Who invented karaoke? The story, as it’s always been told, begins in Japan in the 1970s —except that’s not quite how it happened. It really began fifty years earlier, in Madrid. Before you raise an eyebrow, though, let’s back up: not everyone agrees on what karaoke actually is.
The Real Academia Española —Spain’s own dictionary authority, for readers unfamiliar with it— defines karaoke, and I quote directly, as “entertainment consisting of singing along to a recorded musical backing track, while following the lyrics displayed on a screen.” The word itself is Japanese, from kara (’empty’) and oke (from ōkesutora, ‘orchestra’) —something like “empty orchestra.”
