Closet Carusos

Japan reinvents the sing-along

Music lovers who cannot stand the sound of silence carry their tunes with them on portable cassette players. Now frustrated singers in Japan are turning to a far more elaborate audio apparatus. Known as karaoke, or empty orchestra, sets, they give users the feeling of being accompanied in song by their very own back-up band. First popular in small bars, karaoke sets quickly spread to the home. In 1982 sales of home units zoomed to $625 million, more than was spent in the U.S. on, for example, gas ranges.

A basic karaoke set costs $400 and includes a cassette player and prerecorded tapes, a microphone, echo control and songbook. The closet Caruso simply turns on the music, finds his place in the songbook, picks up his microphone and croons away. Popular accompaniments range from work songs of Japanese farmers and favorites of World War II fighters to I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

Karaoke sets are being turned out by most of Japan's major electronics firms. One $4,000 top-of-the-line model includes synthesizers that can create a bossa nova or waltz beat, a computerized music memory system and two giant 5-ft. speakers. For $1,000 more, vocalists can add a small black box that grades their singing by scoring how well they stay on pitch and keep time with the beat of the electronic accompaniment.

So popular have karaoke sets become that last month they were sold out at many of the approximately 22,000 Japanese stores that carry them. Almost inevitably, they are going to be exported to the U.S. After exhibiting them at a Las Vegas trade show in January, Clarion, the largest manufacturer, received orders from American dealers totaling $1 million. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.