SingStar Anthems

SingStar Anthems is a PlayStation 2 karaoke game from London Studio and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, released in Europe and Australia in 2006. It is an entry in Sony's long-running SingStar series, built around turning a living room into a competitive music-video singalong. The disc concentrates on recognizable pop and rock songs that had become crowd-pleasing standards, giving its song selection a broad, celebratory character rather than focusing on a single decade or genre. The original music videos play behind the performance, making Anthems a natural fit for parties, family gatherings, and anyone who enjoys singing along to familiar choruses.

Players use the series' red and blue USB microphones and sing the displayed lyrics while following horizontal pitch bars on screen. The game measures pitch and timing against each song's vocal line, awarding points for accuracy. Singing well is useful, but the appeal is just as much about sharing a song with the room: a player can chase a high score, attempt difficult vocal passages, or simply lean into a favorite chorus. Because the backing videos and commercial recordings remain central to the presentation, each selection arrives with the look and energy of its original era.

Anthems supports solo singing and two-player performances, including head-to-head contests and duets where a track permits shared vocals. Its Pass the Mic mode expands the party format further, allowing up to eight participants to rotate through rounds in teams. That structure makes the game easy to bring out for a group: people do not need to learn a complex controller scheme, and the microphone handoff creates a steady sequence of short, approachable turns. Competitive scoring gives confident singers something to pursue while leaving plenty of room for comic performances and audience participation.

The 20-song English-language track list spans several decades of radio staples. It includes Queen's “Radio Ga Ga,” Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive,” Cher's “The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss),” and Take That's “Relight My Fire.” The set also reaches from classic rock and disco to dance-pop and contemporary chart music, with songs by artists such as The Police, Blur, Cyndi Lauper, The Weather Girls, and The Village People. The mix is designed around big hooks, instantly recognizable openings, and choruses that work especially well when more than one person is singing.

Like other PlayStation 2 SingStar releases after the original game, Anthems can participate in the series' disc-swapping feature. A player can start with a newer compatible SingStar disc as the master disc and then exchange it for another supported PS2 SingStar disc to access that disc's songs without resetting the console. This helped owners build a larger offline karaoke library across releases while retaining the interface and features of the master disc. It also reinforced the series' value as a social collection rather than a one-off music game.

SingStar Anthems is not a band simulation or a rhythm game driven by button charts; its focus is the voice, the song choice, and the response of the people in the room. The visual pitch guide makes the scoring system understandable even to newcomers, while the track selection rewards listeners who know the words and can commit to a performance. For PlayStation 2 owners looking for a compact set of pop-culture singalong favorites, it captures the accessible, communal side of the SingStar format.