Karaoke Forums

Ok, so I am the entertainment at CAPE (carnival after prom event) in 2 weeks and I will have 400 or more kids present. I have run into a bit of money so I am going to upgrade my PAs so I have 2 pair. I am looking for suggestions for songs to keep high school kids happy. Please don't suggest Taylor Swift or HM, already done that. I know some will still like the old stuff and I don have a few of the pop hit monthly songs from recent months. What I would like is a list of 20 or 30 songs by artist that I should make sure I have in my libary to make this a success. I am hoping to pick up some late graduation gigs out of this gig.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Let me clarify. I realize that the song list by itself doesn't make the event a success. I want the song list to contribute to the success.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

I'd say if you can get it, Lady Gaga - I did a rollerderby gig last weekend and all the under 21-ers LOVE her...Also the new Brit Spears stuff. Another gig I did where there were some seniors, believe it or not they did the Hillary D, Miley C, HSM, and Cheetah Girls.

The way I figure these situations out is to find out what radio station they're listening to - check out that play list and others similar, check out Billboard for the last six mos as well, and have the top 20-30 of those songs. Also, Rhapsody and Napster are pretty spot on with the most popular downloads. I'd venture a lot of the kids you'll be playing to are downloaders.

Bill might be a good one to answer this - he seems to run with a younger crowd....

Wow not that young!

To be honest I wouldn't know what to stock for teens. But based on what some of my younger (early 20s) singers have been into lately I'll put up a few suggestions. All these are just off the top of my head, and sung by several so they're not one shots.


Pink - Who Knew
Rhianna - Take A Bow (both these are popular choices because they're very easy to sing)
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Definitely Lady GaGa
Britney - Circus and Womanizer

This just may be my room but I've been getting quite a few trying Ting Tings.
That's Not My Name
Shut Up And Let Me Go
Once again Ting Tings are very simple to do and really get the place moving.

Make sure you've got Baby Got Back. They all know it by heart. There is a reason why it's currently a Burger King commercial.

"Who Knew" is easy to sing? I can't get past the 3rd line on the outro screaming without having to just let it go for the sake of the crowd--or else I just go lower instead of up. Having the same trouble with "My LIfe Would Suck Without U." I'm trying to be modern but just don't have the range for it. Darn those youngun's.

A question I have about the teen set is do the parents care about the content or are they used to it? I am in the process of "cleaning up" our lists for a younger crowd and definitely would take out something like Nickelback's "Animals" but then remind myself how silly we thought it was when the Stones had to sing "Lets spend the DAY together." I mean, where does it end? But who wants parents coming after you?

There will be a certain percentage of parents who would NEVER believe that their kids listen to that 'stuff.' A lot of them just ignore the fact that they listen to it because barring taking away iPODS, turning off the music, staying away from the mall, they're going to hear it and parents apparently choose their battles now more carefully. Good luck in cleaning up the library. My feeling is the kids who want to sing will ask over and over again for the music that has been removed. There are very few bands/singers who don't move into that PG territory these days. Maybe Miley Cyrus, but I'm sure she'll get there as soon as daddy isn't watching.

Sorry - when I said it's easy to sing, I meant that it has a recognizable melody which is rare today. But yeah - young voices just sail on up there.

I'll add a couple of Beyonce... Single Ladies and If I Were A Boy.

Both done quite a bit. But my room is not teens! A five year difference... say between 17 and 22... is huge in this age group.

edit: Another I just thought of:
O.A.R. - Shattered (good song too)

Thanks for the suggestions. I will work on that.

As far as my censored list, I don't have one. I created a "Let's all have fun" bullet list based of mcky and lonman's rules and just for this gig I added " I reserve the right to stop a song if I realize it could be offensive to anyone."

That being whether when slip is turned in or song is being sung.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Oh--back to the question--the young people I work with are obscessed at the moment with "Mercy" by Duffy .

I agree on the recognizable melody for today's songs--I like both beat and melody and it's difficult to find both in the same song these days.

The teen boys in our area seem to be rap oriented but the girls are also aware of country--besides Taylor Swift they will do the likes of "Suds in the Bucket" and Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood. In the one foray we did to the local youth-oriented karaoke, there seemed to be a bit of beatboxing and improvising that would go on long after the song ended. The crowd seemed to like it, rather than resent the extra stage time but you never know......

This was a request list given to me for a teen party a few weeks ago to get you started:

I’m Yours- Jason Mraz
Lucky- Jason Mraz
Remedy-Jason Mraz
Love Story- Taylor Swift
Love Song- Sarah Bareilles
Time of My Life- David Cook
Crush- David Archuleta
Take A Bow- Rihanna
Single Ladies- Beyonce
Party Starter- Will Smith
Low- Flo Rida
Disturbia- Rihanna
Over My Head- The Fray
Hot n Cold- Katy Perry
I Kissed a Girl- Katy Perry
Viva la Vida- Coldplay
Violet Hill- Coldplay
Forever-Chris Brown
Kiss Kiss- Chris Brown
Bleeding Love- Leona Lewis
Apologize- Timbaland
Wordplay- Jason Mraz
Just Dance- Lady Gaga

A big +1 for the Katy Perry songs. I must be losing my mind not including them...

Thanks for all your help! I will check these against my songbook and try to get as many as possible!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Thanks all, this is what I came up with (except the first song which I downloaded just cuz I remembered I wanted it) from the list you all gave me in regards to high school students. I think I will play them all first. I was thinking I could play "everyting about you" until I played it and the f bomb came into play. Anyway, this is the list of songs I now have for my high school gig in a couple weeks.


The Escape Club Wild, Wild, West
Katy Perry I Kissed a Girl
Kid Rock All Summer Long
David Archuleta Crush
Rihanna Take A Bow
Beyonce Single Ladies
Katy Perry Hot n Cold
Cold Play Viva la Vida
Hilary Duff With Love
Flo Rida Low
Duffy Mercy
Chris Brown Forever
Jason Mraz I'm Yours
Leona Lewis Bleeding Love
Ting Tings That's Not My Name
Lady Gaga Just Dance
Lady Gaga Poker Face
Timbaland Apologize
Sara Evans Suds in the Bucket
O.A.R. Shattered
The Fray Over My Head
Pink Who Knew

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

My friend and I just did an 8th grade Catholic school dance a couple months back, and I saved all the papers the kids wrote requests on that I was not going to play for fear of angry teachers. There were 40+ papers that said "Gives You Hell," the new All-American Rejects song. I wanted to play it, but in that situation we judged it was probably not appropriate. It didn't help that, even when playing a radio edit of a song that said "nigger" in it, all the kids started singing along the un-edited lyric. Ugh.

So I wished I had talked to the person that booked us and said hey, give us some good guidance on what is and is not appropriate for your group. Because "Gives You Hell" probably would have been fine but I elected to err on the side of caution.

And radio edit songs are great for non-bar gigs. You can subscribe to www.promoonly.com and they send you discs every month, they even have DVDs if you want music videos. It is a service for DJs. Sometimes it can be a waste of money but if you do a lot of private shows where radio edits are appropriate, these tracks will help you a lot.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ