A Tangled Web

Empty Orchestras for Empty Minds



Help me out here. I cannot fathom what is is about karaoke that drives people to act like absolute morons. I'm sure you've all had the experience of sitting in a public house with the sound of monkey-brained human beings (who have failed to progress beyond borderline subnormal IQ's) singing famous hits with all the musical prowess of a walrus. Has it never occurred to these cretins that the rest of the patrons might just prefer to hear the original rendition of the song in question, as opposed to suffering the excruciation of a noise which sounds not unlike the screeching caused by Robert Shaw when he ran his fingernails down the blackboard in Jaws.



Karaoke originated in Japan. Well, where else could an art of ritual self-humiliation originate? The word 'karaoke' means 'empty orchestra' and it first came to prominence in the south west of Japan sometime in the mid-1980's. For those of you unfamiliar with this cretinous pastime, karaoke involves a talentless dullard blasting out tuneless words to an instrumental accompaniment: songs barely discernible as classics. During the ritual torture, the 'singer' will traditionally engage himself in gesticulation, facial contortions and/or exaggerated bodily swerves. At the end of the song he will receive rapturous applause from like-minded pillocks, and more restrained applause from those for whom good manners mean everything.



People who participate in karaoke are normally sad, unintelligent, vacuous simpletons who lead pointless, boring lives supervising cold meat counters at supermarkets, or manufacturing cardboard tubes in toilet roll factories. Once a week they like to delude themselves by thinking that they actually possess a scintilla of musical talent and, venturing forth with unstoppable hubris, they begin to ritualistically perforate the eardrums of people around them. Karaoke is, like the success of Big Brother and the desire for weekend inebriation, yet another example of how utterly contemptuous the interests of the average citizen have become.