::A Geek in Korea::

For thousands of years, man has been singing songs. The telephone was invented, allowing people to communicate with someone far away. The radio was invented, allowing people to listen to all sorts of sounds from around the world in many different locations. Then, some pucky Japanese individual decided that they wanted to embarrass themselves by trying to sing popular songs as well. Karaoke was born.

Everything was leading up to this moment. In what can only be their dogged determination to be more annoying, Korean radio show hosts have combined three things that should never been brought together. Radio + Telephone + Karaoke.

Now, bored housewives, old people, and the unemployed can call into local radio shows, request a song, then sing along on the radio. The hosts interview the people, ask them what they want to sing, then turn on the music. The callers then sing into their telephones to the music.  It’s not bad enough that Korean radio show hosts don’t play music for long periods of time, or when they do, they talk over it. Now, they have other people sing over it. There is a reason that most popular music isn’t recorded by singing it through a telephone. It sounds horrible. Either the people are too quiet, can’t sing, or don’t know most of the words to the song they requested. It’s all the fun of going to a singing room without the lights, dancing, alcohol, or good music.

You’d think with a premise this bad, it’d be like a tree falling in the forest. No one would want to listen to people singing via telephone, so it’s harmless. Not so. No matter how bad an idea this is, Taxi drivers are listening to this sort of show constantly. I’ve heard more songs being sung by people at home this month than by actual singers. Do Korean radio stations save money by not having to pay the rights to songs sung by their callers? Why would people listen to this? What are the alternatives? Are hosts just farting into microphones on every other station, making this the best choice?

I think, secretly, that Korean talk show hosts hate music, hate sound, and hate people listening to their shows. They are doing everything in their power to kill radio as a medium, thus fueling the Korean economy by driving everyone to buy mp3 players. If this is their goal, I commend them, as I could ride in silence without having to listen to old men trying to sing Korean drinking songs on the way to work.