Dot Com Star to Karaoke Queen

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Guardian: Step up to the mic ...
For years it has been derided as the perfect night out for those who want to get blind drunk and embarrass themselves by belting out I Will Survive in some dingy pub. But not any more. Karaoke is back, and it's the coolest thing in town...In style terms...this is a phoenix-from-the-ashes achievement...Karaoke blazed into western consciousness in the 1990s, only to fizzle out...But the new karaoke is quite different. Think Bill Murray mouthing backing vocals ("special ...") to Scarlett Johansson's rendition of The Pretenders' Brass in Pocket in Lost in Translation. A moment of pure sweetness and light on a dark Tokyo night, it has become the classic scene from a modern classic film...For those who know where to go...Karaoke Box on Frith Street is a Tokyo-style bar with private rooms for hire by the hour. It has recently become almost as hard to get a booth as it is to get a table at The Ivy, thanks to the mix of homesick Japanese businessmen and Soho hipsters who frequent it.
...Karaoke transcends barriers of age, sex, class and social tribe. Prince Harry has been spotted doing fair renditions of the Grease hit Summer Loving...at hotel karaoke sessions; while on a Saturday night...a Punk Rock Karaoke night [See FG Thread: Punk Rock Karaoke] has XFM types belting out Teenage Kicks and London Calling to the backing of a live band.
...[Martha] Lane Fox now hopes to capitalise on the growing appetite for karaoke. Before her near-fatal car crash in Morocco in May last year, the dotcom poster girl had begun working on a new venture of accessible Tokyo-style karaoke bars, bringing the experience that the Soho hipsters love at Karaoke Box to a wider audience...Lucky Voice, which opens its first branch on Poland Street in London next week, is "literally a direct copy of a proper Japanese karaoke bar" with nine private rooms catering for between four and 14 guests each, waitress service, food, and the latest touchscreen technology...she is looking forward to overseeing, eventually, a chain of Lucky Voices.