushing it, and his next song was a 4 minute song!

But I didn't want to say anything to him about it because other than the length, he was a PURE pleasure to have at the show. He was a terrific singer, and had a very energizing show presentation. People loved the guy!

I wil say that I've gotten long songs toward the end of a night when I'm very busy, and I've asked them to pick something else due to trying to get enough singers up in the rotation... as much as I thought was fair. But some just WANTED to sing those songs.

Ultimately, I ended up letting them do it, and just shrug my shoulders and say, "it's JUST karaoke!"