This story is part of an occasional series exploring nightlife in New York.After a co-worker brought up karaoke in conversation last week, Molly Archuleta knew exactly where she wanted to spend her Friday night.To get more news about Melbourne City Karaoke, you can visit starsktv.com.au official website.

Ms. Archuleta, who lives in Bushwick, hopped on the subway to head to Planet Rose, a karaoke lounge in Alphabet City that she discovered 12 years ago.

“The best thing about it is it’s an open karaoke experience, so you don’t know what’s going to come through the door,” she said. “You have accountants coming to sing Metallica; you have out-of-towners that want to sing Celine Dion, which we will always support.”Even with the abundance of private karaoke rooms around New York City, there are plenty of people who prefer a more communal environment. At Planet Rose, they sing their favorite songs from zebra print booths and dance along as strangers perform on faded checkered floors.

“People come in randomly to be like, ‘my mom’s anniversary happened, I want to sing her favorite song,’ or ‘my like, brother is getting married and I’m so excited,’” Ms. Archuleta said. “Everyone in life always needs some kind of safe space for release.”

Planet Rose, of course, isn’t the only bar of its kind. Plenty of New York venues host communal karaoke nights that are beloved by patrons and hosts alike.Olive Oliver, 26, hosts Sunday night karaoke some weeks at Jade, a bar on the border of Bed-Stuy and Bushwick.

She usually kicks things off by performing “Thong Song” by Sisqo — “it’s so theatrical, and it shows that you actually have a range as a singer” — and then tries to rally patrons into singing their own songs.Obviously, I respect boundaries. If someone says ‘I don’t want to sing,’ I think that’s fine,” she said. “But whenever a shy person is OK to go up on the stage to sing something, I’m always going to be their No. 1 hype man.”

Some nights she also hosts at Rebecca’s, a Bushwick bar that’s a block away from Jade, or Chino Grande, a new karaoke saloon in Williamsburg.

But regardless of where she is, her success hinges on reading the energy of the room.“If there’s a roomful of white women, I’m probably going to do ‘You Oughta Know,’” she said of the Alanis Morissette song. “If there are old aunties or people who have like, the grown and sexy vibe, I’ll pick something from the ’90s R&B catalog. And sometimes, if I feel like I’m among the family of queer people, I’m going to sing maybe Whitney Houston or Shania Twain.”

“If they have no apparent first-glance commonalities, you can at least know that they are all in the same place at the same time,” Ms. Oliver said. “If you live in Bushwick in 2022, you’ve got to have heard one Charli XCX song.”

Jade Beyers, 36, a co-owner and manager of Jade, said she’d experienced “enough karaoke for a lifetime” while bartending during its karaoke Sundays. But she still loves watching people embrace the opportunity to put on a persona or do something silly.“You can be comfortable in a space like that, where you can just be silly or forget the words and not feel humiliated,” she said. “Because there is just this undercurrent of love and care.”