A Guide To Fail-Proof Karaoke

Difficulty Level: Kelly Clarkson

"Killing Me Softly" is great for a couple of reasons.

First of all, while you sing Lauryn's part, at least one drunk person will get the clever idea to jump in for Wyclef’s "one time!" and "two times!" part (one drunk person will also, inevitably, make fun of the fact that Wyclef is shouting “one time” while Lauryn pours her heart out).

Once you get the crowd involved, you're on your way to success.

Toward the end is where your confidence comes into play. If you can nail that "whooooaaaa whoaaaaa aaaahhaaaaa aaaaaa laa laaa laaa whooaaaa laaaaa whoaaaa laaaaaaaaaaa" part, the night belongs to you. Drop the mic and walk away stone-faced. If you don't nail it, it will be too hilarious to be called a fail. Just make sure to put your all into it and sing from the diaphragm. No matter how it goes, finish the song with two words: "Nailed it."

Difficulty Level: Between Kelly Clarkson and Whitney Houston (depending on how many drinks you've had)

Pulling off a good rap karaoke performance is tricky, but if you do it right, you'll be a king/queen. I learned that this last year, when I was in a small, rather quiet bar. Out of nowhere appeared a squirrely white man, poorly dressed, with a sloppy beard that suggested hobbies like indoor rock climbing and debating the finer points of Collective Soul records.

Suddenly, he was in the corner with a microphone, rapping along to "Forgot About Dre" and doing both Dre and Em's parts spot-on, nailing that Em verse—the one that every kid at every seventh grade dance mangled in an attempt to imitate a flow even most pros can’t keep up with. If you can nail that verse, you’re in the karaoke pantheon.

By the end of the performance, he was a fucking hero, no matter if he could made it to the top of the rock wall or not.

Difficulty Level: Rebecca Black

You’ve reached that weird lull in the night where that girl no one really knows who came in a few minutes ago (is she a friend of a friend? did she randomly stumble in? is she drinking your liquor??) has surreptitiously. You need to take the night back. Well, first you need to take the remote back, then you need to save the night.

How to correct the vibe? Go with something ubiquitous, something so inescapable you know everyone in the room will love and probably hasn’t listened to (at least willingly) in a few years. You want something easy. Something that’ll turn up the crowd participation.

Outkast has you covered.

“Hey Ya” is fun, quick, and guaranteed to get at least half of the room singing. And, at very least, you’ve got two home run moments: the chorus and the point at which everyone pulls out their polaroid pictures and shakes it.

Difficulty Level: Rebecca Black

It’s a classic, you want to get everyone involved. If you’ve got a room full of lead singers, you can mask your voice a bit (if you’re not feeling confident). You can do it early or late, drunk or sober. Even the people that hate it are going to at least pretend they’re down for the ride.

The key to successful karaoke is to play to your audience. If you can get one person invested in your performance, you're golden. Wanna get the loudest, most annoying person in the room on your side? Just sing "Don't Stop Believing." By the end of it, every bro in the room will want to shotgun a beer with you. You will return to your friends and be hoisted into the air. Flawless victory.

Difficulty Level: Well, it certainly isn’t Rebecca Black...

So “Killing Me Softly” made you think you could sing, huh? Feeling pretty great about your pipes, right? Well, you might be feeling a little too good. You throw on Whitney and let your larynx do the talking.

No matter what you do, "I Will Always Love You" is guaranteed to get at least three girls and one guy in the room to cry. While everyone else is going for the superficial, fun, drunken party songs, you can strike an emotional chord and bring the whole fucking karaoke bar down if you nail it. But, of course, you have to nail it.

Difficulty Level: Kelly Clarkson

Every guy in the room probably swears he hates boy bands. Maybe you can get a few of them to admit a love for Justin Timberlake’s solo stuff and surprisingly solid acting career.

You know what? All of that is a blatant, thin facade. When “I Want It That Way” comes on, the whole room comes alive. Those guys who swear up and down they’d never fuck with Backstreet get down like it’s 1999 and Backstreet’s back all over again. And as the song ramps up, so does the emotion in the room.

When the smoke clears, everyone tacitly understands that some songs are simply irresistible.

Difficulty Level: Rebecca Black

Girls love this one. And if you're a scrub, singing this one is a good way to throw girls off your trail because they'll be like, "Well if he's a scrub, why'd he sing 'No Scrubs' then?"

Difficulty Level: Kelly Clarkson

There are plenty situations in life when holding back a little bit is necessary. Karoake is not one of them. “You Shook Me All Night Long” is an over-the-top piece of rock adrenaline, and its cheesiness is only matched by that bit of excitement that boils from the bottom of your stomach when you’re drunk at a bar and those opening chords signal the shitstorm about to come. Air guitar, shrieking, and fist pumping will accompany this song, every single time.

Difficulty Level: Rebecca Black

If you're with a group of people who have been around the karaoke block, singing "Sweet Caroline" will always be rewarded because right after you sing, "Sweeeeet Caroline," they'll go "Duhn! Duhn! Duhn!" where the horns come in, and after you sing, "So good," they'll back you up with, "So good! So good! So good!" If you've never experienced a slightly awkward but thoroughly enjoyable "Sweet Caroline" karaoke performance, you're doing it wrong.

Difficulty Level: Rebecca Black

If you were in middle school or high school when this dropped, you already know the words. And while Sublime's music might not have aged gracefully, the wave of nostalgia will sit well with reformed stoners and girls who remember the time they took a summer road trip with their friends while this blasted out the windows. If you're lucky, some middle-aged pothead might even offer to smoke you up.

Difficulty Level: Kelly Clarkson

It's getting late and you're getting drunk, but it's not the fun kind of drunk. You still want to party, so you down the rest of your drink.

Something strange happens. Instead of partying, you accidentally get emo.

Right as your friend finishes off an animated "Pour Some Sugar On Me," you walk up and the infamous opening bass from "Creep" starts to play. You've officially killed the vibe. But something even stranger happens.

Soon people are holding lighters and cell phones up, swaying along as you pour your heart out with each Thom Yorke lyric uttered into that used old microphone. And this is how you get people to respect your emo.