Karaoke Forums

You know, what really irks me is SC's profound reluctance to get with the times. In the business world, this is a clear failure to adapt.

I'd like to remind everyone why SC is, for all intents and purposes, out of business. They blame piracy in court, but I contend that they failed to recognize and react to the changing dynamics of the industry. Specifically, karaoke manufacturers that survived had one thing in common - they concentrated on "Hits of the Month". The secret to their success was picking the right hits well in advance of their peak in popularity and getting them to market quickly so hosts would have them before singers started asking for them.

Sure, piracy was part of it, but in SC's case, their failure to adapt to this was, in my opinion, the reason why they essentially went out of business. If you wanted a new song from SC, you would wait 3-6 months after THM, PHM and CB released it. By then, most everyone already had it.

Why one earth would SC forbid the ripping of their disks. While I understand that this is a right reserved under law, what I don't understand is why they would exercise this right and hold their customers who legally purchased these disks accountable. And furthermore, I'll even go out on a limb and say that Mr. Harrington's views on this matter may not accurately reflect those of Sound Choice and/or Kurt Slep.

I will absolutely split my disks and if they want to sue me, a customer who legally purchased their music, then so be it. Maybe that is what it will take to get the law changed.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

Don't know how you figure they are 'out of business', they may not be producing anything new, but have other things going.

As far as their monthly releases went, I preferred it personally. Many of the PHM tracks that were getting released were so hit or miss & here today gone tomorrow - that many of the tracks (although admittidly better then, than what PHM is putting out today) would never get sung anyway - I have some PHM discs from the 90's that as far as I can tell have never been used to date and these were bought new when I had the 'have to have it first' mentality. When SC did release, you'd know if they were songs to actually pick up because of some longevity to them, instead of just to have first for the bragging rights only to have them never (or rarely) be played.

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

Or solidify it

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

Don't do it Troy......if you change your mind......they're almost impossible to glue back together....

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

Yeah, piracy recovery. Can't say that I blame them for doing what they do, just don't agree with how they do it. They're a shell of their former selves.



I have very few PHM disks. During that era, I (we) went with THM. They were seemingly much quicker to market and they had more "hits" than any other manu with monthly releases (Hits of the Month). Even so...

The dynamics of my market have changed, too - and I'm sure it's not unique to this area. In order to stay in business, you must have the newest releases when they hit the radio or be able to get them at the drop of a hat - because that's what people expect around here. It's so competitive that I don't dare take the chance of someone complaining to the bar or bartender that I don't have their song. (Although, my bartenders at my main show know I'll download a song that I don't have, if it's available).

What I'm trying to say is that some of us who are in a saturated market have to compete. We can't (couldn't) wait for SC to put out a disk 3 months later with the best versions of a song with the most hits. By then, we are (or were) forced to buy the songs elsewhere.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

I'm not talking their piracy recovery effort, they have other things that they do do.

And I was lumping Pop Hits & Top Hits together as I did buy both at one point in time. They often overlapped their tracks - not always on the same month either, one would come out with tracks one month & the other the next month or two later.
As far as having to have newest music, not around here I can tell you that. It's worse now than it was in the 90's as far as new releases - and just sitting. I am probably the only company that DOES try to keep up around here - I have hosts from other shows come into mine because they say the place they work don't get anything new - so as far as that goes, the new stuff is cool to have. As far as the regular singers that come in, they could care less what 'current' radio songs the majority of the time. I was telling someone today, I have bought every PHM released this year - 36 discs - 324 songs, MAyBE (and this is being VERY (probably overly) generous) 1 song per disc gets sung on avg.
The All Star new releases are almost as stagnant, although they do tend to get a little more play overall.
I can run a show for the next 5 years without buying any 'current' radio tracks and not lose any customers - no one else has them either. Now the 'new' OLD songs that get requested by the singers is a different story. Out of requested songs, I have bought around 350 (give or take) individual song tracks for singers, every song has been done at least once and often go into their regular repretoire.

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

bingo!!!
thank you....i was getting tired of retyping that every month or so.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

the way the music has been the last several years, it is huge today, dead two months later. if we waited for SC to put it out 3,4,5 months later, what good is it? the singers will go to who has it NOW when it is hot.
that of course depends on your clientelle. the clubbing kid crowd are the biggest drinkers out there especially when it comes to shots and bombers and they like the hot now stuff. i think being on time with the songs, especially in the flakier times of today, is vitally important.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Agree 100%. I am a big statistics guy and I would be willing to bet that I could find a positive correlation between age and "ticket amount" (what I mean by that is how much each person spends). This means that younger people spend more and older singers are more likely to be water drinkers.

Younger people are also the ones that are more likely to want the new music. If I were doing a show where the average age was over 40, I probably wouldn't have to worry about buying much new music. But, that is not the case and that is not a demographic I want to be saddled with. (No problem with older folks like me - it's just the young ones are often times the dumb ones who can drop a whole paycheck in one night).

And one more thing, if you want to increase profitability for your bar owners, you need to work together on increasing that average ticket sales. If you can work hard at selling shots, food and just keeping people around longer in general, it is very conceivable to double your average ticket with some simple tactics.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

[/quote]I wish I could get singers doing new stuff. Some of it actually like. Funny thing is most of the 20 somethings are singing the hard rock and pop from the 90's- early 2000's. When new songs DO get done on occasion, the majority of the people trying them are in their 30-40's.
I find quite the opposite as far as the younger people though as well. The younger ones (at least in our club) tend to come in groups and drinka few pitchers of beer between them, while the older people are the ones putting down money on the harder alcohol & bombers.

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

Of the newer stuff, I get people singing Adele, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, and whatever is new in Country. That is one of the disadvantages of living in Florida. Lots of Country singers.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

On slow nights, I encourage them to try new stuff. Many times, I "encourage" them to let me pick their song. I know my singers pretty well, as well as their styles - so I am usually pretty good about picking the songs. If they bomb the song, I do the VirtualDJ "Backspin" and apologize for my disk "skipping" and start one of their normal songs (yet another reason why I love Virtual DJ)

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

With my close friends, i like to do scary-oke. I will just throw whatever at them. It can be very entertaining, and everyone gets a good laugh. I have them pick songs for me, too.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Troy I'd have to disagree with you in regards to the younger people buying more than the older ones, at least around here. In my area, I find the younger people tend to drink at home, then go out and nurse a drink or two, while the older people in better income brackets buy more in the venues. What is it like in other areas. (Maybe a moderator would like to split this into its own thread, if interested).

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You can be strange but not a stranger

In NY the ones with more money were the cheap ones. You would see these older, well to do codgers drinking water or soda. Then you had the Divas, mostly women, who didn't want to hurt their voices, only drinking water or tea. (yes I said tea. Some of the places I used to hang out when I lived up there were restaurants).

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Those are some of the only 'newer songs' that get done - but even they were really short lived, I even bought up a bunch more (Bruno Mars & Adele in particular) because I "thought" they'd have a little more appeal to them, Imagine Dragons get done but only by a couple people. Adele was done to death, not so much anymore.

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

i have most of the older crowd will nurse a can of blue ribbon that is $1.50 and the younger crowd will buy the $6.00 mixed drink and shots up the yin yang. i even see a few older ones coming in with the Mio flavoring to put in their free water. WTF????? who is that assinine?

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Around here the younger ones buy cheap pitchers of beer while the older folks only drink water with lemon to "save their voices".

The occasional diva will buy shots of peppermint schnapps or rumplemintz.

The bar refuses to sell bottled water and tap water is available to everyone. The servers hate that!

Tea or coffee is rarely ordered by singers.

If it weren't for late-night food they serve which is better than most other places, they'd go broke and not have any entertainment at all.

Keeping on topic....

MOST of our younger 20-30 year-olds sing songs from the 80's and 90's and the new stuff i buy like Adele, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, rarely get requested by them. Those songs are sung more often by the 40+ crowd but not very often. Nearly everyone sings Country songs that are at the least + 3 years old. The only "new" song that gets done lately is Gangnam Style.

I could ALSO survive 5 years without buying any new songs. It wouldn't put much of a dent in the business and would only disappoint a handful of tourists, and some older singers that wanted new releases.

I now only order what's requested, and most of it is older obscure songs i don't already have. SBI seems to put out a lot of new "old songs".

Spending habits are different everywhere you go, as are song choices. Mostly, I sing the oldies, but everywhere I go, there are always a few of the songs that I sing, to which I get the response from the KJ......no one's ever sung that song here. There are so many great oldies available, that are rarely sung. During the mid 80's and 90s(my four kids' music hot period, and I DJ'ed on a regular basis), I heard songs that I thought would endure for many years to come......so far, I was mistaken. Songs from the 50/60/70's tend to endure longer, because that's all we had when we were young.
I'd like to add, that many older singers can't drink, because of many good reasons, and depending on the venue, they often drop a good buck on dinner, before the show starts, and then stick around for the karaoke. They would not dine at that venue, if it were not for the karaoke, but many KJs just see them as water drinkers during their show.