Maybe it's time to take a backwards step from karaoke, maybe even find a (gasp, shock, horror!) REAL band to play with (the hell with the money, how about the MUSIC?) and try to rekindle your love of PLAYING.

That's (IMO) the only thing that will get you through the increasing trials and tribulations, and feed your soul for the next decade or so. You've got an uphill battle with getting respect, being karaoke, my friend, Far too many equate it with an audience participation sport, and you don't get much respect for doing something (and charging for it!) that most people go out and do for free, no matter HOW good you sing...

Sadly (or maybe not!) players get respect, singers get respect (if they are in a band or play most of the time) and guys that play AND sing get respect, but karaoke singers, there's always the niggling thought of 'what's WRONG with them? Can't they play with a REAL band?!', no matter HOW skilled you are. Well, at least, that's how I and many I know think of it.

Try giving the karaoke bit a rest, and just concentrate on playing while you sing. You'd be surprised at how they respond to you when they see you PLAYING all the time instead of singing to tracks.

One last comment on something said earlier. I don't believe that most modern music is any harder to pull off today than it used to be. Yes, it MIGHT take a sequencer and arpeggiated loops, vocoders and the like, and if you think that makes it unplayable, so be it. But remember, 30 or 40 years ago, how many of us were playing in bands that had full horn sections, dual lead guitars, full backup singers, string sections and the like? Without those, it wasn't POSSIBLE to play probably the majority of music on the charts THEN.... But somehow we managed. Even without brass and string synthesizers. We just played the SONGS. And they danced!

Just play the SONG, not the arrangement. If the song sucks without the arrangement, well, it wasn't much of a song in the first place, was it?! Leave it for the break music, they'll still be happy.

But once upon a time, we pulled off Chicago and EWF, BS&T and the Beatles, all without benefit of horn sections and strings. What makes modern songs any more difficult?