Manchester, Birthplace of…Karaoke?

What comes to mind when you think of the city of Manchester and its musical history?  The Smiths, the Stone Roses, Oasis, New Order, Joy Division, karaoke.  Wait–karaoke?  That’s right.  

Along with some great music, Manchester was also the birthplace of the karaoke machine.  In 1975, an inventor named Roy Brooke built something he called “Roy’s Sing-a-Long Machine.”  

The concept was simple.  A cassette machine played an instrumental version of a popular song while someone sang along into a microphone that was pumped through the same machine.  Suddenly, anyone could be a singer.

A Japanese company then picked up on the idea, renamed the machine “karaoke,” which means “empty orchestra”–and life, as we know it has never been the same since.