Karaoke Around the World

Global Technology, Local Singing

Shuhei Hosokawa, Toru Mitsui, Shuhei Hosokawa, Toru Mitsui

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134713400
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Popular Culture in Art

The karaoke machine is much more than an instrument which allows us to be a star for three minutes. The contributors to this lively collection address the importance of karaoke within Japanese culture and its spread to other parts of the world, exploring the influence of karaoke in such different societies as the United Kingdom, North America, Italy, Sweden, Korea and Brazil. They also consider the nature of the karaoke experience, which involves people as singers, co-singers and listeners.

Part I

1
THE GENESIS OF KARAOKE

How the combination of technology and music evolved

T

ru Mitsui

Karaoke

In order to give a basic description of the karaoke machine and its use, let me begin with an extract from David Lodge. Lodge, one of my favourite contemporary novelists, is, in any case, always a pleasure to read.

Persse McGarrigle, the protagonist in Small World, which has been dubbed ‘An Academic Romance’, wanders into a Tokyo bar in the early 1980s (Lodge 1984:291–3):

In the middle of the room two Japanese men in business suits are singing ‘Mrs Robinson’ in English into a microphone, a phenomenon which puzzles Persse for several reasons, one of which he cannot instantly identify. The two men conclude their performance, receive friendly applause from the customers, and sit down among them. The chief puzzle, Persse realises, is that they managed to produce a very credible imitation of Simon and Garfunkel’s guitar-playing without the advantage of possessing any visible instruments.

Then Persse was encouraged or almost forced to sing a song himself:

‘I don’t wish to sing at all!’ Persse protests. ‘I just came in here for a quiet drink.’

The Japanese beams toothily and sits down beside him. ‘But this is karaoke bar,’ he says. ‘Everybody sings in karaoke bar.’

Hesitantly, Persse repeats the word. ‘Karaoke—what does that mean?’

‘Literally karaoke means “empty orchestra”. You see, the barman provides the orchestra,’ he gestures towards the bar, at the back of which Persse now sees that there is a long shelf of music cassettes and a cassette deck, ‘And you provide the voice’—he gestures to the microphone.

‘Oh, I see!’ says Persse laughing and slapping his thigh. The Japanese laughs too, and calls something across to his friends, who also laugh. ‘So which song, please?’ he says, turning back to Persse.

This might be the first description, in English, of a karaoke episode. It provides a fairly accurate picture of karaoke before the introduction of video, although some details could be corrected.

It is doubtful that ‘Mrs Robinson’ was found in any karaoke repertoire in the early 1980s because karaoke was then dominated by enka (sentimental songs in slow to medium tempo, influenced by elements of indigenous Japanese music), with an extremely limited number of songs in English. It was obviously poetic licence by Lodge to include some well-known songs by Bob Dylan and Diana Ross’s ‘Baby Love’ in ‘a long shelf of music cassettes’ in the bar. Moreover, ‘cassettes’ were not in use if the term denotes cassette tapes as we know them, because much wider reel tapes were used for karaoke machines for reasons which will be explained later. Finally yielding to the pestering, Persse sings Dylan’s songs, which he used to sing in the bath, but his performance is ‘enhanced by having the original backing tracks as accompaniment’. It is very unlikely that the original tracks were used because the expense would have been prohibitive.

If a reader prefers a more objective and fuller description, here is a passage from Charles Keil’s article in Ethnomusicology (1984:94). Possibly the first serious discussion of karaoke in a publication is given there as one of four mediated-and-live musical scenes Keil observed in the summer of 1980, presumably not long before Lodge visited Tokyo.

Behind the bar you find a complete cassette-tape stereo with mixer and echo effects and a library of specially recorded tapes that are missing the lead vocal parts, two to four songs per tape for quick access. On the bar itself there is a microphone and songbook-catalogues that provided lyrics and locate the song you want to sing. During the evening the microphone passes from hand to hand and every individual present can be a star in turn. People applaud after each vocal segment but they also go on with their own conversations; the music volume is not too high, so the atmosphere is relaxed, appreciative of the singer but not focused on each person’s efforts. The goal of each singer seems to be a perfect replication of a specific star in a specific style, but research might uncover nuances and variations on standard star models that are valued variously in different karaoke contexts; bars are known to be oriented toward a particular style or mix of styles, ranging from minyo (folk) and enka (urban) to U.S. blues and country, with all the European, American, and Japanese pop styles in between. Some of these contexts might prize individual interpretation more than others. Each small bar tends to have a steady clientele and regular patrons often have their name on a personal bottle of whiskey behind the bar, to be called for as needed in entertaining friends.

This sketch is also adequate, and largely applicable even to present-day karaoke bars. A ‘cassette-tape stereo’, ‘two to four songs per tape for quick access’ and ‘U.S. blues and country, with all the European, American’ pop styles are, however, no more than guesses.

At that time karaoke equipment centred around a music tape, although in 1982 video, laser disc and CD karaoke were introduced. It was audio tape, although not cassette tape, that was primarily responsible for the emergence of karaoke. It is true that karaoke equipment is now totally visually orientated in those parts of the world where the karaoke industry has extended its foreign market. However, video tapes and discs replaced audio tapes simply because they improved the technical functions of the original karaoke audio tape and its deck, so...

Table of contents

• ROUTLEDGE RESEARCH IN CULTURAL AND MEDIA STUDIES
• CONTENTS
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• INDEX