Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Monday, Nov. 14, and I’m Ada Tseng, assistant editor of the Utility Journalism Team — “news you can use” — and, as of Sunday, karaoke event planner for the Los Angeles Times.
The Times and Sunday Jump hosted “Let’s Talk About Filipino American Mental Health (and Do Karaoke)” in Historic Filipinotown on Sunday. The event featured a panel discussion (I moderated) about reporter Agnes Constante’s mental health series in The Times and was followed by a friendly karaoke competition between Asian American mental health organizations. Congratulations to Rafael Hernandez of the Little Tokyo Service Center — the audience-chosen winner with a stirring rendition of “I2I,” by Tevin Campbell, from “A Goofy Movie.”
I love karaoke. When I was growing up in San Jose in the 1980s and ’90s, my parents’ friends would have weekend dinner parties where they’d sing karaoke in the living room until late hours of the night.
My dad is my favorite karaoke singer. He’s an otherwise introverted, now-retired engineer, but when he sings karaoke, he smiles wide and belts out those power ballads.
At first, as kids, we didn’t participate. A lot of songs I associate with the ’90s are my dad’s favorites, from Taiwanese singers like Wu Bai, Huang An and Wakin Chau.
But eventually, I’d go to the LaserDisc stores with my parents and flip through the English-language selections. We definitely had one in heavy rotation with Janet Jackson’s “Escapade,” Vanessa Williams’ “Save the Best for Last,” Bryan Adams’ "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting” and Wham’s “Careless Whisper.”
Later in life, I’d start to associate karaoke with shenanigans, Koreatown and my friends singing Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison.” But to me, karaoke has always been about family, friends and community.
On Friday, The Times published several karaoke stories. August Brown wrote about how karaoke has fared during the pandemic. A newsroom-wide team visited local karaoke spots to bring you 29 essential L.A. karaoke spots for every kind of singer. (Worth clicking on just to see illustrator Jess Hutchison’s infinite karaoke-room animation.)
And Phi Do and I collaborated with The Times’ Data and Graphics Team — and musicians from Pandora’s Music Genome project — to create the ultimate guide to finding your go-to karaoke songs.
At the Utility Journalism Team, we write a lot of guides, so we’re always looking for experts to explain things to us. But when it comes to karaoke, who are the experts?
There are the professionals: karaoke DJs like Adam Jones and Kiki Park, and musicians like Graeme Hinde, who plays in the live band Casual Encounters Karaoke.
There are the music experts, like YouTube musicologist Howard Ho, vocal teacher Sarah Cabrera and singers AJ Rafael and Alyssa Navarro — who, like me, grew up with karaoke and, not like me, recently sang a customized Disney medley to thank their guests at their wedding. (Though my dad did sing a couple bars of Wu Bai’s “Till the End of Time”in the middle of his speech at my wedding.)
But at the end of the day, you are the expert on your voice — and what makes you happy when you sing.
Our song generator allows you to filter through tried-and-true hits by time period (from the ’60s to now), vocal range (from bass to soprano) and mood.
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