Gaming

We Ranked The 15 Most Classic ‘SingStar’ Tracks

When we hear these songs, so many cringe-inducing memories come back.

by Jared Richards  4 June 2019
Best SingStar PS2 Songs

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Between 2004 and 2008, Sony released 21 SingStar games in Australia, all for the PlayStation2. Those red and blue-lined microphones were broken out at every other sleepover and kid’s birthday party, not to mention family gatherings and not-so sober nights in.

While karaoke games had long been popular in Japan, SingStar was the first that cracked the international market. And boy, did it: once Sony knew it was onto a good thing, it began releasing four or so versions of the game a year, each packed with around 30 new songs.

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There were the genre versions (Singstar Pop, SingStar R&B, SingStar Rock Ballads), the branded and band-based (SingStar Singalong With Disney, SingStar Wiggles, SingStar Abba) and the eras (SingStar ’90s, SingStar ’80s, SingStar Chart Hits), each targeting its own audience.

All-in-all, hundreds of tracks were given the SingStar treatment, where singers would be given scores based off whether their pitch matched the original song. Famously, this didn’t mean you had to sound good to ‘win’ in a battle, which raised the question: would you play to the crowd, or the machine?

SingStar‘s still going strong on the PS4, though an online store for tracks made releasing pre-loaded discs irrelevant. Pardon the nostalgia, but it’s a bit of a shame: there was a real Stockholm syndrome relationship to the tracks, as you had no choice to sing them again and again and again and again.

That’s created some strong memories. Merely mention SingStar online (as I did before writing this), and stories flood in of fond moments and awkward favourite tracks people sung dry.

With that in mind, we’ve picked 15 of the most iconic SingStar songs — the ones we remember the best, and feel irrevocably attached, for better or worse, to SingStar.

We’ve also made a Spotify playlist to get you in the mood for your next SingStar party. It’s time to dust off those mics.

#15. ‘Get The Party Started’, P!nk (SingStar 1)

It’s Madison’s pool party, but your best friend is on a family vacation to Noosa so you’re a little nervous about going without them. You arrive an hour late after pretending to have a stomach cramp at home, and when you arrive, everyone’s done swimming. They’re eating Cheezels and wiping the orange dust on their board shorts and one-pieces.

Madison’s mum puts on SingStar. “I have the perfect song!,” she says. “Madi, Dani, take it away ladies.”

#14. ‘Pieces Of Me’, Ashlee Simpson (SingStar Pop)

You always get a perfect score when you do this one. When people come over to play, you grab the mic when shuffle lands on ‘Pieces Of Me’, ready to win.

You have no idea that you get a perfect score because Ashlee Simpson’s famously shaky voice barely shifts pitch the entire song. When you realise, a decade later, after another open mic night where no talent execs seek you out, it all clicks. You shatter, and it takes years to pick up the pieces.

#13. ‘How To Save A Life’, The Fray (SingStar Hottest Hits)

The song that Grey’s Anatomy built. Save it for the emotional, party-ending ballad, lest you bring the mood down and bore everyone.

A Smooth.FM favourite to this day, the song’s sappiness has the broad appeal perfect for the sort of inter-generational SingStar session the game’s ads imagined. Whether it should have been a staple SingStar track is up for debate, but there’s no question it was.

 #12. ‘Everytime We Touch’, Cascada (SingStar Pop Hits)

This Euro-club 2007 hit is peak SingStar: a song without particularly impressive vocals and with long dance breaks. Depending on who you were with, the performance was either high-energy and pitchy from all the jumping around, or incredibly awkward, as you stood there still, waiting for the chorus to come back.

#11. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Nirvana (SingStar Legends)

Ugh. Like anyone who picks Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ or The Smiths’ ‘This Charming Man’, selecting Nirvana screams ‘I love and know music’. To be fair, the chorus is fun to scream — if you really went for it, you’d have a hoarse voice for a few days. That’s the SingStar life, baby.

 #10. ‘What’s My Age Again?’, Blink-182/ ‘Stacy’s Mom’, Fountains Of Wayne (SingStar Pop)

These songs, as far as SingStar goes, capture the same brattish ’00s energy.

It’s impossible to not sing along with an affected voice, either. Tom DeLonge’s classic Cali-bro accent is ripe for mimicry, and while Fountains Of Wayne’s Criss Collingwood’s voice is much more middle-of-the-road pop-rock, that ‘mom’ brings it out — as does the fact the song’s video is basically a American teen film of itself.

 #8. ‘Scar’, Missy Higgins (SingStar Pop)

While we’re on the topic of accents, there’s nothing quite like putting on your best Higgins impersonation and belting out ‘Scar’. Best to check the mic after; it’s likely there was a bit of spray from stressing some of those sharp sibilants.

#7. ‘Superstar’, Jameila (Singstar 1)

British pop star Jameila had a platinum hit in Australia with her 2003 single ‘Superstar’, making it prime SingStar fodder. The song even featured in a TV commercial for the game, where too less-than-stellar singers give the song a crack before one of them takes their performance a little too far.

This ad, for reasons unknown, is ingrained in our minds. We can’t be the only ones, right?

#6. ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl?’, Jet (SingStar Rocks!)

Jet’s chart-soaring and Hottest 100 winning hit is prime SingStar material. Whether you loved it or thought it was a blatant rip off of both Iggy Pop and The White Stripes, you knew the words.

The only question is: was this choice more popular with 12-year-olds wearing their dad’s aviators, or [redacted] sales executives ready to sing the shit out of this at their work Christmas party?

#5. ‘The Circle Of Life’, The Lion King OST (SingStar Singalong With Disney)

There’s nothing quite like watching Player 1 try to sustain those opening Zulu chants underneath almost the whole song. Those vocals aren’t for everyone.

#4. ‘Sk8er Boi’, Avril Lavigne (SingStar Pop)

Nothing screams early ’00s quite as much as this song — except a gaggle of ’00s tweens screaming it into a SingStar mic.

 #3. ‘Shut Up’, The Black Eyed Peas (SingStar Pop)

Breathe in, breathe out: this performance requires a lot. As Player 1, you’ll be whisper-singing ‘Shut Up, just Shut Up’ for a good 45 seconds without interruption, before hitting Fergie’s many, many melismas. And if you’re Player 2, you’ll be rapping Will.I.Am’s part.

Both parts don’t merely require flair and emotion; they bring it forth, regardless of whether the singer wishes. To surrender your body to such magic — this is the power of SingStar Pop.

#2. ‘Bring Me To Life’, Evanescence (SingStar Pop Hits)

Amy Lee’s voice is impeccable, and the goth opera of ‘Bring Me To Life’ is incredibly hard to nail. But we’ll be damned if we didn’t try our hardest to hit her soprano notes and the snarling back-up yelps underneath — at the same time.

This song’s inclusion on SingStar ensured that a generation of Australian children wearing Quicksilver shorts and Supre shirts were expressing their hearts out to a nu metal classic, screaming ‘Save me from the nothing I’ve become’. That’s culture.

#1. ‘Bad Day’, Daniel Powter (SingStar Pop)

In 2003, while working on the first SingStar, Sony birthed Daniel Powter in a lab in order to create the perfect song to launch the game with. Delays were inevitable; they’d never created an easy-listening one hit wonder in a test-tube before.

Thankfully, after many trials and tribulations, Powter was ready to go for SingStar Pop‘s release in 2005.

The rest, my friends, is history.

SingStar Party Spotify Playlist

Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Follow him on Twitter.