It’s a Saturday night and you’re in a crowded bar, heavily intoxicated along with tons of other people blowing off steam from the work week.
Your more overzealous friend wants to do something risky and suggests karaoke.
Too drunk to realize how embarrassing this could be if ever caught on video, you agree and both of you go up to sing — most likely off-key — your heart out to a song you know most if not all the words to.
While you may think it’s 1999 — the apex of the belt-it-out-in-public movement — the calendar tells you different. Unlike the movies, where there seems to be a great supply of places to partake in karaoke, in real life the scene has gotten smaller in Toledo.
But it still exists, should you ever decide to let your inner rock star come out to play.
Of all the forms of Japanese entertainment that have reached international audiences (think of the current all-ages addiction to Pokemon), perhaps the most peculiar and enduring is karaoke.
Literal translation of the Japanese word has found its meaning to be “empty orchestra,” but today its meaning is a simple explanation of its premise: amateur or amateurs sing along to an instrumental version of a song following the lyrics on a screen into a microphone. Most of the time, the songs are well-known pop, rock, country, or R&B tunes.
“It’s really an opportunity for the general public, someone who may not be a professional musician or an aspiring vocalist, to have a chance in the limelight in a local setting, like a bar or club,” said Bowling Green State University lecturer in pop culture Matthew Donahue.
Karaoke was first introduced in 1971 by professional drummer Daisuke Inoue when he figured out a way to offer instrumental tracks without vocals at the request of his clients who wanted to be able to sing along to his music. He also played the keyboard and would entertain business clients at small clubs, even when he wasn’t around.
Although he never patented the invention, Inoue is still pretty famous in Japan for revolutionizing the entertainment scene in bars and clubs, and a little liquor made short work of patron inhibitions.
Even with the number of bars adopting a night dedicated to karaoke dwindling, it’s still immense fun for those that do participate.
“I think people just like to get up there and be a star,” said Buster Brown Lounge general manager Katie Meyer. “We have some phenomenal talent that comes in and some not so phenomenal, but that’s OK because they get to have fun.”
“Some people come in and show themselves off, but everybody always has a good time.”
Meyer recognized the lack of options in the Toledo area for karaoke nights, but said it was essential for her bar to have it.
“I think we’re the top place for karaoke because people know that we have it every Saturday night without fail, and that’s what makes us successful,” she said of the Maumee bar. “We’ve had regulars come to karaoke night, we’ve had new faces comes through. People have birthday parties and bachelorette parties on karaoke night. It's kind of like a hidden gem.”
Meyer said one key to having a successful karaoke night is to keep it simple. That means no live-band karaoke where a band plays the requested song and people sing. They have a DJ who takes song request, a signup sheet, and the mic and machine.
While Meyer likes to keep in traditional, not allowing songs with a lot of curse words or censoring a couple words in other songs, karaoke is changing in other parts of the country.
Take for example Trap Karaoke. Founded in the fall of 2015, the traveling rodeo is a twist on classic karaoke. Instead of playing songs from artists like Jon Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and Madonna, it’s exclusively trap, rap, and R&B; think Kid Cudi, Migos, and Travis Scott.
Trap Karaoke has seen major success traveling to big cities offering amateurs the chance to show off their skills in front of large crowds.
There’s also Korean karaoke, which is known as “noraebang.”
Unlike regular karaoke which involves performing in front of total strangers in a bar or club setting, noraebang lets people sing karaoke together in private rooms with friends. R&B Bubble Tea KTV, a cafe in South Toledo, offers people the chance to book a room by the hour and jam out to their favorite songs with their friends.
“I think people get nervous performing in front of a large crowd, and this makes it easier,” said employee Ashley Crawford. “It’s becoming more popular because it’s just you and your friends and a lot of pressure or judgment is taken away.”
One factor in the dwindling number of bars offering karaoke is that it also lives on the internet. You can still purchase mini karaoke machines for living room use, and there’s no shortage of Smartphone apps that allow you to rock out whenever and wherever.
“You don’t even have to go out to the bars anymore because karaoke is also on YouTube,” said Donahue. “There’s ‘Sing King Karaoke’ and it has loads of songs with the instrumental and lyrics on the screen. It kind of makes it more personal, because you can do it in your house instead of bars and clubs.”
In whichever venue you choose to do karaoke, its appeal remains the same: You don’t have to be a great singer to pretend otherwise. Indeed, your friends will surely delight in applauding whether you hit the right notes or miss them by a mile.
First Published January 5, 2020, 12:00 p.m.
