While the subject of karaoke elicits a roll of the eyes for many people, there’s no doubt that karaoke has had a huge cultural impact, first in Japan and then around the world. For a myriad of reasons, people enjoy singing and performing, and there’s no device that’s more successfully leveled the playing field for public performances than the karaoke machine.
Traditional karaoke machines incorporate a microphone, a recording of the instrumental tracks of a song, an audio output device, and a video screen that displays the lyrics of a song. Singers (or those who consider themselves to be singers) use the microphone to sing along to the music while following the lyrics on a video screen. Karaoke singing gained popularity in Japan in the 1980s and then spread throughout the world in the 1990s. Typically, people would gather in bars or clubs for “Karaoke Night,” although some clubs featured karaoke every night of the week.
In the new millennium, karaoke machines got much more personal. Singles and families started buying home karaoke machines for their own enjoyment, as well as for entertainment at parties. It was easy to simply hook...