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kar·a·o·ke (noun) – a form of entertainment in which amateur (placing strong emphasis on amateur) singers sing popular songs (or not so popular in some cases) accompanied by prerecorded music from a machine that may also display the words on a video screen.

What’s this resurgence in karaoke I’ve been hearing about? Why and when did karaoke become big again? My best guess is that karaoke’s resurgence is due to American Idol. I’ll dub it the American Idol effect. Apparently in the last few years it’s gotten big again, if it was ever that big in the first place.

Wanting to investigate if anyone in Baton Rouge was really into this karaoke, some friends and I decided to bite the bullet on a recent Wednesday and visit Chammps' Americana. It’s located off Corporate Boulevard at Towne Center.

Besides being a great restaurant it’s got a pretty good bar. The atmosphere isn’t bad either, which helps for people being cool with getting up in front of people they don’t know and making fools of themselves.

I must say that we had a pretty good time. There’s an extensive list of songs to choose from; almost too many songs, really. We almost, I say almost, got sucked into doing a song. The girls were gonna sing a Ray Charles song while I acted as Ray, sunglasses and all. Alas, we ran out of time and the karaoke singing was over before we got the chance to show off. Darnit.

There weren’t many people that were really worth listening to but I found it didn’t really matter. It was fun watching people bomb on the small stage. Truthfully, hasn’t someone, like a family member, ever told these people they aren’t very good? Apparently not. They probably didn’t really care, though, due to the alcohol being consumed (which I’ll rant on next time about the drink specials ban), so they just got up there and belted out whatever they chose anyway.

Aside from the bad musical choice every now and then, and the really, really off-key singing, which took some getting used to, it was a pretty good time. I’m sure that you need to be with some friends though. At least that way you can make entertaining comments to each other. Who knows? Maybe next time we don’t use the excuse of not having any time left to sing and we get up there. Just be sure to cover your ears if I’ll be singing.