![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reasons To Convert To Orang-Utan, Part II
Sunday, 10 July 2005 09:43 amOne word. Karaoke.
I cannot sufficiently stress how much I loathe, and have always loathed, karaoke. Listening to someone belt out favourite hits, inaccurately, off key, and with tremendous enjoyment, causes an all-over body reaction in which my stomach curdles, my toes curl, I coil involuntarily into a semi-foetal position, and great waves of loathing rocket up my spine and out through my teeth, which are clenched and on edge. In extreme cases, such as last night's rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody", I end up scrabbling at the wall with my fingernails, uttering pitiful moans, and seeking oblivion in booze. And I'm not even a highly-trained musician; I have some training, some experience in part-singing, and a good ear. What karaoke must do to people with perfect pitch, I shudder to think.
What is it with karaoke? There is a tragic logic in the fact that the people who are most drawn to the microphone tend to be those who have the approximate musical and vocal effect of a tone-deaf peacock with a dented megaphone: those with a musical ear, by and large, are able to realise what a horrible din they're making, and consequently don't. (I tried to get Philip to sing Elvis, but no dice). Thus, during the half of the evening I was present, we had precisely one appearance from a gentleman unknown to me, who produced a note-perfect and gravel-voiced rendition of "Wonderful World" that I swear was channelling Satchmo. It was great. Then he disappeared for ever, and the rest of the crowd appropriated the mike for a Sid Vicious version of "My Way", and I had to gnaw my own leg off in self-defense.
But, most bizarre of all, the participants, may their vocal cords atrophy, have such fun. It's not just the levels of alcohol; there is a mad, zesty joy in the perpetrator of karaoke, a fine abandon in the way they unhinge their inhibitions and simply have at it. It says to me, for a start, that way too few people simply sing for any reason. But more than that, it's enormously sad that our forms of mass cultural production have alienated listeners from the music we consume to such an extent that they have to re-appropriate it at the cost of losing all dignity; in a weird sort of way, any form of personalisation is so desirable that actual ability doesn't mean a thing. (Although I suppose you could argue that in a wide swathe of pop music, actual ability is hardly the point, either. How long before it's no longer necessary for pop musicians to be able to hold a tune? Wait, R&B. It's happened already). Folk art forms (communal, self-produced, participatory) no longer have a place in our media world; mass culture has taken over. In Marxist terms, we are alienated from the means of production, in spades. I suppose, on purely ideological grounds, I should be approving karaoke as the last-ditch stand of the consumer resisting passivity. It hardly seems worth it.
(Oh, and well might you ask what I was doing in a den of karoke, anyway. 21st party for a younger CLAW type. I hope he appreciates the sacrifice I was making.)
I cannot sufficiently stress how much I loathe, and have always loathed, karaoke. Listening to someone belt out favourite hits, inaccurately, off key, and with tremendous enjoyment, causes an all-over body reaction in which my stomach curdles, my toes curl, I coil involuntarily into a semi-foetal position, and great waves of loathing rocket up my spine and out through my teeth, which are clenched and on edge. In extreme cases, such as last night's rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody", I end up scrabbling at the wall with my fingernails, uttering pitiful moans, and seeking oblivion in booze. And I'm not even a highly-trained musician; I have some training, some experience in part-singing, and a good ear. What karaoke must do to people with perfect pitch, I shudder to think.
What is it with karaoke? There is a tragic logic in the fact that the people who are most drawn to the microphone tend to be those who have the approximate musical and vocal effect of a tone-deaf peacock with a dented megaphone: those with a musical ear, by and large, are able to realise what a horrible din they're making, and consequently don't. (I tried to get Philip to sing Elvis, but no dice). Thus, during the half of the evening I was present, we had precisely one appearance from a gentleman unknown to me, who produced a note-perfect and gravel-voiced rendition of "Wonderful World" that I swear was channelling Satchmo. It was great. Then he disappeared for ever, and the rest of the crowd appropriated the mike for a Sid Vicious version of "My Way", and I had to gnaw my own leg off in self-defense.
But, most bizarre of all, the participants, may their vocal cords atrophy, have such fun. It's not just the levels of alcohol; there is a mad, zesty joy in the perpetrator of karaoke, a fine abandon in the way they unhinge their inhibitions and simply have at it. It says to me, for a start, that way too few people simply sing for any reason. But more than that, it's enormously sad that our forms of mass cultural production have alienated listeners from the music we consume to such an extent that they have to re-appropriate it at the cost of losing all dignity; in a weird sort of way, any form of personalisation is so desirable that actual ability doesn't mean a thing. (Although I suppose you could argue that in a wide swathe of pop music, actual ability is hardly the point, either. How long before it's no longer necessary for pop musicians to be able to hold a tune? Wait, R&B. It's happened already). Folk art forms (communal, self-produced, participatory) no longer have a place in our media world; mass culture has taken over. In Marxist terms, we are alienated from the means of production, in spades. I suppose, on purely ideological grounds, I should be approving karaoke as the last-ditch stand of the consumer resisting passivity. It hardly seems worth it.
(Oh, and well might you ask what I was doing in a den of karoke, anyway. 21st party for a younger CLAW type. I hope he appreciates the sacrifice I was making.)
