These fab photos show karaoke from the beginning to the golden age of today
How Japan’s ‘empty orchestra’ filled the world with song
It may not seem like something needing inventing, but karaoke as we know it didn’t exist until 1971. That’s when Japanese coffeeshop musician Daisuke Inoue saw the potential for recording the instrumental cover songs he was churning out on a keyboard every night. Inoue fabricated the world’s first karaoke machine—the Juke 8—at a friend’s electronics shop, packaged them with a catalog of 8-track recordings, and began leasing the boxes to bars around the city of Kobe. The cumbersome contraption was slow to catch on, but Inoue already knew how to get his demographic’s attention. “I asked a female employee to act as a decoy and go around to a few of the clubs and sing a song or two on each Juke 8. I figured a cute girl in a sexy outfit should help to draw interest. It paid off, and in no time the machines became moneymakers.”
In Japanese, karaoke translates literally to “empty orchestra.” Inoue’s poetic name would prove profitable: in just two years his company had fabricated 25,000 units of the Juke 8 for bars and clubs across Japan.
The ensuing international karaoke craze unfolded quickly. Its most devoted strongholds were established in other East Asian countries like China, Korea, and the Philippines, where, as in Japan, karaoke is most often performed in private, single-room “karaoke boxes” rented by the hour. The open mic format common to North America is actually a throwback to the origins of karaoke. In the leftist utagoe kissa coffeehouses popular in postwar Japan, patrons would gather to socialize and sing anti-establishment songs in a communal, intimate space—baring all by belting their lungs out in front of an audience. These days, when virtually any song’s instrumental track and lyrics can be accessed via the world wide web, karaoke machines aren’t even necessary anymore. Nevertheless, the global karaoke business is estimated at $10 billion.
Most fans agree that singing, in or out of tune, taps into something deeply cathartic. The urge to express through song is as powerful as it is entertaining, and explains in part why an obscure and period-specific electronics device from Japan would catapult to lasting worldwide appeal so quickly.
