Sunday, February 26, 2006 - scary-aoke

last night i went to one of those korean karaoke bars with private rooms on 32nd street, which was a fun but somewhat unsettling experience. the controls were all in korean, so a couple of times when we tried to program songs in or try to get applause (they had an applause button!) we would shut down the system. instead of the typical cheesy "plot goes along with the lyrics" background video they usually have, there were vacation videos, a lot of them looking homemade, some of korea but others of london, paris and hawaii? (the funniest being a bunch of poylensian men in skirts dancing on a beach) after every song a fast-talking female korean disembodied voice gave you a "score" but since all the text that went along with the number, which was always between 84 and 92, was in korean, it was impossible to decipher what exactly determined the scoring.

what i found most peculiar was the fact that songs which were so clearly remakes, were listed under the artists that remade them. for example, "hallelujah" was credited to "shrek," rather then leonard cohen, or even more recently, jeff buckley. but perhaps the biggest travesty, "you can't hurry love' was credited to PHIL COLLINS.

it should be said that back in 2000 i could not stop listening to the supreme's greatest hits (a ginourmous 21 song cd) for a few months straight. my friend tim had brought it with us on a three day weekend trip that 10 of us took to vermont. it was a three hour road trip to a ski cabin in the middle of august for a good friend's wedding, and we made the most of the time we had there. it felts like a mini-vacation, complete with big family style dinners, table "surfing," trivial pursuit, and lots of beer. the supremes provided the soundtrack for the whole trip. i was obsessed with that cd after that weekend, and still have intense emotions over those songs.

so to hear diana ross's heartfelt life lessons (disguised as an r&b song) credited to phil collins, who i think covered it for a bad movie soundtrack, was inexcusable. from now on i'm sticking to the miale's carefully organized (by artist, song and genre) list, i am certain mrs.miale knows her motown.

cause as long as you know who really sings it, its a great karaoke song: The Supremes You Can't Hurry Love Lyrics

ps. i also learned that judas priest's "you got another thing comin..." although total fun played on guitar hero, does not go over as well sung with giggly sorority girls who favor songs from disney movies and "grease".