- published: 28 Jul 2010
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Karaoke (カラオケ?, portmanteau of Japanese kara 空 "empty", and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra") ( /ˌkæriːˈoʊkiː/; Japanese: [kaɽaoꜜke] ( listen)), also known as Minus-One in the Philippines, is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music (a music video) using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol, changing color, or music video images, to guide the singer. In some countries, a karaoke box is called a KTV. It is also a term used by recording engineers translated as "empty track" meaning there is no vocal track.
The concept of creating studio recordings that lack the lead vocal has been around for nearly as long as recording itself. Many artists, amateur and professional, perform in situations where a full band/orchestra is either logistically or financially impractical, so they use a "karaoke" recording; they are, however, the original artists. (This is not to be confused with "lip synching," in which a performer mimes to a previously produced studio recording with the lead vocal intact.)
Toby Keith Covel (born July 8, 1961) best known as Toby Keith, is an American country music singer-songwriter, record producer and actor. Keith released his first four studio albums — 1993's Toby Keith, 1994's Boomtown, 1996's Blue Moon and 1997's Dream Walkin', plus a Greatest Hits package for various divisions of Mercury Records before leaving Mercury in 1998. These albums all earned gold or higher certification, and produced several chart singles, including his debut "Should've Been a Cowboy", which topped the country charts and was the most played country song of the 1990s. The song has received three million spins since then, according to Broadcast Music Incorporated.
Signed to Nashville DreamWorks in 1998, Keith released his breakthrough single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" that year. This song, the title track to his 1999 album of the same name, was the Number One country song of 2000, and one of several chart-toppers during his tenure on DreamWorks Nashville. His next three albums, Pull My Chain, Unleashed, and Shock'n Y'all, produced three more Number Ones each, and all of the albums were certified multi-platinum. A second Greatest Hits package followed in 2004, and after that, he released Honkytonk University.