Videoke Love

Stop laughing. I love videoke. LOVE it. I have a deep and abiding passion for videoke that I don’t think would even be possible in Canada. In Canada we treat karaoke as something to be ashamed of – we sing it self-consciously, with irony. We abuse karaoke, basically – we laugh at it and hurt its dignity and when we’re done we forget about it until the next time we’re drunk. We’re callous and karaoke deserves so much better.

But here, people love videoke with the passion is deserves. Here people sing it without shame, without irony. People take videoke seriously and sing it with abandon. People in the Philippines treat videoke right and it rewards them with the freedom to sign, badly or well, the way only an atmosphere of true love can.

But if you’re a Canadian in the Philippines (you callous brute) and videoke decides to give you a second chance, you’re going to need to take some advice. Hence, three rules for videoke novices:

1. Knowing a song’s chorus does not mean you know the song. In fact, main melodies are often quite different from the chorus. You can try that song you “think” you know, just realize that the only sociable reaction to the embarrassed silence that ensues when you realize you don’t is to pass the mike off to someone who does.
2. The key you think a song is in is not the key the videoke machine thinks the song is in. Transpose, or be prepared for some spectacular octave jumps.
3. Don’t wait to enter your song numbers. You may think you need some time before choosing a song to get into the videoke groove. That is because you’re a videoke novice. Everyone else at your table has 3 or 4 favourites already queued up. So has everybody at all the other tables. So if you hesitate, you’ll be waiting for your songs long after your friends are finished, feeling slightly ridiculous for making people wait so you can sing ‘Piano Man’.

You’ll need some songs, too, and while that’s an intensely personal decision people make within their relationship with videoke, I hope you can learn from the top 17 songs that bring meaning to Megan’s videoke experience:

1. Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonny Taylor
2. Making Love Out of Nothing at All – Air Supply
3. Like a Prayer – Madonna
4. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
5. Africa – Toto
6. Without You – Air Supply. (Air Supply is one of those bands most people don’t realize you know until you hear them. I cant’ liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive, if living is without you……)
7. My Humps – Black Eyed Peas (Ok, I’m a little ashamed of this, even here.)
8. Material Girl – Madonna
9. Bang Bang – Sonny and Cher
10. Eternal Flame – The Bangles
11. Narda – Kamikaze (I’m trying to learn more Tagalog songs, but there’s so many syllables, so little time.)
12. Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – Frankie Valli
13. Piano Man – Billy Joel
14. It Must Have Been Love – Roxette
15. Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond
16. Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
17. I’ll Be – Edwin McCain

There you go – Air Supply, Madonna, and a bunch of one-hit Wonders. Videoke loves me just the way I am :p