Pretty much everyone has a reputation within their circle of friends: Some people are the one who keeps everyone politically informed; others are the one who will stay late after the party to help clean up. I, personally, am the one who will always try to get everyone else to do karaoke, no matter how little general interest I’m getting from the group. I’ve spent years trying to coax friends out to my favorite karaoke bars—Insa in Brooklyn, Ego’s in Austin, the Lipstick Lounge in Nashville—only to be rebuffed a solid 80% of the time.
That’s why when I watched Succession’s Connor Roy try to get his siblings to do karaoke with him on the eve of his wedding (even heartrendingly telling them, “I would like to sing one fucking song at karaoke, because I’ve seen it in the movies and nobody ever wants to go”), I felt incredibly seen—and, for once, genuinely empathetic toward a member of the Roy family, which is comprised top-to-bottom of monsters. Still, monsters like to sing along to the Eagles too!
One thing I will admit is that Connor party-fouled by choosing to perform a Leonard Cohen song (“Famous Blue Raincoat,” to be specific) while his siblings appeared to contemplate how best to kill themselves. Evidently, nobody clued him in to the cardinal rule of being The Karaoke Guy™: If you’re going to make everyone go out and spend money at a karaoke bar, it is incumbent upon you to act as the mood-lifting DJ of the night, kicking off proceedings with a song that will make everyone feel (even reluctantly) glad they came. I know money isn’t exactly a concern for the Roy family, but the principle still applies; bring the energy, dude!
Of course, music tastes aren’t universal, but I would venture to say that a song like “Raspberry Beret” by Prince or “Cool for the Summer” by Demi Lovato or, hell, even the classic angry-girl anthem that is “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette might have lit a fire under the Roy siblings. I would very much have liked to see Kendall Roy reprise his “L-to-the-OG” rap on the mic (or, for that matter, his…soulful…cover of Billy Joel’s “Honesty”), but (1) that might have been too self-aware for him and (2) it’s the Roys, so what started out as a karaoke night obviously turned into a weirdly lit power struggle before anyone but Connor had time to perform.
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