Dictionaraoke

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Dictionaraoke is a Fair Use musical form which first appeared online sometime around the year 2000. In it, an instrumental version of a song -- usually MIDI rendition or a track created for use in Karaoke machines -- is combined with a "performance" of its lyrics created by cutting and pasting together pronunciation guide audio clips from various online dictionary sites. The result can be banal, bizarre or fantastic depending on the artist and his choice of clips, but regardless, it can't be mistaken for anything but what it is -- a sometimes hilariously mechanical performance of classic pop and rock.

Some tracks so created have appeared on the Dr. Demento show over the years.

There was once a centralized site where aficionados of the form could discuss and share examples of their work, but it has long since fallen into the hands of website squatter/spammers. Fortunately, its collection of music has been archived in several places on the web.

Examples of Dictionaraoke include: