The Cons of Singing Karaoke
Reproducing a popular song is not an easy task. You have to take care of so many things when you sing the karaoke version of a popular song. Your audience belong to different classes and it will show up in the feedback you get. For most people, it is an excellent performance if the singer has imitated the exact voice of the original singer. As a result, you will see singers struggling to sound like the original singer in many stage shows. It ends up being mimicry but people would applause saying “he sounds like Yesudas” or “his voice is the same as SPB” etc. Here, the singer is satisfied as he gets a round of big applause for trying to copy the exact song in the (almost) exact voice. But he/she fails as an individualistic singer. But for the professional performers who have to sing before the masses, they do not have a second choice as their livelihood depends on the success of the show.
There is another class of audience who does not care whether you imitate the voice of the original singer, but they want to hear the variations and nuances intact. They would be unhappy if you chose to ignore some of the original variations and put some of your own. This class could consist of people who are musically trained or have the technical knowledge of music. It is hard to please this class too.
If you choose to please these two classes of people, you will end up being a ghost or a xerox copy of some popular singer. When you try to imitate a singer or his styles too much, you end up being nothing but a copy. Also remember that even the original singer cannot exactly reproduce what they have sung in the studio. Watch some of their live shows as an example.
My suggestion is that do not bother too much about sounding like the original. Understand the lyrics, stick on to the basic emotion/expression/feel that the lyrics suggest and sing from your own heart. Do not bother too much about the original variations and nuances of a song. Just add your bits to it and sing it from your heart. Make it your version so that singing karaoke tracks would not be a monotonous task.
Just to add that I am not suggesting that you should not pay attention to the original song and it’s variations when you sing a karaoke version. Paying attention to those details in the original version would help you a lot in the practice sessions. And you can learn a lot from those popular singers. So keep an ear for that in the practice sessions, but add your inputs when you actually sing/record a karaoke song.
In my early days of music blogging, there were people who told me that “you sound like Yesudas” or “your voice resembles Madhu Balakrishnan” or “you have a voice similar to Venugopal” etc. I think that as soon as people hear a new singer sing, they have a tendency to identify the singer with a popular singer. Or this could be the problem when you sing karaoke songs of a particular singer. Say for example, when Sonu Nigam used to sing Mohd. Rafi songs for a long time, he was seen as a Rafi double, but he failed to make his own mark. People who heard Sonu remembered Rafi. He was also branded as a singer who could do only sad songs. But we all know where he stands now after he got a couple of breaks in the film music industry.
I remember what an online friend of mine, who also happens to be a singer, said in one of your chat sessions about music – about karaoke singing and reality shows etc:
You can only satisfy one or more of the following but not all:
1. Classes
2. Masses
3. Your own selfOne of those 3 are always unhappy.
I would always prefer to please option #3 first which itself is a very tough task! 
(Image source: Internet)
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March 9th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Very well written, Jo! I agree…
March 9th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Well said. I too feel imitation is not at all healthy for today’s competition. I think some exceptional legends who can reproduce their songs in live shows are K.S. Chithra and SPB who improvises and makes the song sound even better than the original. Your conclusion, I think 3 is the most important option and very very tough too as u said.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Very good post da..!
Singers should seriously consider one more thing ..the possibility of rendering plain vocals/unplugged version with a sruthi as background.Its very sad hear the same karaoke cover versions a dozen times..:(,
People are getting karaoke slaves,no good songs are getting rendered and even quality singers are not trying anything out of the box,just becuz of the reason that there are no karaokes are avialable.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Thank you all, for the feedback.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Very nice post jo.. I totally agree with you regarding the imitaion of the voice of the original singer. But, as a beginner I’m afraid to include my own variations and nuances that it should not lead to a False Creativity as Murali V mentioned in one of his posts.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:22 am
you forgot #4 which used to be the number one reason for taking up music in india until recently (like 50-100 years ago)
God Devotion and Bhakti. the great musicians in india were driven and power not by sex or pyschedelic drugs but bhakti.. they all went on a bhakti trip…
March 10th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Great post Jo, agree with you on everything you said, its really a tough job to please everyone.
And I also agree with Kiranz that you should sing songs that you like the most, without worrying a lot about whether you have a Karaoke or not. Agreed having a background track helps you get into the mood but it becomes repetitive.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Very good article and very valid points.
Thanks for taking the time to describe this very well to remind us all of the pros and cons.
Great article!.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Hi Jo,
Very nice post. I agree that #3 is the most important one. I would like to mention one thing though, that the creator or composer of the song would have had some particular picture in his mind, which would have guided the singer to sing the way , in which the song is brought to us. So, it would be nice, if one could keep the “soul” ( I believe the soul of the song comes, not only from singers mind, but also from the mind of the creator of the song, unless you are both the creator and singer ) and add the variations to the song as they like.
just my 2 cents or 1$ or whatever
regards
Thahseen
March 11th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
A very good post with lot of important points to noted.
People those who listen, should learn , how to listen to a song when it is done with the karoke. Especially, the people who are into singing, must know about it. And most of the time, people present their songs to get numerous comments on their post , rather than their own satisfaction of singing. Its my personal view, a creator should create something which is for his own self first than for others.
Its nice , atleast i have read a post on this issue Jo
Thanks !!
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:55 am
hey is everyones voice off in the mornings, cause when i wake up my air and singign is far off and not as good