Karaoke Music is music that allows a person or persons to sing in place of the main singer. This allows the person to perform that song and sing in front of their friends, family, or talent show. With this being said, it's safe to assume that the main vocals are not present in the song itself. However, those are not the only vocals in music. In almost all music songs, you have the main vocals and then you have the backup, background, vocals. Basically, the backup vocals are the backup singers or background singers to complement the main singer.

   Therefore, in Karaoke music, the main vocals are taken out but the backup singers vocals are still left in since the person doing Karaoke is only singing the main vocals. So, this is why karaoke music is not pure instrumental music. Usually in karaoke music, you only have one singer, unless of course it is a duet, but you never have people sing as the background singers so that is why those vocals are not taken out.

   I used to run an online karaoke retail store and we would get many complaints about karaoke music not being completely instrumental when they received it. From my previous explanation above, you can now understand why karaoke music is not pure instrumental music.

   So, where can you get pure instrumental music? The answer is in Midi music. Midi music is pure instrumental because it consists only of instruments. No vocals can be recorded with midi music. There are plenty of resources online where you can download midi music for free or for a fee. However, the only issue is trying to find a good midi version of the song you want and have it sound like the original.

   Most midi songs, even karaoke songs, don't sound like the original because they have to change instrument keys to go around the copyright issue. If they sounded exactly like the original song, the maker would have to pay royalties to the music industry. But, there are certain brands in karaoke music where they do pay royalties and so they do sound very close to the original song.

   If you are not picky about having background vocals, go for karaoke versions since, I believe, they do sound better than Midi songs. However, for those looking for pure instrumental music, your best bet is in midi songs, unless of course the original song had no background singers.