Lifestyle
Here are the nonfiction books NPR staffers have loved so far this year
Alicia Zheng/NPR
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Alicia Zheng/NPR
We see you, hard-core NPR readers — just because it’s summer doesn’t mean it’s all fiction, all the time. So we asked around the newsroom to find our staffers’ favorite nonfiction from the first half of 2024. We’ve got biography and memoir, health and science, history, sports and more. (And, sure, if you only want to take fiction to the beach, we’ve got you: Click here.)
Simon & Schuster
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Simon & Schuster
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher pulls off a magic trick here, delivering several sharply written books in one. There’s her story of becoming media’s most influential tech analyst, chronicling the rise of Facebook, Amazon, Google and, of course, X/Twitter — psychoanalyzing all the driven, flawed (mostly) dudebros who turned them into world-shaking platforms. There’s also an affecting personal memoir, charting her journey as a gay woman, spouse, mother, entrepreneurial journalist and advocate. And there’s a passionate critique of toxic technology, slamming self-centered tech CEOs who pursue engagement through enragement, unleashing social division. It’s all knit together with nimble-yet-effective prose, outlining how Silicon Valley works, how journalism works and how society works in one neat package. — Eric Deggans, TV critic
St. Martin’s Press
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St. Martin’s Press
Cloistered: My Years as a Nun by Catherine Coldstream
Nuns have captured our imaginations as characters in fiction and on film over the years, but it’s rare to hear from one firsthand. This compelling memoir provides a glimpse into the life of a cloistered nun as the author shares her journey into — and ultimately out of — an order of Carmelite nuns in England. Coldstream seamlessly weaves her own personal motivations for seeking a life of solitude, contemplation and service alongside an exploration of the challenges, reforms and purpose of such orders at the turn of the 21st century. This book will push you to reflect on faith, power and personal agency in your own communities as you consider Coldstream’s experience. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming & Production
Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley
I spent most of the last year mourning my mother and found few books that even got close to capturing my altered mental state. My brain kept rehashing the past and finding significance in the oddest things, and I so wanted to share that experience with the very person I was missing. In a slim 191 pages, Sloane Crosley nails it precisely as she details mourning her best friend, who died suddenly by suicide. While poignant and vulnerable, her memoir is also insightful and funny, especially as she recounts adventures with Russell and her attempts to track down and reclaim jewelry that was stolen from her apartment about a month before he died: a caper he would have enjoyed in the telling. I finished it feeling grateful for her friend’s life and even more appreciative of my mom’s. — Melissa Gray, senior producer, Weekend Edition
Grown Woman Talk: Your Guide to Getting and Staying Healthy by Sharon Malone M.D.
If you want to be more proactive in managing your health, Dr. Sharon Malone can help. Grown Woman Talk is a playbook for navigating a fragmented and flawed health care system, written by a doctor who has spent more than 30 years practicing as an OB/GYN and is a certified menopause practitioner. She weaves in insights from her childhood in Mobile, Ala., when doctor visits were rare for her family. She recalls the first time she saw a doctor, entering the hospital through the “colored” door for an emergency tonsillectomy — and describes her mother as a “Jedi master” of managing injuries and illnesses with home remedies. Her deep sense of loss and anger at the death of her mom from cancer when she was 12 inspired her to be the kind of doctor and caretaker we need more of. — Allison Aubrey, health correspondent
Here After: A Memoir by Amy Lin
In this memoir, the past and the present bleed together, as short wisps of chapters build the case for Kurtis and Amy as soul mates, while also telling the story of Kurtis’ sudden and unexplained death. Poetic, visceral and stark, this beautifully crafted book is a gift, pulling back the curtain on the intimate processes of love and grief. Steeped in the greatest of personal losses, Amy Lin allows us to witness her plod against the cascading losses that follow and behold the life raft that is memory. — Beck Harlan, visuals editor, Life Kit
PublicAffairs
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PublicAffairs
Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality by Renée DiResta
At a time when our screens are clogged with viral lies and conspiracy theories, Invisible Rulers takes a long view toward explaining media manipulation and how we got to this moment. The book skillfully weaves together history and technology to explain the changing iterations of political propaganda over the past century. Renée DiResta, a disinformation researcher at Stanford University, shares her own experiences on the front lines of the struggle to define objective reality, including entering the field after confronting anti-vaccine sentiment when she became a parent. In the years since, DiResta has found herself a focal point for conspiracy theories, as powerful politicians have sought to discredit her work and that of other researchers in the field. — Brett Neely, supervising editor, Disinformation Reporting
Simon & Schuster
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Simon & Schuster
Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House by Jared Cohen
The American presidency is viewed as the most powerful position in the world. What happens when the job ends? History is often surprising. Not everyone found the role to be the most fulfilling one they ever had. Jared Cohen looks at some fascinating case studies that back that up. John Quincy Adams and William Howard Taft found greater joy in other branches of government: Congress and the Supreme Court. George Bush enjoys his private life and art studio. Life after power CAN be much more rewarding. — Edith Chapin, senior vice president and editor in chief
Little, Brown and Company
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Little, Brown and Company
The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich
This family memoir begins with a courtroom scene like no other. After a night in jail, Annabelle Tometich’s mom is charged with firing at a man who, she says, was stealing mangoes from the tree in her front yard. Tometich then hits rewind, taking readers back through her Fort Myers, Fla., childhood — with her Filipino American mom and white dad, a couple whose personality differences do not make them stronger together. The writing is both jewel-like and effortless, and Tometich’s memories — some mundane, some extraordinary — are mesmerizing. — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition
Little, Brown Spark
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Little, Brown Spark
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie
Not the End of the World sifts through the evidence on pollution, extinction threats and deforestation. Once the numbers are clinically separated from emotion, a surprising guidebook to an eco-friendly life emerges. Food miles: not likely to affect climate change much. Meatless Mondays: helpful, especially if eschewing beef. Not everyone will interpret the world’s chances of staying within 2 degrees Celsius of warming with the same cautious optimism as Hannah Ritchie (“I’m confident we can keep moving closer”). But Ritchie’s data-first perspective makes this book an invaluable chaser to climate doomscrolling. — Darian Woods, co-host, The Indicator from Planet Money
St. Martin’s Press
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St. Martin’s Press
Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson
Gretchen Sisson’s research and careful retelling of first/birth mothers’ experiences sheds light on the people who are too often ignored, dehumanized and erased within the institution of adoption. This book deepened my understanding of how adoption, while typically viewed as a noble, feel-good form of family building, actually hinges on the trauma of family separation. Relinquished reveals the structural forces behind this loss, commonly blamed on the individual failures of a mother or birth parents. These are interviews that broadened my understanding of reproductive justice and myself as an adopted person. It’s essential reading in this era of reproductive rights under threat, for anyone who has thought of adoption as “a simple alternative” to abortion, and anyone considering adoption as a family plan. — Schuyler Swenson, content development producer
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport
If you’re the typical knowledge worker, your life is overwhelmed by a dizzying flurry of emails and Slack messages breaking your focus every few minutes. You breathlessly ricochet from task to task yet never get enough real work done. Stop. Take a deep breath. Then read Slow Productivity, which expounds on productivity expert Cal Newport’s tripartite philosophy of 1) do fewer things 2) work at a natural pace and 3) obsess over quality. He provides practical hacks to implement these principles into your life, while weaving in examples of how deep thinkers such as Jane Austen embodied slow productivity. Newport writes, “The way we’re working no longer works.” But if enough knowledge workers embrace slow productivity, we can revolutionize the world of work. — Preeti Aroon, copy editor, NPR.org
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh
This is a gripping tale of how the British became history’s first narco state, curiously, to help pay for the tea its people so loved to drink. Amitav Ghosh narrates how the British forced opium into China, creating a market by creating addicts. But opium did so much more. Ghosh investigates how it created many of the modern merchant families of India and the United States, including the fortunes of the Delanos (Roosevelt’s maternal grandfather) and the Forbeses. But perhaps the most important part of this book is how Ghosh looks at the history of opium through the prism of what we know now about opioid addiction, and the relatively newfound sympathy we have toward addicts — white addicts. — Diaa Hadid, international correspondent
The Bitter Southerner
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The Bitter Southerner
Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South by Kate Medley
As someone who travels Southern backroads reporting for NPR, I’ve long noticed how gas stations tend to serve as hubs in rural communities. And I have certainly sampled my share of convenience store fried chicken and sweet tea. Now, photojournalist Kate Medley, a native of Mississippi, takes us on a picturesque road trip across 11 states to document the food cultures you find at service stations. It’s a lovely coffee table book that puts a fascinating lens on a changing American South. There’s a little bit of everything — live bait and ammunition, hot tamales, catfish plates, Cajun banh mi, boiled peanuts, chicken tikka masala and hand-cut steaks. Writer Kiese Laymon’s forward sets the table with a story from his Mississippi youth as he recalls “my favorite restaurant served gas.” — Debbie Elliott, national correspondent
Random House
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Random House
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
I don’t even watch basketball all that much. And yet, there’s something alluring about Hanif Abdurraqib’s meditation on the sport. Because, sure, it’s about hoops and LeBron James and Cleveland and the funny way time works when you’re watching a Game 7. But it’s also about losing loved ones. Fans of Abdurraqib’s work will recognize his rhythms and stylistic flairs that hardly ever fail to draw a reader in, and his talent at making you see the beauty in the things he finds beautiful. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, Culture Desk, and host, NPR’s Book of the Day
William Morrow
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William Morrow
The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky by Simon Shuster
In this cinematic page-turner, Time correspondent Simon Shuster paints a vivid portrait of the Ukrainian president, who honed his powerful communication skills during decades as one of Ukraine’s most popular comedians. Shuster charts the rise from naïve political novice to steely — and unforgiving — wartime president. Deeply reported and deftly written, this book is a feat not only because it sheds light on one of today’s most consequential political figures, but also the history that shaped him and the tectonic shift in geopolitics that he’s now forced to navigate. — Joanna Kakissis, Ukraine correspondent
The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism by Marjorie N. Feld
The world is a very confusing place right now — at least, that’s how it feels to me — so I’m always looking for books that can help me better understand where we are as a society and how we got here. The Threshold of Dissent is one of those books. In clear, careful language, the author illustrates some of the major moments over the past century that have shaped Jewish beliefs about Zionism, anti-Zionism and non-Zionism. It’s a history told with both rigor and compassion — two qualities that seem especially essential when embarking in conversation on such a fraught and contentious subject. — Leah Donnella, senior editor, Code Switch
Gallery Books
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Gallery Books
A Very Private School: A Memoir by Charles Spencer
Charles Spencer — younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales — turns his considerable talents as a writer and historian on his own childhood. A Very Private School details what, he says, happened to him and his classmates — physical, sexual, emotional abuse — at one of Britain’s most elite boarding schools. Undergirding all is a culture of privilege, yes, but also silence and tradition rooted in the British Empire, sending 8-year-olds away from home as “the done thing.” Spencer’s quote from author Hilary Mantel in the book’s epigraph is telling, “I am writing in order to take charge of my childhood.” — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition
Little, Brown and Company
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Little, Brown and Company
Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice by David S. Tatel
David Tatel has written the book that his friends and admirers always hoped he would write, but expected he would not. One that deals candidly with his “vision” — his blindness, and his years of treating it as an asterisk, all while becoming one of the most prominent and thoughtful judges in the country. This book is both novelistic and introspective in its treatment of his lack of sight — from his love affair with his wife and children, to his “cane lessons,” to his later-in-life affection for his guide dog, Vixen. Along the way, it is also a book about the law, the art of judging and today’s Supreme Court. And it’s fascinating. — Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler
Judith Butler’s groundbreaking 1990 book Gender Trouble revolutionized gender studies by arguing that gender is socially constructed, almost mythlike, but that myth can create reality. In this book, Butler leans into the titular question: Why has gender become such a “phantasm” in American life, and what does it tell us about how we’re approaching some of the biggest problems facing us, like climate change and far-right extremism? Butler has a clear perspective — and spells out the dangers of an ascendant “anti-gender ideology.” But it’s also an invitation to consider how we think about gender — and what that might tell us about who we are. — Tinbete Ermyas, editor, All Things Considered
Milkweed Editions
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Milkweed Editions
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limón
This anthology of 50 never-before-published poems about nature was edited by the 24th poet laureate of the United States, Ada Limón. The collection is both achingly beautiful and terrifyingly urgent. From a humorous take on getting drenched in a rainstorm to a beloved tree on its last day of existence to a woman processing the bleak reality of the world her grandchildren will inherit, these poems encouraged a heightened noticing in me and (bonus!) introduced me to the work of many new-to-me poets I’m eager to explore. — Beck Harlan, visuals editor, Life Kit
He always texted when he was outside. No call, no knock. It was just a message and then the soft sound of my door opening. He moved like someone practiced in disappearing.
His name meant “complete” in Arabic, which is what I felt when we were together.
I met him the way you meet most things that matter in Los Angeles — without intending to. In our senior year at a college in eastern L.A. County, we were introduced through mutual friends, then thrown together by the particular gravity of people who recognized something in each other. He was a Muslim medical student, conservative and careful and funny in the dry, precise way of someone who has always had to choose his words. I was loud where he was quiet, messy where he was disciplined. I was out. He was not.
I understood, or thought I did. I thought that I couldn’t get hurt if I was completely conscious throughout the endeavor. Los Angeles has a way of making you feel like the whole world shares your freedoms — until you realize the city is enormous, and not all of it belongs to you in the same way.
For months, our world was confined to my apartment. He would slip in after dark, and we’d stay up late talking about his family in Iran, classical music and the particular pressure of being the son someone sacrificed everything to bring here. He told me things he said he’d never told anyone, and I believed him.
The orange glow from my Nesso lamp lit his face while the indigo sky pressed against the window behind him. In our small little world, we were safe. Outside was another matter.
On our first real date, I took him to the L.A. Phil’s “An Evening of Film & Music: From Mexico to Hollywood” program. I told him they were cheap seats even though they were the first row on the terrace. He was thrilled in the way only someone who doesn’t expect to be delighted actually gets delighted — fully, without guarding it. I put my arm around his shoulders. At some point, I shifted and moved it, and he nudged it back. He was OK with PDA here.
I remember thinking that wealth is a great barrier to harm and then feeling silly for extrapolating my own experience once again. Inside Walt Disney Concert Hall, we were just two people in love with the same music.
Outside was still another matter.
In February, on Valentine’s Day, he took me to a Yemeni restaurant in Anaheim. We hovered over saffron tea surrounded by other young Southern Californians, and we looked like friends. Before we went in, we sat in the parking lot of the strip mall — signs in Arabic advertising bread, coffee, halal meats, the Little Arabia District — hand in hand. I leaned over to kiss him.
“Not here,” he said. His eyes shifted furtively. “Someone might see.”
I understood, or told myself I did, but I was saddened. Later, after the kind of reflection that only arrives in the wreckage, I would understand something harder: I had been unconsciously asking him to choose, over and over, between the people he loved and the person he loved. I had a long pattern of choosing unavailable men, telling myself it was because I could handle the complexity. The truth was more embarrassing. I thought that if someone like him chose me anyway — chose me over the weight of societal expectations — it would mean I was worth choosing. It took me a long time to see how unfair that was to him and to me.
We went to the Norton Simon Museum together in November, on the kind of gray Pasadena day when the 210 Freeway roars in the background like white noise. He studied for the MCAT while I wrote a paper on Persian rugs. In between practice problems, he translated ancient Arabic scripts for me. I thought, “We make a good team.” Afterward, we walked through the galleries and he didn’t let go of my arm.
That was the version of us I kept returning to — when the ending came during Ramadan. It arrived as a spiritual reflection of my own. I texted: “Does this end at graduation — whatever we are doing?”
He thought I meant Ramadan. I did not mean Ramadan.
“I care about you,” he wrote, “but I don’t want you to think this could work out to anything more than just dating. I mean, of course, I’ve fantasized about marrying you. If I could live my life the way I wanted, of course I would continue. I’m just sad it’s not in this lifetime.”
I was in Mexico City when these texts were exchanged. That night I flew to Oaxaca to clear my head and then, after less than 24 hours, flew back to L.A. No amount of vacation would allow me to process what had just happened, so I threw myself back into work.
My therapist told me to use the conjunction “and” instead of “but.” It happened, and I am changed. The harm I caused and the love I felt. The beauty of what we made and the impossibility of where it could go. She gave me a knowing smile when I asked if it would stay with me forever. She didn’t answer, which was the answer.
I think about the freeways now, the way Joan Didion called them our only secular communion. When you’re on the ground in Los Angeles, the world narrows to the few blocks around you. Get on the freeway and you understand the whole body of the city at once: the arteries, the pulse, the scale of the thing.
You understand that you are a single cell in something enormous and moving. It is all out of your control. I am in a lane. The lane shaped how I drive. He was simply in a different lane, and his lane shaped him, and those two facts can coexist without either of us being the villain of the sad story.
He came like a secret in the night, and he left the same way. What we made in between was real and complicated and mine to hold forever, hoping we find each other in the next life.
The author lives in Los Angeles.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
The art industry is increasingly shaped by artists’ and art businesses’ shared realization that they are locked in a fierce struggle for sustained attention — against each other, and against the rest of the overstimulated, always-online world. A major New York art fair aims to win this competition next month by knocking down the increasingly shaky walls between contemporary art and fashion.
When visitors enter the Independent art fair on May 14, they will almost immediately encounter its open-plan centerpiece: an installation of recent couture looks from Comme des Garçons. It will be the first New York solo presentation of works by Rei Kawakubo, the brand’s founder and mastermind, since a lauded 2017 survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Art fairs have often been front and center in the industry’s 21st-century quest to capture mindshare. But too many displays have pierced the zeitgeist with six-figure spectacles, like Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana and Beeple’s robot dogs. Curating Independent around Comme des Garçons comes from the conviction that a different kind of iconoclasm can rise to the top of New York’s spring art scrum.
Elizabeth Dee, the founder and creative director of Independent, said that making Kawakubo’s work the “nerve center” of this year’s edition was a “statement of purpose” for the fair’s evolution. After several years at the compact Spring Studios in TriBeCa, Independent will more than double its square footage by moving to Pier 36 at South Street, on the East River. Dee has narrowed the fair’s exhibitor list, to 76, from 83 dealers in 2025, and reduced booth fees to encourage a focus on single artists making bold propositions.
“Rei’s work has been pivotal to thinking about how my work as a curator, gallerist and art fair can push boundaries, especially during this extraordinary move toward corporatization and monoculture in the art world in the last 20 years,” Dee said.
Kawakubo’s designs have been challenging norms since her brand’s first Paris runway show in 1981, but her work over the last 13 years on what she calls “objects for the body” has blurred borders between high fashion and wearable sculpture.
The Comme des Garçons presentation at Independent will feature 20 looks from autumn-winter 2020 to spring-summer 2025. Forgoing the runway, Kawakubo is installing her non-clothing inside structures made from rebar and colored plastic joinery.
Adrian Joffe, the president of both Comme des Garçons International and the curated retailer Dover Street Market International (and who is also Kawakubo’s husband), said in an interview that Kawakubo’s intention was to create a sculptural installation divorced from chronology and fashion — “a thing made new again.”
Every look at Independent was made in an edition of three or fewer, but only one of each will be for sale on-site. Prices will be about $9,000 to $30,000. Comme des Garçons will retain 100 percent of the sales.
Asked why she was interested in exhibiting at Independent, the famously elusive Kawakubo said via email, “The body of work has never been shown together, and this is the first presentation in New York in almost 10 years.” Joffe added a broader philosophical motivation. “We’ve never done it before; it was new,” he said. Also essential was the fair’s willingness to embrace Kawakubo’s vision for the installation rather than a standard fair booth.
Kawakubo began consistently engaging with fine art decades before such crossovers became commonplace. Since 1989, she has invited a steady stream of contemporary artists to create installations in Comme des Garçons’s Tokyo flagship store. The ’90s brought collaborations with the artist Cindy Sherman and performance pioneer Merce Cunningham, among others.
More cross-disciplinary projects followed, including limited-release direct mailers for Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo designs each from documentation of works provided by an artist or art collective.
The display at Independent reopens the debate about Kawakubo’s proper place on the continuum between artist and designer. But the issue is already settled for celebrated artists who have collaborated with her.
“I totally think of Rei as an artist in the truest sense,” Sherman said by email. “Her work questions what everyone else takes for granted as being flattering to a body, questions what female bodies are expected to look like and who they’re catering to.”
Ai Weiwei, the subject of a 2010 Comme des Garçons direct mailer, agreed that Kawakubo “is, in essence, an artist.” Unlike designers who “pursue a sense of form,” he added, “her design and creation are oriented toward attitude” — specifically, an attitude of “rebellion.”
Also taking this position is “Costume Art,” the spring exhibition at the Costume Institute. Opening May 10, the show pairs individual works from multiple designers — including Comme des Garçons — with artworks from the Met’s holdings to advance the argument made by the dress code for this year’s Met gala: “Fashion is art.”
True to form, Kawakubo sometimes opts for a third way.
“Rei has often said she’s not a designer, she’s not an artist,” Joffe said. “She is a storyteller.”
Now to find out whether an art fair sparks the drama, dialogue and attention its authors want.
Lifestyle
They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops
Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.
“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.
As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.
Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.
The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.
1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage
A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.
But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.
Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.
2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority
As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.
Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.
3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine
Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.
Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.
4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits
One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.
The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.
5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes
A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.
If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.
When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.
Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.
6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing
While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.
As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).
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