Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield

Author:Rob Sheffield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAKA KHAN

“I Feel for You”

1984

Karaoke and the ’80s are basically the same thing. Nobody knows why exactly, but it’s true.

You know what else is true? We’re in a basement karaoke bar on Avenue A with a hot microphone, cold vodka and the lights out. I am Chaka Khan. I am Taylor Dayne. I am Sheena Easton. My sugar walls stand higher than yours.

“He said, Honey, what’s wrooong with you?”

Ally presses the buzzer on the wall to summon the waiter back with more drinks.

“Nations go to war over women like you.”

I always end up doing the Sheena Easton songs, the really slutty ones. If I don’t punch them into the machine myself, Ally will punch them in for me. I can’t help it.

“Strut! Pout! Put it out!”

The waiter takes too long with the drinks. But we’re not going anywhere.

“Come spend the night inside my sugar walls!”

We always seem to crash at Sing Sing in the East Village with our fellow karaoke-whore friends. Everybody does songs from the ’80s. Ally does LL Cool J’s “Going Back to Cali,” rapping about hitting on chicks on the West Coast. She does Prince’s “Darling Nikki,” a song about picking up a freaky girl who likes to grind.

Ally always does songs by men, and I always do songs by women. It’s not a rule, just the pattern we fall into. She especially loves to sing the Boy George songs, because she has the same low, throaty voice. I love to see her flicker her switchblade eyelashes when she sings “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.”

Our friends are our karaoke whores—we know how to find one another. It usually starts with dinner, then over coffee Ally whispers something to Caryn, and Caryn whispers something to Jennie, and Nils and I wonder what the ladies are plotting. It always involves Sing Sing and a private room. You can stand at the bar and sing, but that means waiting your turn. When you get a private room, you and your crew just punch your own songs into the machine. No waiting, just singing. There’s no clock in the room, and no window, so you have no sense of time passing.

If you’re shy, you can sing sitting down, but none of us are shy when we’re here, in our rented room in the dark. I never sit down—I come here to strut, pout, put it out.

All our karaoke fiends have their jams. Melissa does the Madonna songbook. Niki goes for Stevie Nicks epics like “Sara.” Nils owns the Lionel Richie tunes, because their voices are in the same range. Nobody else tries Lionel Richie when Nils is around; I used to sing “Easy,” but I had to knock it off. Caryn and I always want to sing the same Ashlee Simpson song, “La La,” so it’s a race to see who grabs the mike first. Kevin does Chaka Khan so well, he stole “I Feel for You” from me. But one of these nights, I’m stealing it back.

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