Inoue made almost no money out of his discovery--which was soon picked up by larger companies--and the karaoke firm he passed on to his younger brother recently went bust. The only patent he owned, briefly, was for plastic-covered songbooks, and the only karaoke-related profits he earns today come from a potion he markets to repel the cockroaches and rats that are a karaoke box's main enemy. Until a Singapore-based all-karaoke TV channel "discovered" him in 1996, the man who rescued mute, inglorious Presleys and unrecognized Madonnas was hardly known even in his hometown. Even now, on the wall calendar that hangs by his door, there are only eight appointments listed for the whole month. "I am its natural parent," he confesses, "but, having given birth to karaoke, I abandoned it."
The premise of "sing-along" music has always been egalitarian: if the boss can make like Paul McCartney, so can I. In the often hierarchical cultures of East Asia, therefore, it has served as instrument of homemade democracy, a popular ice-breaker and even a method for picking up foreign languages. And in a world of ever more customized entertainments--the home video or the home page--karaoke is a kind of fantasy chamber for the circumscribed.
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Instant Success A Japanese instant-noodle inventor's skillful mix of flour, oil and a little salt and MSG has redefined the way the world eats
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It also seems apt that this quintessentially Japanese product, made by a man strolling to the beat of his own private drum-kit, has touched a chord worldwide. Signs for "karaoke nights" now appear outside mom-and-pop stalls in Third World villages and on the glittery billboard of the Hollywood Park Casino in California. Global icons practice it in films like My Best Friend's Wedding, and steelworkers howl away in English towns, where "carry-okie" sounds like a cousin of "cash 'n' carry." Religious figures have been heard to say that karaoke is as essential to the soul as tai chi, and 53 million Japanese alone have inflicted their voices on the world. Even in a city like Phnom Penh you can sing everything from O Sole Mio to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Inoue, meanwhile, remains an Everyman with a smile, unperturbed about lost riches and excited about his latest venture. "My dream before I die," he says, flourishing a business card on which colored dogs cavort, "is to train Japanese pet-owners to take better care of their pets. To offer a school for cradle-to-grave training of cats and dogs." Having helped to teach the world to sing (in perfect harmony), he should find training four-legged creatures and their friends as easy as just whistling.
Pico Iyer, a longtime contributor to TIME, is the author of Video Night in Kathmandu
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