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Japanese karaoke song recommendations
Every now and then, my Japanese class and I head out to sing karaoke. I've never really been a fan of karaoke, but perhaps that's because most karaoke libraries don't really have any of the songs I've learned and/or want to sing.
So does anyone have any recommendations for Japanese karaoke songs? I'm not mentioning my personal music taste to keep the topic general, but feel free to ask if you're interested in helping me in particular.
Just a quick question, are you looking for English songs to sing at a Japanese Karaoke bar, or Japanese songs only? I don't know many Japanese songs, but I have participated in Karaoke a bunch here in Canada, and know plenty of English songs that are super fun and worth mentioning.
IMO the best songs are usually ones that everyone knows and so can sing/hum along with at least the chorus. So this might not apply to Japan, but at least here in North America, these are some of my favorites:
Any major hit by the Backstreet Boys. Insecure straight men may not want to admit they know these or enjoy them even though they secretly do. But when "Everybody, rock your body" drops, everyone usually joins in. The drunker everyone is, the better. :P Same goes with hits by Brittney Spears, and Spice Girls too.
Queen - We Will Rock You, Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust. Nobody can sing like Freddie Mercury, but the beauty of karaoke is you don't have to! :P
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Time After Time, True Colors
Madonna - Like a Prayer, Like a Virgin, Material Girl
Random assortment of songs: George Michaels - Faith, Wham! - Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy, LMFAO - Sexy and I know it, B52s - Love Shack, No Doubt - Don't Speak, Chumbawamba - Tubthumping, Aqua - Barbie girl, Abba - Dancing Queen, Smash Mouth - All Star, Marvin Gaye - Ain't No Mountain High Enough & I Heard It Through The Grapevine, The Temptations - My Girl, Otis Redding - (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay, Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody, Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
TBH, all the Gaurdians of the Galaxy Soundtracks are chocked full of awesome song for Karaoke.
Will keep adding more as I think of them.Done for now. Hopefully people can enjoy some of there. :)I'm looking for Japanese in particular, but please recommend any songs you like!
Linda Linda by the blue hearts
Okay, will do. I'll edit my original comment to include a bunch of songs. :)
Obligatory “Baka Mitai” as sung by Kazuma Kiryu
My go to when I needed a Japanese song was the theme song to the old Astroboy cartoon. (Mighty Atom in Japanese). The Japanese version has the same tune as the cartoon, so I wasn't getting lost. It's not too long and it's not very difficult.
A friend of mine had a lot of success with this song from One Piece
Honestly a big part of karaoke is that you know and enjoy the song you're singing, so my real recommendation is to listen to some Japanese music and try to find stuff you enjoy.
But for karaoke - especially with a Japanese class taken in an English speaking country - you basically can't go wrong with songs that are used in anime openings. Cruel Angel's Thesis (残酷な天使のテーゼ) is perennial and will probably never go out of style. But a potentially better song is the first opening from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, Tears of Orphans (オルフェンズの涙); you can really go all ham on that one.
Personally (and this may or may not be a good choice for you), I would probably choose one of the songs by Do As Infinity. I may not care much for all of their newer songs but they are all pretty good for karaoke. My top pick is Yesterday & Today.
You can also try some City Pop! But many of those songs are so old that they might not have them anymore. But then again I've been to places that use a service that offers them practically every song ever released in Japan.
Edit: Seriously, do Anpanman's March (アンパンマンのマーチ). Everyone will enjoy it. It may be childish, but it's so fun. Personally speaking every time I even think of it it gets stuck in my head.
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll take a listen.
Yeah, I actually quite like Japanese rock, and have several songs I'd like to sing at karaoke. The problem is they're not quite popular enough to show up in most (maybe any?) karaoke libraries here in the US.
This might not be a terribly useful recommendation to you, but I think Round1 was the place that I was talking about with that karaoke service with the huge library. They offer it in a handful of locations, and if one is near you, you might want to try to get your group over there. They're much more than a karaoke lounge, so it should be pretty easy to get people interested in taking a longer trip to go there as long as it isn't a "road trip".
Oh my goodness, I wish I wrote down all the songs I did back in the day. As someone else said, it's best to sing songs you love, but here are some ideas for learning new songs.
Songs for beginning learners, if there are students in your class who are not already down with anime: "Ue o muite arukō" (Sukiyaki); "Ningen tte ii na"; "Boku wa kuma" (Utada Hikaru)
Classic songs to belt out: Everything by THE BLUE HEARTS; "Tsugaru kaikyō fuyugeshiki"; "Ora Tōkyō sa Iguda"
Songs to mess with the minds of your students: ; "Jouousamamonogatari" (not in all machines); "Genso kikō" (not in all machines)
I would recommend a couple of songs from the band FLOW, namely either COLORS or DAYS. The nice thing about FLOW is the vocals really shine and the backing instruments are very pop-rock/disco-ish so they are pleasing on the ears and have good energy. COLORS is the more popular of the two and has a bonus of being a meme song, but I personally prefer DAYS and find it a little easier to sing along to. I find they are pretty good practice songs as the enunciation of certain words are a little more staggered/prominent so you can really tell what they are singing.
EDIT: I did remember DAYS has a kind of tough rap bit in the full version but the TV edit should be fine.
This is a fantastic recommendation. I remember countless hours ashamedly singing this song to myself when I was alone.
A Cruel Angel's Thesis. Really good song, and is from a classic anime too. Hella fun to sing as well. It's a crowd pleaser.
Try 空はまるで. It's fun, catchy, and easy to sing. And this is the karaoke track of it.
Anything off of this album