Karaoke Star Singing in Amsterdam

Karaoke Star

I would like to take this chance to officially announce my participation in the next series of Dutch Pop Idols. The judges have not heard me sing yet but I am sure once they do they will not be able to deny that I have a very unique and distinctive singing talent that the public will have to hear in order to believe that such a voice exists.

I came to this decision a few days ago after I got a chance to sing a few songs at a karaoke bar with a couple of friends. I’ve never been much of a public singer but it’s amazing the motivation a few alcoholic beverages and a large collection of 80s music can provide. At the same time it is also scary to realize how many of the lyrics to Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m too sexy’ I know.

The karaoke bar was situated in Amsterdam (near Leidscheplein) and had a slightly strange Chinese atmosphere which created the feeling that The Crazy 88 might suddenly attack at any moment during someone’s rendition of ‘Everybody was Kung-Fu fighting’.

In order to hide the shame and embarrassment that would be our singing we decided to hire a private karaoke booth. Hiring any kind of ‘private booth’ anywhere in Amsterdam can instantly give the wrong impression, especially when the owner hands you a laminated catalog of (karaoke) videos and a remote control covered in protective plastic as she did with us. However, the booth lacked any dance poles so our only option for entertainment was singing.

Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Queen, The Bee-Gees, The Village People and so many other well know creators of music were not safe from our murderous rampage of song mutilation and carnage. Innocent lyrics were left orphaned as the songs they belonged to were valiantly bludgeoned to death with a microphone and some very bad singing. Words were sung out of time, lyrics were mixed up and one of the microphones ended up breaking under the strain (or maybe it decided to take its own life to stop the torture).

Luckily the sound proof glass of our booth survived our attempts to see who could hit the highest note which was really more of a contest to discover who could do the best impression of a cat suffering unbearable pain while inhaling helium. At least innocent bystanders were saved from irreparable eardrum damage. It was decided that the winner of the contest should never be allowed near a microphone again in their life time but that was probably true of all of us. However, we really had a lot of fun.

In case my application to be on Dutch Pop Idols does not make it past the first stage here is a sample of our singing talent (30 seconds of torture) from Bohemian Rhapsody. You can hear me very clearly during a few lines but you will have to guess which one I am (If you can’t see the embeded sound file click here):

Disclaimer: This site is not responsible for any lose of hearing, sanity or the will to live.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

33 Responses

  1. ChickyBabe says:

    The ‘magnifico’ line… oh my ear drums! My PC speakers are humming…

  2. Invader Stu says:

    Nop. That was not me either :) I sang, “He’s just a poor boy from a poor family. Spare him his life from this monstrosity.”

  3. Manictastic says:

    I’m glad I don’t live in Holland. That was the worst attempt ever. :D From this day on worth I no longer support the Olympic code of Participating is more important than winning. :D

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