By recreating classic movie moments that look so cathartic onscreen, Eliza Janssen hopes to improve her own life. This month, she tests out iconic karaoke scenes from movies like Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Cable Guy and Aftersun to build the ultimate drunken singalong playlist.
The word “karaoke” translates to “empty orchestra” in Japanese—such a serene and lyrical term for an activity that mostly sees sloshed, non-professional singers bellowing “Livin’ On A Prayer” into each others faces. You either love karaoke or hate it. I place the blame entirely on Glee for whittling down our collective shame over the years to usher way more of us into the former category.
I’ve always loved musicals, on stage or adapted into movies, and part of that is due to the economic, screenplay-structure-friendly ways in which characters are at liberty to vocalise what they’re feeling. In most films, it’s considered to be clunky exposition if your protagonist flatly states what mood they’re in (“you can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!”), but in musicals? “I Want” songs are a whole damn subgenre, explicitly revealing a hero’s inner workings to the audience with rhythmic pizazz. When you’re with the boys and you’re glad that they are back in town, say, or you feel like you are the walrus, there’s a pop song out there that can concisely convey that emotion beyond the stuffy sterility of mere words.
A nice compromise for a non-musical film is to plonk characters down at a convenient karaoke sesh, showing us their vulnerability (or sometimes, secret talent) by having actors meta-textually “perform” as their awkward characters would. In the privacy of my home recording studio (read: bedroom) and at a big noisy party, I had to test out the best of cinema’s karaoke playlist.
My Best Friend’s Wedding: “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself”
P.J. Hogan’s witty, exuberant 90s rom-com is chockfull of sing-alongs, but “I Say A Little Prayer” is a spontaneous acapella rendition. This torch song, performed by an antsy Cameron Diaz, is perhaps the best-known example of a character absolutely tanking at karaoke…and winning us over through her suckiness. Diaz’s straining vocals in the chorus prove that it’s not an easy pick if you don’t have the range (PAAaaartiiEEES make me feel as bad), but it’s a dynamic and thankfully short song, building to a big emotional climax.
I kind of killed it NGL. But honestly, the karaoke environment in My Best Friend’s Wedding seems like it’d set up even Beyoncé to fail: what is this brightly lit room, with everybody sitting at tables and silently judging at the poor victimised performer like a hundred unqualified Simon Cowells?! 9/10, because regardless of your karaoke confidence, you will sound better than Kimmy by contrast. You can go for The White Stripes’ more unhinged cover, too, and dismiss any janky notes as an emotive Jack White impression.
500 Days of Summer: “Sugartown”, “Here Comes Your Man”, “Train In Vain”
Let’s keep dwelling in the world of rom-coms, a genre that benefits hugely from having its adorkable love interests expose their heart with mic in hand. Hipster couple Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) are perfectly summarised by their musical choices at an after-work drinks event, but I gotta say Summer’s retro selection is a bit of a dud: nobody knows this song too well, clearly just the perfect vehicle for Deschanel’s natural manic pixie vocal stylings. Her first pick was the superior “Born To Run”, which the film’s karaoke bar implausibly does not have.
The Pixies’ song is a better option, with a fun beat and a chorus you can kinda talk-sing your way through. Joyously drunk during that number, Tom is later a total mess post-break-up, slurring The Clash’s bitter lyrics. “Train In Vain” is a fine, low-stakes song to sing with fellow cool people, as long as you’re not clearly getting out your personal feelings of rejection while on stage (you didn’t stand by me/no, not at all…). An overall 7/10, with JGL’s angsty jams bringing up the average.
27 Dresses: “Bennie and the Jets”
This is a great karaoke song, with goofy glam-rock lyrics to keep an audience on their toes. Katherine Heigl’s hard-working, eternal bridesmaid chants it out with James Marsden atop a bar in 27 Dresses, getting those wacky words wrong (she’s got electric boobs?) but not really caring too much, as she’s finally able to let her hair down. I find Sir Elton’s songs really fun for karaoke, as there’s a lot of swooping falsetto bits to throw your whole chest into. 9/10, purely for the brief piano interludes where you’ll need to think of something to do with your hands. Maybe grab another sip of your drink or something.
When Harry Met Sally: “Surrey With The Fringe On Top”
You will not make any friends by weaponising your musical theatre skills and performing a Golden Age Rodgers and Hammerstein tune in front of some poor stranger. Maaaybe if it’s from The Sound of Music, but even then: gauge the amount of dorky theatre kids in the room appropriately. In the greatest romantic comedy of all time, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are the only people who should enjoy duetting this song together, and they clearly do: until Crystal’s singing trails off as he catches sight of his ex and her new squeeze. I do like Oklahoma, and I did recreate Crystal’s little hoe-down bob in the song’s opening instrumental bars, but it’s a 5/10 in terms of translating to a real-world karaok-a-bility.
Bridget Jones’s Diary: “All By Myself”, “Without You”
Ballads are ideal for karaoke: when you’re pouring your heart out through the impossible oesophageal gymnastics of Celine Dion or Mariah Carey, nobody can accuse you of trying to look cool. Both of these songs give actual good singer Renee Zellweger a chance to express desperado Bridget Jones’ defining, daggy state of eternal humiliation. “All By Myself” and “Without You” both start off low and quiet, and as long as you can get a few generous audience members to shakily belt along with you in their choruses, these songs are 8/10 karaoke classics. They’re perhaps even a bit basic, up there with “Don’t Stop’ Believin'” and “My Way”, which was literally such a popular karaoke choice in the Philippines that it lead to a string of fed-up public murders.
Booksmart: “You Oughta Know”
I think somebody has done Alanis Morissette’s pissed-off breakup song at every karaoke event I’ve ever been to, and that person has often been me. While I wasn’t crazy about this last-night-of-high-school teen comedy, I’m clearly a fan of Kaitlyn Dever’s decision to holler out “You Oughta Know” in the film’s third act, clinching her crush’s attention for one ecstatic moment. This is a 10/10 karaoke selection because you can have fun mimicking Morissette’s snarling, OTT delivery (would she go down on you in/a THEATRE?) and semi-yodelled yo-U yo-Us in the chorus. “You can tell she’s not supporting, no breath control”, one snarky theatre gay comments from the audience of Dever’s performance, “but it’s good.”
Lost in Translation: “Brass In Pocket”, “More Than This”
Okay, we’re almost through with romantic comedy singalongs—Sofia Coppola’s dreamy, odd-couple romantic drama encourages us to linger a little deeper on what our heroes’ song choices say about their emotional states. Holed up in a private Tokyo karaoke room, Scarlett Johansson gives a coy Pretenders rendition wearing a pink wig, and Bill Murray does two sadsack, dadly cuts. They all suit the sullen, lonely vibe of the movie, certainly not matching the hysterical party vibe of the many other performances on this list.
But I didn’t even bother recreating Murray’s melodramatic Elvis Costello cover “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”, not knowing the song well enough to muddle my way through. The other two yearning, melancholic pop songs are solid options for shy karaoke-goers—let’s go with 6/10 for their relative lack of hype—and their lyrics even embody the isolated feeling of performing in front of sozzled strangers (I’m special/so special/I’ve gotta have some of your attention/give it to me).
The Cable Guy: “Somebody To Love”
This has gotta be the best performed karaoke track on the list: Jim Carrey copies the goat-like vibrato and manic, psychedelic energy of Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick, while also throwing in his own flailing floorwork, Summer of Love ad-libs, and in-character lisp. I would be absolutely terrified to see someone recreate this IRL and must admit that I was not brave enough to attempt it faithfully, feebly reaching for a little confidence through audience interaction (don’t YOU *point* want somebody to love?). This is a daunting 8/10 feat for a committed Carrey wannabe, but if that’s you I actually never want to see it or make eye contact with you.
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer: “I Will Survive”
“Everyone’s a goddamn singer”, the surly bartender says of Jennifer Love-Hewitt’s rendition of “I Will Survive” in this slasher sequel. It’s of course a drag brunch/karaoke standard, a certified 7/10 with lyrics that allow you to easily mime out basic gestures (go/walk out the door), and the perfect pick for a final girl. Buuuut horror trueheads will always maintain that Sarah Michelle Gellar should’ve been the returning final girl of I Know What You Did Last Summer over Love-Hewitt’s bland goody-goody Julie. And yet another missed opportunity has actual pop starlet Brandy merely goofing along from the side of the stage. It remains absolutely hilarious, however, that a grizzled serial killer would terrorise their victims by somehow hacking into a karaoke lyrics monitor, whether Julie just imagines the scare or not.
Aftersun: “Losing My Religion”, “Under Pressure”
The most recent, realistic, and thematically perfect karaoke scene on this list sees 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) losing her faith in her existentially checked-out dad (an Oscar-nominated Paul Mescal) live on stage over the course of R.E.M.’s moody alternative rock hit. The lyrics seem to have been magically written for this exact situation: life is bigger/it’s bigger than you/and you are not me…trying to keep an eye on you/like a hurt lost and blinded fool.
Corio’s meek, uncomfortable cover takes viewers back to a time when we were trying to put on a brave face for the broken grown-ups assessing us. It only felt right, or perhaps soul-crushingly wrong, to try and perform an Aftersun soundtrack tune with a parent at a family event that devolved into deranged karaoke noisiness—but my mother and I instead went for the ultimate pop-rock duet “Under Pressure”, which Mescal and Corio dance to later in the film.
Dividing up David Bowie and Freddy Mercury’s distinctive vocal parts between yourselves, “Under Pressure” is a 10/10 karaoke song, and you can even throw some “Ice Ice Baby” lyrics over the top if the room’s getting too mopey. It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about: watching some good friends scream, “let me sing another Meatloaf song!”
