Throw in a cheaply made non-sequitur music video, a pitcher of domestic beer and a tambourine, and any random Thursday night downtown could turn into the most transcendent musical experience of your entire year. Whether at a solo mic on stage in a strange and sparsely populated bar or packed in a room with a dozen of our closest and most animated friends, karaoke allowed us pop music lovers the opportunity to not just celebrate those tunes but to crawl inside them, to become an essential part of them. Concerts were how we connected best with our favorite artists, but karaoke is how we really bonded with our favorite songs. As much as we here at Billboard missed live music in the thick of the pandemic, another cultural loss was just as devastating to our day-to-day lives: the shutdown of karaoke.
