Kids, especially high schoolers, will rent out rooms and spend hours, sometimes the entire day, socializing, singing, and hanging out in the privacy of a karaoke room. In fact, it’s always been very popular amongst kids in Japan, starting from elementary school. So how does it all work? What does it mean when you’re in Japan and your friends want to go out for a night of Karaoke?įirst of all, Karaoke in Japan doesn’t just mean a wild night out on the town for adults to sing and throw back endless beers. It wasn’t too long before specific businesses with rooms for private parties and their karaoke machines popped up. Karaoke machines began to show up in restaurants and hotel rooms. He then began to lease his machines out to stores. Ever the businessman, Inoue made a tape recorder machine that played his songs in return for payment. In the coffee shop Inoue worked, he was frequently asked by guests to distribute recordings of his songs in order for them to sing along. It’s historically been common in Japan for musical entertainment to be provided at dinners. The company Clarion then began production of these machines due to lack of a patent. The karaoke machine, however, was invented in 1971 by Daisuke Inoue, a Japanese musician from Kobe, Japan.
Singing along to pre-recorded music started in the late 60s and 70s, when new technology allowed stored audio to be portable and thus easier to use by traveling musicians. Stretch out those vocal chords and let’s have a look! Where it all began
Much like its technologically advanced toilet seats, Karaoke has a whole list of bells and whistles to spice up a singing experience. It’s often less of something that happens on the side, and more of an event that the night revolves around. The word is a portmanteau of kara, coming from karappo (空っぽ)-empty, vacant, and oke, coming from okesutora (オーケストラ)-or orchestra.
This is Japan, the land where Karaoke was born. This isn’t the US, where you might sit down at the bar and belt out a couple songs in front of a small TV at the bar.