See If You Can Sing As High As Freddie Mercury

I thought the office was haunted. The piercing whine of a cat, or a baby, coming through the vents. A machine from the construction outside the window? Oh god, probably a dying mouse in the ceiling. I brought in our deputy editor Alice to listen with me. “I heard that!” she said. She went back to her office; I crept around the rooms of the office. Asked our creative producer Heather if she heard it too. She laughed. Yesterday we’d all been playing Hit the High Notes, the game where you see how high you can sing. She was trying to beat it.

Hit the High Notes plays you a tone, and names the famous singer who can sing up to that tone. Then you try to sing it. In my real voice I tap out pretty quickly, only beating Frank Sinatra by a few notes. In a falsetto I can get further, until I’m rasping and squeaking like a mean-spirited Bjork impression. The only way I can match the real high singers is by cheating, and even then I can’t reach the top. Whitney Houston can sing higher than I can whistle.

This web toy comes from VOLE.wtf, a particularly slick and creative time-waster site. When you’re done wrecking your throat, try kicking the soccer ball back to some cruel British children, in a wonderfully nerve-wracking game. Or for a singing game that’s less like a hearing test and more like a night of very samey karaoke, try YouTube Music’s FreddieMeter, and try to sing just like Freddie Mercury.