The first round of the “Worst 111” karaoke countdown was launched at Madison Bear Garden on Monday night. I think it got a pretty good reception from the crowd although some of the songs were truely awful.

Some of the songs weren’t in the karaoke book, but I’ll try to catch up with part of the list on Wednesday at the Maltese.

111 – Rock Lobster — The B-52’s classic (but not as classic as “Love Shack”) was a little hard to master.
108 – Mambo No. 5 — I can understand why Lou Bega sold out on this song. The chorus makes the song. The melody? Not so much.
106 – Let Her Cry — It took a while for me to get into the song, but this Hootie and the Blowfish song really has some legs.
103 – Jenny From the Block — Kelly helped me with this song, but neither of us could capture the “magic” of J. Lo.
102 – Born to be Wild — I think I captured the Steppenwolf original better than Ozzy and Miss Piggy (whose version earned this place on the list). Maybe it was the two dancing women who helped.

That’s five down, 106 to go — minus the ones that aren’t in the books.