Concept

Karaoke

Summary
Karaoke (ˌkæriˈoʊki; kaɾaoke; カラオケ, clipped compound of Japanese kara 空 "empty" and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music is an instrumental version of a well-known popular song. Lyrics are typically displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol, changing colour, or music video images, to guide the singer. In Chinese-speaking countries and regions such as mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, a karaoke box is called a KTV. The global karaoke market has been estimated to be worth nearly $10 billion. From 1961 to 1966, the American TV network NBC carried a karaoke-like series, Sing Along with Mitch, featuring host Mitch Miller and a chorus, which superimposed the lyrics to their songs near the bottom of the TV screen for home audience participation. The primary difference between Karaoke and sing-along songs is the absence of the lead vocalist. Sing-alongs (present since the beginning of singing) fundamentally changed with the introduction of new technology. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, stored audible materials began to dominate the music recording industry and revolutionized the portability and ease of use of band and instrumental music by musicians and entertainers as the demand for entertainers increased globally. This may have been attributable to the introduction of music cassette tapes, technology that arose from the need to customize music recordings and the desire for a "handy" format that would allow fast and convenient duplication of music and thereby meet the requirements of the entertainers' lifestyles and the 'footloose' character of the entertainment industry. The karaoke-styled machine was developed in various places in Japan. Even before the Invention of the first machines, the word “karaoke” had long been used in Japan’s entertainment industry to refer to the use of instrumental recordings as backing tracks in situations when a live band could not be arranged for a singer.
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