That’s right; the karaoke world is all abuzz since the Oprah show began calling the big players on the karaoke scene this past August. It seems that the Karaoke World Championship press coverage this year put karaoke on Oprah’s radar screen and every since then staffers from the show have making the rounds calling the major karaoke venues and contents and even the folks here at KaraokeTraveler. After researching all things karaoke, Oprah has decided to have her own karaoke competition, Oprah style.

Last week on her show she announced Oprah’s Karaoke challenge and sent award winning gospel singer B.B. Winans as her special karaoke envoy to travel the states and find the best karaoke singers to compete this winter right on Oprah’s stage. So far, the show’s staff has visited Talentquest’s 2009 karaoke finals in Nevada, Divas and Rockstars Karaoke bar in Fargo, ND, KaraokeFest 2009 in Los Angeles,  and Big Mama’s Karaoke Café – home of this year’s Karaoke National Female champion Rebecca Armstrong.  

At the Talentquest finale organizers tell KaraokeTraveler that the show’s staff interviewed and filmed the  top 20 singers in the contest documentary style. At Big Mama’s in Tennessee, BB interviewed at least 12 singers looking for their personal stories and what karaoke means to them. Overall, the venues that Oprah show staff has visited seem very delighted that someone with such influence in cultural affairs is interested in karaoke. David Grimes of Chartbuster Karaoke, the owner of Big Mama’s Karaoke Café, summed up every karaoke venue owners’ sentiments when he beamed “[we] are very proud and delighted to host the Oprah Winfrey Show in her search for one of America’s best singers.” Producers have also been pouring over hours and hours of video footage from the Karaoke World Championship organization as well. There is no word yet on how or whether Oprah will feature these singers but the American Idol contest challenge is definitely planned for the upcoming weeks.

The show will be touring different karaoke spots around the country to film singers and will be accepting video submissions online until October 19^th. Eight Semi-finalists will be chosen by her own panel of judges and will get to perform on the show. After October 26^th, the judge panel will whittle down the likely thousands of video submissions to eight, based on stage presence, vocal ability, and song choice. Semi-finalists are awarded a trip for two to Chicago to compete on the show. Three of the eight semifinalists will advance to the second and final round of the challenger based on viewer and audience voting. A champion will be chosen through audience and viewer voting.

The kickoff of to this karaoke challenge brings to the fore a long-standing  concern of the karaoke community, one that haunts us each time we meet new friends and suggest karaoke, and that is the strange connotation that karaoke has. The association that many people make with karaoke that it is the domain of freaks and geeks, has worn thin in recent years as more cultural icons, thought leaders, and trendsetters have endorsed it, not to mention the wildly popular karaoke videogame titles. But that ghastly image of drunken bar rats and freakishly awkward thirty-somethings who live in their parents basement, singing karaoke in between World of Warcraft rounds is tough to shake off even if Rihanna does it. So Oprah’s foray into the world of karaoke beckons the question; will Oprah make karaoke cool? The karaoke world is waiting.

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Related Articles:
TalentQuest 2009 Winners
KWC-USA 2009 Recap
KWC-USA 2009 Winner Profiles
Paths to the KWC-USA 2009