Armed with a keen eye and a terrible singing voice, writer Brian Raftery sets out across the globe, tracing karaoke's evolution from cult fad to multi-million-dollar phenomenon. In Japan, he meets Daisuke Inoue, the godfather of karaoke; in Thailand, he follows a group of Americans hoping to win the Karaoke World Championships; and in New York City, he hangs out backstage with the world's longest-running heavy-metal karaoke band. Along the way, Raftery chronicles his own time as an obsessive karaoke fan, recalling a life's worth of noisy relationships and poor song choices, and analyzing the karaoke-bar merits of such artists as Prince, Bob Dylan and Fugazi.
Part cultural history, part memoir, “Don't Stop Believin': How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life” is a hilarious and densely reported look at the liberating effects of a good sing-along.
Brian Raftery's features, profiles, and criticism have appeared in such publications as “Wired”, “Spin”, “GQ”, and “Entertainment Weekly”. His favorite karaoke song is Night Ranger's "Sister Christian."
