singing duets

I learned to enjoy Kara-oke (kara=self oke=okestra=orchestra) when I spent time in Japan. At first I hated karaoke because I thought I was a horrible singer and I didn't want to subject anyone to my terrible voice. But then I learned that I'm not actually tone deaf and if I tried I could do a half decent job singing most songs that I was familiar with. Upon that realization I started enjoying karaoke a bit more. But not too much.

The problem was that in Japan the selection of english songs, while large, consisted of the standard items: Golden oldies, The Beatles, 80's long-standers, and modern pop songs by brittany spears and her clones. You could find Green day or Nirvana at some places but that's not so fun to sing. These standard items are ok, but I don't know them so well because they're the kind of music that I deliberately try to stay away from - because I've heard them so much (typically when they first came out, or when I first started listening to the oldies station) . My dislike of a vast majority of songs (very few exceptions) exponentially increases with every listen. And since I don't pay much attention to lyrics I have a ton of trouble karaokeing these tunes.

My biggest problem was male-female duets. They were all basically songs I didn't know so when I was asked to take part it just wasn't easy or fun. I've since thought to myself "what is it about duets that I don't seem to like?"

It turns out that there's probably nothing wrong with duets. Today, as I was listening to my iTunes collection while working, a song from a cd that I've owned for a while came on. It was a duet, and one that I actually liked quite a lot. That song is from a more-than-half-decent-band who call themselves "Stars."

Here it is:

	Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
	Found at skreemr.com

So there's a duet that I'd be happy to sing (especially since it's short and I know most of the lyrics). Now to find a karaoke place in California that actually has it on their machine...

Of course there won't be, because I'm sure songs need to be licensed for karaoke use and pitzy little indie bands don't (or aren't asked to) license their songs.