Named one of Time magazine's "Most Influential Asians of the Century" in 1999, he was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and in 2005 was the subject of the Japanese biographical film Karaoke.
[4] He started playing drums in high school, but was not particularly skillful, as a result of which he took on the business management of his band, which provided back-up music in a club for businessmen who wanted to take the stage.
Thinking that the idea might have widespread appeal, he began in 1971 renting to bars in Kobe eleven machines outfitted with tapes and amplifiers which he had assembled along with some friends.
"[A]s much as Mao Zedong or Mohandis Gandhi changed Asian days," Time author Pico Iyer wrote, "Inoue transformed its nights.
[9] In 2004, Inoue went to Harvard University to accept an Ig Nobel Peace Prize for "inventing karaoke, thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other.