Turn Around Bright Eyes (23 page)

It’s definitely no coincidence that the karaoke boom of the early 2000s happened alongside the decline of radio and MTV, after the great nineties music explosion ended. For years, new music was in the air, whether you were an active consumer or not. You could dabble in a couple hours of MTV a month and get a free cheat sheet, enough to bluff your way through a chat at the dentist’s. You could participate in music just by turning on your car radio. You didn’t have to chase it down. It came to you.

When the radio and MTV were on the job, people loved to complain about them. But we all accepted the idea of pop music as a social fact. It was out there, getting airplay, and even if you didn’t like the song, you could respect that at least it was popular. The Top 40 was a place where music fans from different corners of the pop world could check out each other’s styles and see what was worth heisting for themselves. Even if you didn’t consider yourself part of, say, the Pearl Jam audience, or the Snoop Dogg audience, or the Reba McEntire audience, you knew these audiences existed, and that if you overheard their songs on your friends’ or neighbors’ radios, it was (at the very least) something to talk about. I always think of something Beck said in the nineties, when someone asked him why he mixed up all different strains of music on his records: “I’m just trying to connect with the in-laws.”

But as the 1990s turned into the 2000s, new music got harder to find. You couldn’t browse at the record store because you couldn’t find a record store. It was easier than ever for a music fan to get stagnant and keep vegetating in the oldies, just because you couldn’t count on the radio for what the sizzurp-sippers or headbangers or line dancers were blasting this week. Even the biggest pop hits weren’t quite inescapable. Something was lost there. And that’s part of why karaoke blew up the way it did.

Nobody wants you to be an expert on music, or on
anything
, when it comes to karaoke. You get zero bonus points for having a big record collection or knowing your Sinatra trivia. You do not get extra credit for explaining how “New York, New York” was Liza Minnelli’s jam before Frank swiped it, or how Liza sings it for Robert De Niro in the Scorsese movie of the same name. You don’t need a clever theory about the song’s cultural resonance. You just need to get up there and start spreading the news and sing the damn song.

The technology may have changed, but that fundamental human need is the same: We need to share music with other people. That’s why karaoke crosses all generational borders, and that’s why Del Tura has the most hard-core crowd I’ve ever seen. Those are lifers.

None of those people care about my expertise as a music journalist or my collection of Dylan bootlegs. Nobody even gives me a pass based on my mom’s mah-jongg skills. When I get up to sing “New York, New York,” I have exactly three minutes to show and prove I’m worthy to hold that mike in my mind. The only thing that impresses them is what I give to the song, right now. They have no time to waste.

The Wednesday night folks have been loving music for sixty or seventy years now, and yet their favorite song is always the one they’re singing tonight. However many Wednesday nights they’ve got left, they are going to cram those full of music. They are going to be fans for as long as they breathe. Nothing can take that away from them. It’s too late for that. I feel honored to sing with them.

2:16 a.m.:

You can’t talk about karaoke very long before you delve into the topic of Neil Diamond. It just can’t be done. He is the colossus. There are loads of famous singers who inspire legions of karaoke devotees, but Neil has made more converts than any other individual. He is the Colonel Kurtz of the whole karaoke cult, shining his heart-light right into the heart of darkness. You sing a Neil song, and you know what it’s like to kneel before a god. We worship him, we give him thanks, we praise him for his glory.

Like most red-blooded Americans, I’ve been a Neil fan all my life. His songs were a radio presence; it’s like he was always there. But ever since I got into karaoke, it’s a different level of fandom. Now I wear the man like a velvet suit under my skin. Partly it’s because his songs are so perfect for karaoke, it’s like he scientifically engineered them for that purpose, even though he was a star before karaoke was even invented.

Every karaoke singer has a vocal doppelganger, and mine is Neil Diamond. When you start singing, you find out whose voice suits yours and who doesn’t, and you don’t always get to make the decision. A friend of mine has a voice right in the Lionel Richie range, so we always make him do the Commodores songs, even though he was never a big fan before. You follow your voice wherever it leads you, even if it’s against your will. (Or against all odds, if it’s Phil Collins.)

But whoever it is, you find your voice by reaching for theirs. The voice gets into your soul and this guy means more to you than he ever did before. Your doppelganger becomes your spiritual mentor. And that has turned my personal relationship with Neil Diamond into some kind of obsession.

It’s not that I actually sound like him. That would require decades of training and a third lung. But his songs are very forgiving for my flaws—slow and low, with lots of dramatic pauses where I can catch my breath. His songs tend to have cool talking parts, heavy on the consonants. But they always explode into louder-than-a-bomb choruses, jumping up an extra key for the final fade-outs. Neil likes to drop one line on your head, wait a beat to let it sink in, and then drop another. He commits to every line with total intensity. You can’t half-sing the Neil, or do it ironically. You have to let yourself become Neil. You can’t sing it like a “warm evening in March,” or even a “toasty evening in June.” Your emotional thermometer has to go all the way up to
Hot August Night
.

That’s why it took the karaoke era for Neil to take his true place at the top as a pop legend. He’s the ultimate example of a star who sounded like he was already doing karaoke when he recorded his own songs.

Something in Neil Diamond speaks to the boy in you and commands you to answer as a man. Something in Neil’s voice says, “Enough with the small talk, kid. You’ve mumbled at the floor too long. That tongue-tied high school boy thing was cute for about ten minutes. Stand up straight and look that woman in the eye. Knock off the chitchat and say what you mean.”

Neil’s intensity can be intimidating, so you might accuse him of being excessive and hammy. But that’s when Neil speaks to you again. “Right, kid, James Dean got away with mumbling at the floor and he still got the girls’ attention. You as hot as James Dean? Didn’t think so. Are you a genius? Are you a movie star? No? Then speak the hell up. Give that girl a piece of your mind. That girl will be a woman soon, and if you want to be the man, you need to start getting her attention now. Not tomorrow—
today
. Tell her something good. Say it loud. Say it proud.”

So when you sing a Neil song, you can hear Neil coaching you, guiding you, mentoring you. Neil wants to make you a louder person. If you’re a boy, Neil wants you to sing like a man. He gives it to you straight. “Look in the mirror, kid. Or merely behold your image in the reflective sheen of my gaze. You can’t worry about whether you are good enough to sing this song. You can’t hem and haw about whether you are worthy to hold this mike. You must belt. Act like you planned every second of this. Look at the woman when you sing to her and
mean it
.”

That intensity is what makes him the ultimate entertainer. His live classic
Hot August Night
is truly frightening in the way you can hear the rapture he provokes in his audience. There’s a moment where he says, “Tree people out there—God bless you, I’m singing for you, too!” The liner notes explain he means the fans outside the theater, the ones who couldn’t get tickets and had to climb the nearby trees to catch a glimpse of their hero. That’s how much Neil adores his audience—he even sings for the freeloaders. But then, aren’t we all tree people in Neil’s forest? Can any of us claim we deserve him? No, we cannot.

Maybe Neil was thinking of the Bible story about Zacchaeus, in the gospel of Luke, where the tax collector climbs a fig tree so he can see Jesus preach. (Yeah, but did Jesus ever make a live album?) Either way, you can hear the messianic fervor in his voice. He’s a take-charge guy. Even when the lyrics are pure drivel, Neil sings every line with ferocity.

And that’s why “Forever in Blue Jeans” might be the ultimate karaoke anthem. It can scarcely be overstated how ridiculous this trifle is. “Honey’s sweet, but it ain’t nothing next to baby’s treat”—Neil not only wrote that line, he
kept it in the song
. Now, if you or I were trying to write a hit, and we came up with a lyric like that, would we say, “Hey, I think that’s a keeper—our work is done here”? Ah, no. We would immediately crumple the paper, burn the tape, and never mention it to even our closest friends. We would take a hot shower. We would question our major life decisions. But Neil not only held on to that line, he turned it into a massive worldwide smash.

How did he do that? By singing the whole thing like a man. He attacks “Forever in Blue Jeans” like he thinks Bono is just some drippy-nosed whimpering child. Even when he gets to the “honey’s sweet” line, he comes on like Samuel L. Jackson bellowing, “I hope they burn in hell!” You hear it and you believe. And to sing it, you have to believe, too.

The karaoke mentality brings out that hammy Vegas over-the-top belter in your soul. Karaoke is not the venue to get mellow or introspective; it’s no place for James Taylor or Carole King or Paul Simon, much as I love them. You have to bring the Neil. It makes you engage with your own emotions on a more extravagant level. And when that spills over into your everyday life, it brings out the sequins in your soul. This is something I get from karaoke, and over time it’s come to be something I
need
from karaoke.

IT WAS ONLY AFTER I
started singing Neil songs, night after night, that I needed to see the man live for myself. The next time he came to Madison Square Garden for a two-night stand, I had a plan. I talked Ally into coming along to the second night, which was a coup since she’s not really living the soft-rock lifestyle. But I went to the first night by myself, so I could sit alone up in the darkness and cry my eyes out to those songs. I figured Night One would leave me all cried out, so I’d be able to face Night Two bravely and not embarrass my wife.

Night One went according to plan. I skipped a Dylan show that same night so I could sit in the nosebleed seats of Section 424, surrounded by nice old ladies who told me stories of how many times they’d seen the man together. (Along with their second-favorite, Sting, and surprisingly, John Mellencamp.) Neil was the master performer I’d always imagined—now
this
is a star, I thought. Now
that’s
entertainment. He had a conveyer belt to rotate him around the stage, so he could project to every corner. He dedicated “Forever in Blue Jeans” to the fans who bought tickets behind the stage: “Can you believe they
paid
for these seats?”

But he sang to them, too. He sang “Sweet Caroline” three times in a row. (Note: I don’t mean he did a triple-sized version. I mean he began and ended the song, in its entirety,
three times
.) Then some roadies came out and set up a dinner table at the corner of the stage, with a white tablecloth, silverware, candles, a bottle of red wine. Neil sat down, lifted his wineglass pensively, and sang the first line of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.”

I had a clear view of the hippie guy on the other side of the arena, right across from me, waving his hair to “Crunchy Granola Suite.” I drank buckets of beer and wept like a baby to “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show.” Even the other cheapskates around me in Section 424 must have been a little horrified.

On the second night, I was sitting with the same bunch of ladies, who looked relieved to see I had a date this time. I figured I had unloaded the tear ducts, so I would be able to face tonight like a dry sponge. Unfortunately, my tears began to gush from the opening bars of “I Am . . . I Said.” I cried all over again, even though Neil did the same songs, with the same stage banter. He busted out the bit where he says, “People always ask me, Diamond, why don’t you retire? Why don’t you quit touring the world and making people happy with your songs?” We all screamed “
Noooo!
” on cue, even Ally. There was no shame in my sobs.

If I hoped to pick up any secret tricks I could steal when performing these songs, I went home empty-handed. But that was all right. Everything Neil wanted to say, he’d already taught me in the karaoke bar.

2:35 a.m.:

Karaoke has a lot to answer for, but in terms of its long-term cultural impact, here’s an underrated side effect: It killed the Hollywood slow clap. At some point, the movies gave up on the old-fashioned eighties slow clap scene and replaced it with the inevitable karaoke scene, where awkward characters would express their bottled-up emotions in song. Suddenly, it wasn’t good enough to have Corey Haim open his locker and find a varsity football jacket (
clap
) and wonder if it’s a prank (
clap
) only to realize (
clap clap clap
) his plucky quest to make the team has won the respect of his high school classmates (
clap clap clap
), including but not limited to Charlie Sheen and Winona Ryder (
clap clap clap
) and the whole school is giving him a heartfelt round of applause.
Woo-hoo! Try it on, Lucas! Way to go!

Also, in the nineties, people stopped saying “way to go” entirely. This was a good move, nineties.

It’s amazing how karaoke scenes became such a Hollywood staple so fast, in movies and on TV. It wasn’t a gradual evolution: Once “the karaoke scene” arrived, it was a necessity. Every flick had one, from romantic comedies to crime thrillers. These scenes always work because they combine emotional exposition with the basic pleasures of watching famous people do stupid shit. It’s an easy three or four minutes of filler to throw into any screen narrative, with a guaranteed payoff, whether it’s going for quick laughs or quasi-unironic poignancy. It’s like putting a horoscope in a magazine or cat photos on your blog; it’s so automatically effective, requiring zero effort or ingenuity, it seems stupid
not
to do it.