Karaoke's 50th Birthday — What did we sing in the milestone year 2021?

Silja Niemi -

This year karaoke celebrates its 50th birthday. What a singing half-a-century it’s been! Karaoke — the beautiful form of social entertainment that granted the access to performance stages and stardom for all — is currently living its best era, we would claim.

Karaoke’s 50-year journey has been remarkable for many.

Though the past years with the global pandemic and social distancing have forced karaoke venues to rest the microphones on their stands to wait for better times, karaoke singers have found the joy of singing at home. At Singa, this was noticed for example with 700% weekly growth once the lockdowns began. Fortunately, singing in bars, pubs, schools, hotels, bowling alleys and such is back again in the second half of 2021. And oh the joy, when singers crawled out from their socially distanced caves and released their voices after 1,5 years!

In 2021, karaoke made a big comeback together with live events and nightlife reopening.

Karaoke’s 50-year journey has been remarkable for many. Whether you are an occasional karaoke goer, home singer, karaoke business professional, a musician, or never sang karaoke in your life, you’ll probably have something to say about karaoke — at least a little memory. Karaoke has traveled pretty much everywhere in the world; from Tokyo to Gothenburg, from Johannesburg to Queensland.

We at Singa are celebrating karaoke’s 50th birthday year, 2021, with a big bang, big volume and a big karaoke list.

Let’s see how the big year looks in karaoke songs! Here are some insights.

We listed the popular songs in 2021 already earlier this year, and did some forecasting about the new rising songs. Read the article here and see if our forecasts were correct!

We sang our hearts out with pop songs (56% of the top 100 most sung karaoke songs in 2021), unsurprisingly. Pop royalties like Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Adele were all found among the TOP 100 list, as well as newer bright stars in the pop universe, such as Olivia Rodrigo and Tones and I.

If you're curious, the second most popular genre was rock.

Pop royalties like Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears were found from the TOP100 list, as well as newer stars in the pop universe, such as Olivia Rodrigo.

The oldest song in the top 100 was from 1961...

Only fools rush in, whereas Elvis Presley’s Can't Help Falling in Love made it to the 3rd place in the TOP100 - 60 years after being published in 1961.

… and the newest songs were from 2021

Olivia Rodrigo’s Good 4 u (#53) and  Driver's licence (#81) plus Eurovision-winning Måneskin’s I wanna be your slave (#98) made it to the top 100 in their publication year.

We sang about love...

7 song titles out of 100 included ‘love’ or ‘loving’

... about you ...

12 songs out of 100 have ‘you’ or ‘your’ in the title.

... but mostly about ourselves.

‘I’, ‘my’ or ‘me’ appeared in 17 out of 100 song titles.

The top 20 is populated by songs such as Shallow (#1), Bohemian Rhapsody (#2), My Heart Will Go On (#4), Always Remember Us This Way (#13), and Can You Feel the Love Tonight (#17).

So, let’s get into the full list.

Here are the TOP 100 karaoke songs in 2021

  1. Shallow - Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga
  2. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
  3. Can't Help Falling in Love - Elvis Presley
  4. My Heart Will Go On - Céline Dion
  5. Dancing Queen - ABBA
  6. I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys
  7. Hallelujah - Alexandra Burke
  8. Dance Monkey - Tones and I
  9. Jolene - Dolly Parton
  10. Mamma Mia - ABBA
  11. All of Me - John Legend
  12. Still Loving You - Scorpions
  13. Always Remember Us This Way (a Star Is Born) - Lady Gaga
  14. Wind of Change - Scorpions
  15. The Winner Takes It All - ABBA
  16. Wonderwall - Oasis
  17. Can You Feel the Love Tonight - Elton John, The Lion King
  18. Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver
  19. Zombie - The Cranberries
  20. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
  21. Angels - Robbie Williams
  22. My Way - Frank Sinatra
  23. Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
  24. Africa - TOTO
  25. Lemon Tree - Fool's Garden
  26. Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
  27. Hurt - Johnny Cash
  28. ..Baby One More Time - Britney Spears
  29. Someone Like You - Adele
  30. Don't Stop Believin' - Journey
  31. Rolling in the Deep - Adele
  32. Hotel California - Eagles
  33. Bed of Roses - Bon Jovi
  34. Sleeping Sun - Nightwish
  35. Wannabe - Spice Girls
  36. I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston
  37. Piano Man - Billy Joel
  38. Let It Be - The Beatles
  39. Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
  40. Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
  41. Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley
  42. Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi
  43. Always On My Mind - Elvis Presley
  44. Livin' on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
  45. Stand by Me - Ben E. King
  46. The Show Must Go On - Queen
  47. WAP - Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion
  48. The Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
  49. Perfect - Ed Sheeran
  50. Make You Feel My Love - Adele
  51. Wish You Were Here (Memorial Version) - Rednex
  52. Skyfall - Adele
  53. Good 4 u - Olivia Rodrigo
  54. Imagine - John Lennon
  55. Barbie Girl - Aqua
  56. Toxic - Britney Spears
  57. Let It Go - Idina Menzel
  58. The House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
  59. Lose Yourself - Eminem
  60. Yesterday - The Beatles
  61. Your Song - Elton John
  62. Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
  63. Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis
  64. Always Remember Us This Way - Lady Gaga
  65. Poison - Alice Cooper
  66. My Immortal - Evanescence
  67. Hello - Lionel Richie
  68. Lay All Your Love on Me - ABB
  69. Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
  70. In the Ghetto -  Elvis Presley
  71. Valerie - Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson
  72. Losing My Religion - R.E.M.
  73. Chandelier - Sia
  74. Black Velvet - Alannah Myles
  75. Have You Ever Seen the Rain? - Creedence Clearwater Revival
  76. Take On Me - A-ha
  77. It's My Life - Bon Jovi
  78. Where The Wild Roses Grow - Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, The Bad Seeds
  79. Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley
  80. Carnival of Rust - Poets of the Fall
  81. Drivers License - Olivia Rodrigo
  82. Baby - Justin Bieber, Ludacris
  83. Breaking Free - High School Musical
  84. What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
  85. Don't Speak - No Doubt
  86. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! - ABBA
  87. In the End - Linkin Park
  88. Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
  89. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
  90. Dreamer - Ozzy Osbourne
  91. Fly Me To the Moon (In Other Words) - Frank Sinatra
  92. Colors of the Wind - Pocahontas, Vanessa Williams
  93. House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
  94. Beggin' - Måneskin
  95. Blinding Lights - The Weeknd
  96. Hello - Adele
  97. Creep - Radiohead
  98. I Wanna Dance with Somebody - Whitney Houston
  99. I Wanna Be Your Slave - Måneskin
  100. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash

Get singing on Singa!

*The list is based on the top English language songs sang on Singa consumer applications, web browser version, and Singa Business in from the start of 2021 until the time of writing the article in September 2021.