Update on "the most maligned karaoke song"

I had a previous post about a KJ who was charging for people to sing Don't Stop Believin. Evidently my post was not the only outcry. There was a follow up interview that explains why the KJ has taken such strong measures to combat one song in his collection.

Roger Niner explained in the interview that he got tired of hearing it, so he took it out of his songbook. Even then, people kept asking for it. Despite not having the song listed in his book, he had a night where numerous people asked for the song. In his words: "I just snapped. I'm not going to delete it, because that's just going to be a disaster. So I said, 'Alright, I'm going to make some money from this.'"

The interview ends with this comment from Niner: "... that song, I just -- I can't do it anymore. It just drove me to the point of insanity."

The song is among the most popular karaoke songs, if not the most popular. People want to sing it. These are the people who spend money on drinks and make it possible for a club to hire a KJ.

Just to balance this out, I quote from an excellent article about the song, written by Dorian Lyndsky of the Guardian:

It was a song inspired by failure. Journey started life as a jazz-rock band in San Francisco in 1973, but they were floundering and hitless when, four years later, they recruited singer Steve Perry, who was having little luck himself. Their fortunes drastically improved, but the sentiments of Don't Stop Believin' harked back to the lean years. Before keyboardist Jonathan Cain joined in 1980, he was also struggling while living on LA's Sunset Boulevard. Each time he called home in despair, his dad would tell him: "Don't stop believing or you're done, dude."

That's the kind of positive stuff I like to hear!