Tag Archives: hobbies

The Top Karaoke Songs Of All Time

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You might think that you are ready to hit the karaoke bar and sing but you may need to practice some more on your karaoke at home. You do not want to embarrass yourself when you can not hit that high note when you try to sing the song by Whitney Houston called “I Will Always Love You” and you can not pull it off. Another one being “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, so what you need to do is practice and not just the ones that you prefer but try some different ones so that you will be able to get the right ones for your voice.

Sometimes it is a good idea to get songs which are favorites of the girls and then there are others which the guys prefer so you need a good mix of songs to suit everyones’ tastes. We will start with the girl songs and suggest some which you might want to pick for them. How about “I’m Just A Girl’ by No Doubt/Gwen Stefano or “She Works Hard For The Money” by Donna Summer, then another one is “Like A Virgin” by Madonna, “Feel Like A Woman” by Shania Twain, “Venus by Bananarama, “These Boots Were Made For Walkin” by Nancy Sinatra, “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics and the list could go on and on but that gives you some idea of the favorites ones that the ladies might like to sing.

Now we will suggest some of the favorites that the guys really enjoy and of course this is only a short section of the ones that are available. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns and Roses, “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits, “You Give Love A Bad Name” by Bon Jovi, “Hurt So Good” by John Mellencamp, “Friends In Low Places” by Garth Brooks, “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-lot, “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf, “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson, “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC, “Sharp-Dressed Man”by ZZ Top, so these are some of the ones that you could choose and we are not saying that these could not be favorites of the ladies either, but definitely are for the men.

There are some which you probably sing as you are in the shower and would not think of having for your party but you might be making a mistake if you do not. If it comes to you and you sing it then why not everyone else too, so do not disregard it as one of your choices.

There are some song which everyone likes to sing along with and we mean everyone such as “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond and you might class it as a bit corny but people love to sing with the bah bah bahs so it will be popular. Another one that is famous for singing along with is Bon Jovis’ song “livin’ On A Prayer” so the people can sing the part that goes like this “whoaaaaa-ohhhhh, livin’ on a prayer”. Songs like these are must-haves so that everybody can get involved at the same time.

Guns ‘n’ Roses Storms Back To Relevance With ‘Chinese Democracy’

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First the bad news: Chinese Democracy is not the heavy metal sonic assault suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year.

After a rock band becomes a major success, they’re really in a ‘no win’ position. If they try to break new artistic ground, exploring different sounds or influences, they’ll invariably hear complaints that they were better the way they ‘used to be’. If they keep doing things the same way, a band risks losing any sort of artistic relevance and becoming a ‘nostalgia act’. KISS is a good example–a lot of purists hated it when they took off their makeup and became another 80′s ‘hair metal’ band, but they deserved respect for doing something different and trying to forge a new artistic path. On the other hand, there’s KISS now: Gene Simmons eventually made the calculated, slightly cynical decision that commerce trumped art. Hes now giving fans the best representation of KISS that their nostalgic desires long for”to the extent of dressing a new guitarist and drummer up like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Not exactly a high water mark in artistic creativity, but a highly lucrative enterprise that reportedly nets Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley a cool half million bucks per concert.

Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. Patch things up with former lead guitarist Slash and they could have toured forever playing the old songs for nostalgic fans and made a ridiculous amount of money. To some extent, Slash has chosen this route with his band Velvet Revolver. They play similar blues based hard rock to vintage GnR, and brought in former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland on vocals (who sounded almost just like Axl on a number of the early STP songs)

Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. Hes a very talented guy, but he doesnt have much of a knack for self promotion or media spin. While he worked on putting together a new version of the band and recording Chinese Democracy he let a variety of interests”not the least of which were his old bandmates”control the media spin. As a result, people had been brainwashed into thinking that the album was a stinker before it was even finished.

In many ways, its reminiscent of the Use Your Illusion releases in its depth and complexity. Many albums are fairly straightforward and are easy to figure out with a couple of listens”this song rocks, this is the power ballad, this song is filler and so forth. Others evolve and change with repeated listening”different songs become your favorites, you notice new things about ones you thought you knew well and most significantly songs that you glossed over the first time around start to grow on you.

On Chinese Democracy that’s definitely the case”the best example being the song Better. It doesn’t really impress on first listen, but quickly becomes a favorite. Axl claims that he doesn’t try to write hit singles and that’s probably the case, but in addition to being an impressive tour de force for Robin Finck on guitar it may be the catchiest pop song since The Killers first album.

One of the real triumphs of Chinese Democracy is the difficulty that a listener has in pigeonholing the songs. There’s definitely a lot of the piano based material first heard on the ‘Use Your Illusion’ releases but overall its evident that the band is breaking entirely new musical ground and even they don’t really know where they’ll end up. It’s very unpredictable and can be hard for a long time fan to wrap their head around, but once that happens its a very exciting sound.

Unfortunately, ‘Chinese Democracy’ is occasionally plagued by overproduction”biggest case in point Madagascar which the band has been playing live for the better part of this decade. The album version doesnt quite have the edge or raw emotion that was on display when played live. This really isn’t surprising for an album that has taken so long to make and has gone through a number of producers.

Still, that’s a very minor caveat about what is overall an amazing piece of work. Hopefully those who have bought in to all of the negative media hype can put their prejudices aside and give ‘Chinese Democracy’ about it. They’ll hear the powerful sound of a great band charting new musical frontiers which is what rock music is supposed to be about.

Ross Everett is a experienced freelance writer who covers travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a consulting handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, falconry and deep sea diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.