How To Choose a Karaoke Version
Imagine, if you will: You’re sitting at the bar waiting for your go, thumbing aimlessly through the karaoke jockey’s songbook when you finally find the song you want to sing. “This is it!” you say to yourself, “Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley is the exact song I want to sing!” You grab the song slip to fill it out and as you’re doing so you’re confused by something.
At first it seems like a silly thing, but then it dawns on you… there are multiple versions of the song. “Oh, it’s no big deal. I’m sure any of those sound good.” But there are three, sometimes four versions to choose from. “US, SF, SC… What do they mean? What if the one I pick sounds like an awful MIDI version you’d find on a Web 1.0 website?” Yes, indeed… what if?
Not to worry. Being the dork that I am, I’ve taken the liberty of checking out a good bit of karaoke for you. That way you and your friends can have a good time without the need to worry about how your drunken singing is going to come across with bad backing tracks.
The most consistent when it comes to sounding like the original, Sound Choice (SC) more often than not gets it right. They may be a tad bit slow with their releases, but they are usually worth the wait. If you don’t recognize any other names (or letters) in the book, SC is usually the way to go. The great thing that I like about Sound Choice is that the lyrics are easy to read and the count-ins are spot-on. There’s no real guesswork as to when you should (or shouldn’t) be singing.
A close second is Sunfly (SF). Their tracks almost always sound great and they tend to release their stuff very quickly after the song hits the public. This is great, and would put them in first place, however, their lyrics are usually accompanied by corny graphics (think a fly with a microphone) and they don’t usually include count-ins so you may find yourself performing some false-starts.
The rest are a mixed bag. You’ve got Chartbuster (CB), Legends (LG), Karaoke Version (KV) and a slew of others. Some have good tunes with awful lyrics and some are the exact opposite. You’re kind of taking your chances.
Whichever you choose, have fun. That’s the point.
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