The Millennium Collection - Karaoke 60s Hits (Various Artists) (DVD)

...images and lyrics written into the normally unused "subchannel" portion of the tracks and these will only show up when played on a CDG player (such as a karaoke machine). The audio part of these tracks will play on any standard CD player.

Karaoke machines tend to be pricey, and moreover I had no intention of dragging one with me on the plane back home for Christmas. So after a quick Google search I was thrilled to find a ...
...player. When I went into the store to browse through the surprisingly large selection, this one certainly caught my eye. At £7 this was also one of the cheapest DVDs - what an opportunity!

The DVD has 20 tracks, which was about twice as much as most of the similarly priced DVDs in the rack. A lot of the tracks even I had heard of (I'm 19) such as Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual" and of course The Beatles' "Yesterday". ... more

I bought this great little DVD from HMV yesterday as a Christmas present for my mother (sssh!) and whacked it in my laptop immediately to make sure it would play on standard DVD players. For those of you who don't know - and I certainly didn't - many karaoke CDs come in what is called CDG form. CDG is a quick way of writing what is really CD+G: "Compact Dics plus Graphics". These discs have graphics such as background images and lyrics written into the normally unused "subchannel" portion of the tracks and these will only show up when played on a CDG player (such as a karaoke machine). The audio part of these tracks will play on any standard CD player.

Karaoke machines tend to be pricey, and moreover I had no intention of dragging one with me on the plane back home for Christmas. So after a quick Google search I was thrilled to find a large selection of normal DVDs that would play images, lyrics and tracks all in one go on any normal player. When I went into the store to browse through the surprisingly large selection, this one certainly caught my eye. At £7 this was also one of the cheapest DVDs - what an opportunity!

The DVD has 20 tracks, which was about twice as much as most of the similarly priced DVDs in the rack. A lot of the tracks even I had heard of (I'm 19) such as Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual" and of course The Beatles' "Yesterday". Other great songs include Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman", Aretha Franklin's anthemic "I Say A Little Prayer" (does anyone remember that hilarious sing-a-long scene from My Best Friend's Wedding?) and The King himself with "Return to Sender". Each track is a chapter on the DVD, allowing for easy skipping. Another advantage of the DVD is that while vocals are only heard where backing vocals are sung on the original tracks, an instrument that sounds rather like a xylophone discretely plays along with the melody of what the lead should be singing in case we have forgotten the tune. This also ensures that even the tracks on here that we have never heard can be learned (while guaranteeing a few laughs).

The main drawback are the minimalist background graphics which consist of a slideshow of images of the main artist and general scenes from the 60's. While we have some great shots of Elvis in his prime, I can't help feeling I could have done better using Power Point. In addition, the lyrics do not light up as they are meant to be sung but appear as subtitles that change with each slide. Still, in my experience many karaoke CDGs on machines - or videos on those interesting karaoke channels on Asian TV - have tended to have background videos that are the height of cheesiness, not only being entirely irrelevant to the song itself but many bordering on soft porn. In a way, these images are a worthy alternative to random shots of amateur actors on luscious yachts and beaches at sunset, and will surely help to entice the singer into the whole atmosphere of the decade and inspire some nostalgia in those who were there to experience it.

Karaoke originated in Japan in the 1970's and became immensely popular in the rest of Asia in the 1980's. Today karaoke bars are on the rise here in Europe, and these DVDs allow anyone to host a night of great entertainment (and presumably utter humiliation) in the privacy of their own living rooms. All that I need to do now is grab a few other karaoke DVDs for a variety of songs and a cheap microphone to plug into my guitar amplifier at home (this is not necessary and a hairbrush will do, especially if your group has had enough to drink!) and my mother will no doubt spend Christmas morning crooning along to the songs that she loved in the days that were the best of her life. My only concern is the chaos that will ensue once the rest of my family and I have had enough wine to participate in the sing-a-long - and that there be no video evidence! 

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