Don’t Stop Believing by Brian Raftery 

Performermag.com

Reviewed by: Vanessa Voigt 

In Don’t Stop Believin’, author Brian Raftery gives the reader an entertaining picture on “How Karaoke Conquered the World.” Raftery’s entertaining karaoke anecdotes are brimming with fun pop-culture facts and musical references.  He shows there is a lot of culture behind the art of bad singing by taking the reader to the karaoke clubs of New York City, Chicago, Hawaii, Japan, Bangkok and even Thailand. He provides an entertaining history of karaoke along with his own personal adventures of this musical social craze, such as witnessing the greatest karaoke competition on the planet, the Karaoke World Championship (KWC). With all his years of experience, Raftery has loads of laughter inducing tips and many lists of songs that take the reader down memory lane or straight to a karaoke joint themselves.  For example, Raftery writes the unwritten rules of karaoke, such as limiting certain songs, such as any by Gun N’ Roses, to every two hours.  The back of the book has a wide, varied list of “Fifty Songs I’ll Never Stop Singing at Karaoke” and then a list of “Thirty Songs I’ll Never Find at Karaoke.”  Don’t Stop Believin’ will either have you belting out in laughter, or belting out in song.