I usually kick and scream before singing karaoke ever. But on the rare occasion I'll do Livin on a prayer.

50s Girl group songs done in a Tom Waits growl.

I've never sung karaoke or seen it done outside of movies (I don't get out much) but I only ever sing along to Dylan or Jerry Garcia.

Get off of MY Cloud
Never Say Never
I've Written a Letter to Daddy
These Boots are Made for Walking
Back in the USSR
Rebel,Rebel (the Karaoke disk bowdlerized the lyrics)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I avoid karaoke like the plague. A plague that can be cured with three mint juleps and a couple of bottles of IPA. But I discovered last New Year's that I can in fact rock the goddamn house on Robert Palmer tunes.

I avoid karaoke like the plague. A plague that can be cured with three mint juleps and a couple of bottles of IPA

I second this, third this, make a motion to approve, and pass this.

Karaoke has always mystified me a little. No, a lot. Maybe because from the time I was a wee sprout, I knew I wanted to rock out in front of people, so I became a musician in order to do so. As a teenager, that was really the only way to go, since karaoke didn't exist yet. It has been really interesting to watch karaoke arrive, begin as a wild goofy fad, but actually find a permanent, expected place in people's leisure time existence. It's really interesting that a lot of people have always had a fantasy of being a musician, but karaoke has come along to offer a way of living that fantasy for a moment. I don't knock it, I just don't entirely get it, because it's an approach to wanting to perform that is different than the one I took. I think the thing that weirds me out the most is going to a place that has a regular "karaoke night" with regular performers, each of whom are known for "their" tunes, and who perform those tunes with a studied air that indicates a certain amount of focused practice and the desire for a known effect. I'm sure you know the people I'm talking about - one step beyond the good-time, fun for a lark karaoke-ist - people who sort of have a professional delivery developed for the handful of songs that are "theirs." Definitely an interesting phenomenon, something for a Performance Studies dissertation.

Still and all...when I've ingested the required amount of alcohol in a bar with karaoke, I have been known to indulge in its ready pleasures. My solo standard is "Preacher Man." With a former duet partner, "Black Water" was a winner. In my most recent dalliance with the closed-captioned seductress, I did Nickelback's "How You Remind Me."

What octothorpe said, but I'd love to do The Love Boat someday.

I'm just going to come out and say I love karaoke. Of course, I find in San Antonio that the "studied amateurs" Miko talks often front for those kinds of semi-famous bar bands that do mostly cover songs.

I tend to go for late-80s/early-90s nostalgia songs by one-hit-wonders like 4 Non Blonds and the Spin Doctors.