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Karaoke’s coming home: Japan’s empty orchestras in the United Kingdom

2011; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02614367.2010.533281

1466-4496

William Howard Kelly,

Music History and Culture

Abstract This paper examines the introduction, adaptation and popularisation of karaoke singing in the UK. Based on ethnographic field research and interviews conducted in both Japan and the UK, the paper traces the various pathways through which karaoke hardware and software were first introduced and marketed in the UK and the social contexts and entertainment venues within which karaoke has been popularised. The 'domestication' of karaoke in the UK is treated as a complex and multifaceted process involving both 'cultural' factors related to existing traditions of singing and amateur performance, notions of individual public 'display' and musical preferences, for example, and the 'local' economic and regulatory environment into which karaoke had been adapted. As a contribution to the discourse on the relationship between 'global' and 'local' forces in cultural flows, it is argued that although Japanese karaoke producers may have been successful in globalising the karaoke concept, its popularisation as a leisure activity in the UK has involved the localisation of the production, distribution and uses of karaoke hardware and software. Keywords: consumer cultureleisurepopular cultureglobalisation Notes 1. 'Karaoke' was included in the Oxford Dictionary of New Words in 1994 and subsequently, in the Oxford English Dictionary itself. The term has also been widely employed, particularly in the print media, as a metaphor, usually in a derogatory sense, to denote that which is artificial, inauthentic, cheap, copied, or lacking in creativity or originality. For a more detailed description of Britain's karaoke boom, including examples of metaphorical uses, see Kelly (2001 Kelly, W.H. 2001. "The adaptability of karaoke in the United Kingdom". In Karaoke around the world: Global technology, local singing, Edited by: Mitsui, T. and Hosokawa, S. 83–101. London/New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). 2. The research was generously supported by a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Project number 10041094). The main aim of the project, which was led by Professor Emeritus Harumi Befu (Stanford University), was to theorise Japan's globalisation with reference to robust, ethnographically‐researched case studies (see Befu, 1998 Befu, H. Globalization of Japan: Its implications for the globalization model. International Symposium 12 'Japan in a Comparative Perspective'. International Research Center for Japanese Studies. [Google Scholar]; Shiraishi, 1997 Shiraishi, S.S. 1997. "Japan's soft power: Doraemon goes overseas". In Network power: Japan and Asia, Edited by: Katzenstein, P.J. and Shiraishi, T. 234–272. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar] provides an interesting 'case study'). 3. See Bestor (2004 Bestor, T. 2004. "Markets: Anthropological aspects". In The international encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, 9227–9231. Amsterdam: Elsevier. [Google Scholar]), Lie (1997 Lie, J. 1997. Sociology of markets. Annual Review of Sociology, 23: 341–360. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Miller (1997 Miller, D. 1997. Capitalism: An ethnographic approach, Oxford/New York: Berg. [Google Scholar]) for anthropological/sociological perspectives on markets. 4. See Kelly (2001 Kelly, W.H. 2001. "The adaptability of karaoke in the United Kingdom". In Karaoke around the world: Global technology, local singing, Edited by: Mitsui, T. and Hosokawa, S. 83–101. London/New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) for a historical perspective on the role of compere in the context of amateur entertainment in Britain. 5. Originally from the popular musical, Carousel, the song has been re‐recorded several times and was popularised in Britain by the 1963 version recorded by Gerry and the Pacemakers. The song was adopted as an anthem of team support by Liverpool football fans and was recorded again by Marsden and other stars to raise money in support of the victims of a fire at the Bradford City football stadium in April, 1985. Now well established throughout Britain as a song expressing collective pathos, it was recently sung by an estimated crowd of one million people, who were gathered in The Mall outside of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in May 2002. 6. A small space, equipped with a karaoke system and furnished with tables and seating, which is rented to either individuals or small groups privately by the hour. 7. This was a very real issue for the karaoke industry in Japan. At the end of one of my earliest and longest interviews in Tokyo, with an executive of a well‐known music recording company, my interviewee suddenly invited in his karaoke people to ask our (I was accompanied at the time by a fellow aspiring anthropologist) opinion about why karaoke was providing more viable in some overseas markets, such as the UK or Germany and less viable in others, such as France. 8. An epitaph to the introduction of Silverstone and Hirsch's Consuming Technologies (1992 Silverstone, R. and Hirsch, E. 1992. Consuming technologies: Media and information in domestic spaces, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), the full quotation from Raymond Williams is 'A main characteristic of our society is a willed coexistence of very new technology and very old social forms'.