This chapter explores, by way of a literature review, the evolution of karaoke—the act of singing along to a pre-recorded vocal-less audio track—from its origins in 1970s Japan to the medium’s current manifestation among diverse international audiences. Looking to the wider literature on the medium to examine how karaoke as a systemic part of a specifically “Japanese” musical culture is often obscured; the chapter looks to evidence a distinct in-group/out-group dynamic within Japanese karaoke culture and its value-creation processes, proposing that karaoke was, and continues to be, a key force in the evolution of the Japanese music industry as well as the way Japanese interact with music.

Introduction

Karaoke, or the act of singing along to a pre-recorded vocal-less audio track (often accompanied by visuals), has drawn a considerable amount of attention as one of Japan’s foremost pop-cultural exports. Book-length studies such as Hosokawa and Mitsui’s Karaoke Around The World (1998), Drew’s Karaoke Nights: An Ethnographic Rhapsody (2001), Zhou and Tarocco’s Karaoke: The Global Phenomenon (2013) and Brown’s Karaoke Idols: Popular Music and the Performance of Identity (2015) have viewed the narrative of karaoke’s journey from Japanese invention to global success story as one fundamentally mediated by “local” uptake; karaoke as a medium that adapts technologically and performatively depending on where it is being consumed. However, this view of karaoke “by-satellite,” as a series of interconnected but disparate local scenes, obscures a key dimension: karaoke as systematically informed by Japan’s socio-cultural forms and spaces, as opposed to being merely a “product” of Japan. Can the Japanese karaoke experience instead be re-situated as part of something larger— both a vital component in a thriving domestic music sector, but also as a key node linking together the ideas of “practice” and “pastime”? Is it possible to read karaoke in Japan as not merely a playful form of musical interaction, but one in which wider, pre-existing structures and systems of social capital formation are re-enacted and given firmer meaning?

Answering these questions is important because they can help us to understand better the inherent tension that exists between descriptions of karaoke as something to be approached as simple entertainment—a means of unwinding after a long day at work—and as something serious that needs to be “practiced.”