Karaoke idols : popular music and the performance of identity

Author / Creator

Brown, Kevin (College teacher), author

Available as

Online

Physical

Summary

Most ethnographers don't achieve what Kevin Brown did while conducting their research: in his two years spent at a karaoke bar near Denver, Colorado, he went from barely able to carry a tune to som...

Most ethnographers don't achieve what Kevin Brown did while conducting their research: in his two years spent at a karaoke bar near Denver, Colorado, he went from barely able to carry a tune to someone whom other karaoke patrons requested to sing. Along the way, he learned everything you might ever want to know about karaoke and the people who enjoy it. The result is Karaoke Idols, a close ethnography of life at a karaoke bar that reveals just what we are doing when we take up the mic...and how we shape our identities, especially in terms of gender, ethnicity, and class, through performances in everyday life.

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