Abba the most performed at Karaoke

Waterloo the nation’s favourite over last 15 years

PRS for Music, the organisation that collects royalties on behalf of composers and songwriters, today reveals that Swedish pop band ABBA hold the top spot for most performed Karaoke work in the UK with ‘Waterloo’. A close second are Queen with their 1975 hit ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

The chart is dominated by some of the most famous songs of all time; written and performed by the best in the business, Queen, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Kylie, Neil Diamond and the Beatles all feature in the songs we like to sing at Karaoke bars and pubs across the country.

The full top 25 list is as follows:

Karaoke is the modern take on communal singing which has been part of British culture for over a century. Singing is traditionally an uplifting pastime which genuinely brings people together - whether they can actually sing or not doesn’t matter!

The results are based on the most performed Karaoke songs in licensed venues by PRS for Music.  Data is collated to make accurate royalty payments to its 65,000 composer, songwriter and music publisher members whenever music is publically performed or broadcasted.

Facts about karaoke:

• The first Karaoke machine was invented by Daisuke Inoue in Japan, in the early 1970s.
• Finland holds the record for the largest number of people singing karaoke at one time, for 80,000 people singing "Hard Rock Hallelujah" on 26 May 2006 in Helsinki after Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest.
• China holds the record for the longest non-stop rally of karaoke, for 214 hours, 20 minutes, and eight seconds on 1 January 2008.