Scott Sanford’s DJ booth is covered in neon sticky notes — pink, green, blue. Names, bands and songs are crawled across each. Methodically, he calls off each one, beckoning its author to the performance stage at Ghost Light in Hamtramck. Under the bar’s low red light, 20-somethings and 30-somethings and a few 50-somethings cheer on renditions of “A Thing Called Love" and “The Real Slim Shady.”
“It's their chance to be a rock star for five minutes,” said Sanford, who hosts karaoke at Ghost Light every Thursday and at the Kelly’s Bar night market every Wednesday.
On any given night in Detroit or Hamtramck, there’s an opportunity to belt out a tune of your choice in front of strangers, sometimes on stage and sometimes standing next to a pool table, reading lyrics off of a computer placed on a chair. Karaoke is a popular evening passtime for metro Detroit locals — and to many, a source of community.
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Detroit is home to a rich music history, so it follows that the city is home to a robust karaoke community, said Robert Drew, a professor of music and pop culture at Saginaw Valley State University, who published a book on karaoke in 2001.
“Detroit has been a center of Motown, techno, electronic music, Detroit hip-hop. There's so much coming out of that scene,” he said, going on to outline the city’s indie roots. The city also breeds a lot of musical talent, said Drew. It’s a relatively inexpensive town compared to coastal cities where musicians tend to gravitate.
“It's kind of, forgive the term, but it's a little bit of a hipster town,” said Drew. “There are these pockets in Detroit of a lot of cultural activity, and I think probably karaoke has just become a part of that."
Karaoke as we know it, with lyric machines and coinciding instrumentals operating from networks rather than disks, took root in the United States in the 1990s after being developed in Japan.
“Before karaoke came along there was no real opportunity to sing publicly,” said Drew. “It just wasn't normal to get up on the stage and sing a song that was for the stars to do, you know, that was for local bands or maybe cover bands, but not just everyday people. So it was a real revelation. It was a real godsend.”
When the trend first started sweeping through bars in big cities like New York and San Francisco, people thought it was a passing fad, said Drew. But its popularity has outlasted skeptics — the market size for karaoke systems in the U.S. was over $5 billion in 2023 and is expected to continue growing .
Karaoke fosters community
Sanford got into metro Detroit’s bustling karaoke scene at Ghost Light, where he performed in plays and improv. Eventually, he picked up DJing — starting off by covering shifts for buddies who knew he frequented the weekly event. It’s a scene full of returning members, he said.
“There is definitely a group of people that are dedicated, hardcore karaoke people. Every night of the week they're at a karaoke bar.”
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But there’s no particular archetype — and the sing-along transcends identity boundaries. Sanford will see people who he didn’t realize knew each other greet one another at karaoke events around town, convinced they’re bound together by their love of the lyric chase.
“People from different walks of life … like the goth guy hanging out with the straight-laced polo guy. People that just kind of bond over this love of karaoke,” he said.
The sounds are similarly diverse. As the years have gone on, Sanford has seen performers get more comfortable with niche discography. These days he’s playing a lot of ‘90s hits and 2000s era emo, like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. Music of the moment also makes its way on stage. After the Barbie movie came out, “I’m Just Ken” was a popular track. This year, he’s fielding a lot of sticky notes with Chappell Roan songs.
The most requested songs in his database are:
- “Flagpole Sitta,” Harvey Danger
- “You Oughta Know,” Alanis Morisette
- “What You Won’t Do for Love,” Bobby Caldwell
- “Creep,” Radiohead
- “What’s Up,” 4 Non Blondes
- “Lovefool,” Cardigans
- “Valerie,” Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse
- “This Must Be the Place,” Talking Heads
- “Just Like Heaven,” The Cure
- “Teenage Dirtbag,” Wheatus
“In the suburbs, it’s old guys singing Sinatra,” he said.
‘Everybody wants to be a star’
Bert Dearing has been in the karaoke game in Detroit since it first hit the scene, he estimates sometime in the ‘80s or ‘90s. Now he holds karaoke every Saturday at Bert’s Warehouse in Eastern Market, where he’s operated a restaurant and jazz bar for 37 years. It’s a booming success, he said.
“You can't move in here,” he said about the packed house on karaoke nights. “Everybody wants to be a star.”
John Szymanski, owner of Outer Limits in Hamtramck, started offering karaoke on Monday night just this January. He’s also seen a boon in business, he said.
“My bar is sort of off the beaten path, so we kind of need events to get people out. So definitely, it would not be busy on Mondays if we didn't have karaoke,” he said.
He’s impressed with the talent — as someone in a band himself, he uses the karaoke stage as an opportunity to practice covers every once in a while. He sees other bands doing the same.
Outer Limits’ DJ, John Brzezniak, or “Polish John” as he’s known around town, didn’t start off as a musician.
“I’d sing in my car the ‘Moulin Rouge’ soundtrack or something,” he said. But in the early 2010s, karaoke felt like the thing people were doing. “It kind of opened up something in me that I didn't know that I had. … I love, I love seeing that happen in other people.”
Karaoke has an invigorating effect on a crowd, said Brzezniak, whether it’s the anticipation of your performance or the thrill of learning a new song. “And I feel, personally, the most alive in my week when either I'm hosting or I'm going to someone's karaoke and singing.”
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Everybody wants to be a star': Karaoke is still a booming success in metro Detroit
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