Lesbians and karaoke: Laugh-riot, cringefest, or good clean fun?

I won't get up there until I've had at least 5 beers, but then it's no holds barred. Keep in mind that I'm a horrible singer.

My favorites include Since U Been Gone (everyone sings along and you can bounce up and down a lot), Baby Got Back (you don't actually have to be able to carry a tune), and Papa Don't Preach (you can channel Madonna and pretend you're strutting around with a leather jacket thrown over your shoulder like she did in the video).

On night a friend convinced me to do Take Me or Leave Me from "Rent" with him. I got to be Maureen. It was a trainwreck ... but sooo amusing.

You should totally do Carrie Underwood. The song and video are both awesome -- although it's hard to picture Carrie shooting whiskey and knocking out headlights with a  Louisville Slugger. Can she even lift one of those?

I would have paid to see Bridget do that :P

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Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart, because it's such a classic karaoke song. And heart-breaking. Just like my singing, really.

I have all the records on my sisters singstar games... :D

Now, singstar at home is one thing, karaoke out is totally different... Often I get sucked in to it by a friend going all " WE HAVE TO SING", me shrugging since I have had 4 beer/ciders/drinks saying choose a song. And when I get the mic in my hand I won't let go. But I do enjoy listening to various renditions of songs, laughing at the badness because it amuses my music nerd part.

I blame my education.

damn, i was half-expecting video of the aforementioned events to follow after the jump. 

there is a hardcore karaoke girl inside me that i have yet to let out. i have only been once, and didn't have enough drinks in me to make it up there...though i am itching to.  one day....

Come on...Cameron Diaz singing? real bad? and then winning the crowd? Thats a good one, can't get enough of it.. lol

The only time I karaoked, it involved Drag Queens, "we are the world", and of course, Mister Jose Cuervo!! "He" does has some seriuos power of convincing me to actually go in public and ...sing..ha!

Oh man, I love karaoke. I mean, I hate it, but I also love it.

I only tend to do songs I absolutely love and can fully commit to, or else you end up standing there during the instrumental going, "Why am I up here again....?"

A small sampling of the atrocities I've been responsible for: A Little Respect by Erasure, Crying and Crazy by Aerosmith, American Pie, Achy Breaky Heart, Common People and Hotel California. I'm sure there are loads of others but I (mercifully) can't remember them.

One of the best karaokes I've ever seen was a guy doing Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, complete with dance moves. It was awesome.

I've always, always wanted to do The Devil Went to Georgia but I've never felt strident enough yet. Proud Mary, too, and Baby It's Cold Outside when I find the right dueting partner. Someday!

"it's hard to picture Carrie shooting whiskey and knocking out headlights with a Louisville Slugger. Can she even lift one of those?"

Carrie Underwood can do anything she wants!

If I were in a karaoke bar, I think I'll be able to empty the place quickly. I love karaoke though. It doesn't matter how bad you are, it's just fun to sing your favourite songs out loud with your friends.

When I go to the KTV(what we call karaoke here) with my friends, we basically line up all the english songs available and sing for at least 3 hours. We cover ABBA to NSYNC to Katharine McPhee to Justin Timberlake. And this is just for english songs. I haven't even mentioned the ones in Mandarin.

When I'm singing, I try to sing it realistically, unless its a song that you can go OTT on such as Dancing Queen. The funny thing is since my voice is low, I usually have to cover the guy parts of songs, or I sing the low parts while my friends come in on the higher parts. But lately I've been belting out in the higher range too. I haven't killed anybody's eardrums....yet.

I got you babe from Sonny & Cher

hahahaha it was pretty funny because me & my best friend are both ingredibly untalented when it comes to carry a tune. The problem was the people with whom we played singstar - they were all good at it ... and they made some mean jokes (*ssholes!)

But being bad at it doesn't stop me and this friend of mine to have a myspace band lol, so if you're into real bad but superfunny karaoke songs, go to our site -->

The only karaoke I ever did was Careless Whisper from George Michael, and only because I was on the other side of the planet...

There may be some Chinese people who'll never want to hear that song again, though.

I've done karaoke a fair few times.

 Like...three times.

 The last time, a group of friends (yes, lesbians) sang Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and horribly and tragically sober--thank goodness the rest of the bar was drunk enough for us.

 I've a decent voice, apparently jazz is my style because I pulled a wicked Diana Krall last year, so I'm not one to run from karaoke. I'd rather be the one cheering on the drunken, funny folk--would've loved to see Bridget singing. Actually, wait, I would pay gold to see Karman get up and give a tune a try. Seriously.

 Karaoke and lesbians=peanut butter and chocolate. Hands down. We do it so well even when we would do better not singing at all. :-) 

attempt to sing Madonna songs...Attempt!!

I love karaoke, give me "Eye of the Tiger" anytime, sober or intoxicated, and I will sing it will all the passion in me. And someday, I will sing the song in tune, too.

I wish I could give a karaoke performance even just 1% as awesome as this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU0xTkqDvyQ&feature=related

Erasure - A little Respect is high up there amongst others. I think the best approach to Karaoke is to go with the cheese. Cheese it right up, and you'll find that you have a winner.

Call me Al is always a winner, and around this time of year, Fairytale of New York is always an A lister. That's without even breaking out the musical barrel.

A long road

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But thumbs up to people who go up and sing in any case because you need guts. I rarely have the guts unless i have drunk a certain amount of beer. I play in a band and sing and I think is 100 times harder to sing at a karaoke night. The last song I sang at a karaoke night ( + beer) was Mr Bombastic by Shaggy... it was funny... and terrible!

www.myspace.com/slowgun

I've actually put a lot of thought into this exact question. Why?, you ask. Well, because I think that sometime in the future I will be dared, or maybe I'll lose a bet, and I will have to get up and karaoke (yes, verb). My thoughts went something like this: Which song would I love to sing? Total Ecplipse of the Heart is no 1. But wait, that bit with the powder keg? I don't even know what that's about and it's too much lyrics sung with too much power without breathing time. No, that won't work. Ooh! Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. That would be awesome. Again with too many words but this one's do-able. But oh so depressing. Then it came to me. Son of A Preacherman. A feel good song. A lot of words. I know it by heart, every beat. And I don't care about the meaning of it.

Now Singstar is a whole other thing. There's no singing involved in Singstar, it's all about cheating the game, and it's easy too! But it's fun. Fun, fun, fun! Best party game ever. Favourite? Total Eclipse of the Heart.

I've only karaoked one time, but it doesn't count. I was forced to at a b-day party and didn't get to choose which song. The punch line: It was recorded and the CDs were given out as gifts at the same party.

Its almost tradition ever since my cousin got a karaoke for Christmas like 5 years ago that we unleash the classic Shakira songs in Spanish after a little too much eggnog...Also Andrea Bocceli and some Alejandro Fernandez but yeah thats REALLY when we have gone overboard with our Grandpas medicine cabinet...

i guess i karaoke to what i can sing.Even i know i sing somehow worse or so-so..i will still sing.For the fun.Hahaha...

Most of the time me and my friends will sing to oldies songs.Like Mariah Carey "Hero" or BSB or some Malay songs.The fun of singing together and be crazy at the same time.That's what you call "drunken singing"

Why not..sing and dance to her music;)

"it's all coming back to me now"

performed with equal parts passion and tongue-in-cheek 

is usually what me and my mates wail away to, whilst trying to sound as monotone as possible.

My best friend and I did a legendary rendition of sk8er boi...knee slides and everything. That'spretty cool to rock out to.

Otherwise, gotta love 'Proud Mary,' 'Hey Mickey,' 'Material Girl,'...

Can't believe you guys actually have lesbian karaoke bars. Closest thing we get to Karaoke for queers over here is a token night where you're guaranteed to be belittled by the brutal drag-queen host (regardless of whether or not you were asking for it!)

and equal amount of beers to stand up (among a group no less) to do "Dancing Queen" (don't you laugh!!) and "Like a prayer" just over a year ago at a Xmas Karaoke party. We were told that we rocked the first and ruined the second (I think there was a two or three drinks inerval between the songs, so I couldn't say I'm surprised that our abilities deteriorated).

BUT: all the time I was trying to pluck up the courage to stand up on my own on that tiny stage and sing "Jolene". I ain't no Dolly but I really love that song. And maybe I will stand up there and butcher that lovely song sometime in the future. (By the way, the guy who won did an excellent rendition of "Hector" by Morissey).

and I was out with my girlfriend recently and she wanted us to go into a karaoke bar. I couldn't even tell her. Should I come out?

A friend and I used to enjoy Sunday afternoons at a pub and they used to have karaoke with people from a local old people's home. We really loved it, got to know their names, who was flirting with whom, etc. Any way, after a couple of months, people started looking at us with a "put out or get out" look. We knew we couldn't compete. So we got out permanently.

Good times, good times...

Two years ago I spent my birthday in San Antonio w/my sister who persuaded me to get up there - after drinking.. oh everything - w/her. You know. For moral support. The excuses afterward ranged from "I was singing you just didn't hear me" to "my mic wasn't plugged in". Nevertheless, I was left hangin' to handle You Oughtta Know - which is actually quite fun to sing. That's the beauty of karaoke - it truly doesn't matter what you sound like as long as you're having fun. Who cares! If people really cared about this issue would karaoke machines regularly show up at BARS? Oh and if my sister ever asks you to sing w/her for moral support - she's a damn liar and you'll be going at it solo.  

But seriously, karaoke (or "noraebang" as it's called in Korea) is huge in Seoul. It's something the uptight, uber-conservative, middle-aged businessmen and the purple-haired, leather collar sporting, post-teen punks have in common -- the Koreans love to get drunk and sing...badly.

Don't get me wrong, there is a plethora of foriegn folk who give it a whirl, too -- myself included. Some of my sapphic sisters and I like to scratch our singing itch every so often. In fact, there are several karaoke spots very close to the gay heart of the city, fondly (or not, depending...) referred to as "Homo Hill".

The Korean style is much easier for the stage-shy, as it's less of a bar and more of a collection of separate rooms that your rent by the hour that have large tvs, speakers, and various other karaoke apparati (usually including a tamborine or two, which Bridget would love).

While I would love to sing (and, despite better judgment, attempt to sing on occassion) songs in the stylings of Mariah, Whitney, or Alicia, my karaoke is much better recieved by an audience when I do (even more) campy versions of Queen, the Eagles, White Cherry, Rick James, etc. Cher is about as feminine as my voice can go these days.

Oh, I also wanted to say that for any of you in the New Orleans area that there used to be (and, I believe, still is) a fun karaoke fling at one of the gay bars in the French Quarter called, "Good Friends." It's on St. Ann a couple of blocks from Bourbon, and in the middle of gay New Orleans (though pretty much all of New Orleans is a little gay).

Sadly, the regular MC of the show is no longer working there (another unfortunate side-effect of Katrina), but she was a rather fun butch bartender who would always open the show with her fabulous rendition of Connie Vannett's "The Pussy Cat Song."

For any lesbian who likes to karaoke, this really is an excellent choice. For those unfamiliar with the song, google it --trust me, it's worth the google effort.

Honestly, everyone knows someone who has "just a friendly little cat."