BOOK OF THE DAY: Don't Stop Believin': How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My LifeBy Brian Raftery De Capo Press, pp 230 £9.99
ON RARE – very rare - sunny days in Phibsboro, I can look out my window and see Chinese teens miming and dancing outdoors to chart-topping dance songs. Before this, I lived in a big house in Ballsbridge where Filipinos on the floors below were constantly howling into microphones, except these were older, lounge-type numbers.
I was not surprised then to learn that, according to Brian Raftery, a freelance writer who works for GQ and Vanity Fair, karaoke originally began as an Asian phenomenon. Unlike him, however, I only hear it from afar and have no particular desire to participate. But Raftery is a devotee and has written an intriguing little book, which mixes personal narrative with a history of the phenomenon.
The subtitle is only slightly exaggerated in his case, although the press release has it that karaoke “saved” his life, which suggests something even more dramatic.
To be honest, there is something a bit strange and derivative about the mad desire to lip-synch along to pop songs and “be a star” for a transitory moment, and Raftery does not deny the peculiar melancholy of an oft-abused phenomenon, certainly in terms of adult participation. He recalls, for example, the damning accusation by George Bush snr (remember him) that Clinton and Gore were only “karaoke” candidates during the 1992 US election. Well, he was the old guy, and they won.
"Much like the porn business, the karaoke business operates in the shadow of its more mainstream counterpart" he writes, an observation that is echoed in his description of the karaoke scene in the hit movie, Lost in Translation, when Scarlett Johansson sings along "significantly" with Bill Murray to Roxy Music's More Than This: "the artless room, decorated with nothing but a cheap lighting rig and the awkward sound equipment, which reduces the backing track to a wisp and exposes the vocals". It sounds like the location for a porn shoot, where the actors pretend to act, like singers pretending to sing.
He makes the point that most of us rarely think about the actual lyrics of a pop song, “just focusing instead on the song’s visceral qualities”.
But with karaoke, you actually have to concentrate on the words, and Raftery describes how awkward it is to see the last line of a Foreigner song repeated over and over again on a monitor (“You’re as cold as ice/Cold as ice, I know”), “especially when you’re singing it in a karaoke bar in Chicago as a duet with your girlfriend”.
Yes, the girlfriend is Jenny and she is an equal devotee. Ever since Fever Pitch, books like this about a fan's obsession invariably have a domestic plotline, usually involving a long-suffering partner. But in this case, they are miming nerds together.
The problem for many of us is not just the fakery and exhibitionism of karaoke, but the banality of most of the songs.
As an appendix, Raftery has a list of songs which he will “never stop singing at karaoke”, including Bon Jovi and Haircut 100.
But a more interesting list is the songs he says “he’ll never find at karaoke”: Prince, the Only Ones, the Replacements and Public Enemy.
Well, this is definitely the list I'd rather listen to. And listen to, mind you, not wreck the melodies by trying to sing along. But, in general, Raftery does justice to this strange phenomenon and, I'll admit it, there are some songs, such as the wonderful Downtownby Petula Clark, which it is almost impossible to listen to without at least imagining oneself doing karaoke.
Eamon Delaney is an author and the editor of Magill magazine