I like it:
I like that it is a protest song. The banjo, of course, has a deep association with protest music. I really don’t know how I would banjoify this song though!
1 Like
Slightly off topic, or maybe not? But I’ve picked up a lot of kanji readings over the years from karaoke. It’s a great motivation to learn the readings to be able to sing along and maybe do some new popular song. Still trying to learn “Perfect Human”, but that one is quite fast, so your reading speed has to be quick.
3 Likes
Not really a bad idea at all. In the area that I live, I am sure that I would not be able to find Japanese language karaoke. Maybe there is a player to download.
I got into Japanese because of jrock and jmetal, so I never stopped reading those songs’ lyrics. I learn a lot of new words and phrases as well as my reading speed being pretty fast by now!
2 Likes
I found this YT channel a while ago while looking for songs that are popular in japanese karaoke, maybe you’ll find it interesting.
My goal with this was to learn a lot of them before going to Japan and arouse admiration from my aquaintances at the Karaoke ! 
2 Likes
Apparently Joysound can now be downloaded even from the US Playstation network if you’ve got a PS4. I’ve got this here in Japan and it works fine.
Sometimes you can find the karaoke versions of songs on youtube as well, but that’s kind of hit or miss. Also, sometimes you can find it with and without furigana which is a good intermediate step for first learning the song.
3 Likes
Here’s an easier song that I like to do at bars. It’s a classic, and you end up with a lot of crowd involvement at the end.
And without anyone singing…
2 Likes
Good stuff! I just need to put aside some time for spending time with it.
ありがと!
I’m surprised no one here has mentioned http://radiooooo.com/
It’s a site where you can choose a country and a decade and it will stream music from that place and time. 1960s Japan is great because they sing very clearly and not so fast. I’m a real beginner and could recognise words here and there on some of the songs.
Plus through radiooooo I found out there’s a Japanese version of Pineapple Princess! It’s the first song I learnt to play on the ukulele, and I’m looking forward to combining hobbies and learning the Japanese lyrics.
3 Likes
that’s a wonderful site! I’ve never seen it before, thanks so much for posting it.
one site I do use sometimes is Radio Garden, which lets you spin around the Earth and pick a radio station from anywhere, Japan included: Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe
I guess if you’re real confident you could hit up a talk station from Nagoya or something 
Joysound for Nintendo Switch is also region free and there are tens of thousands of songs. They also have plenty of English songs, so you can sing with friends/family who don’t know Japanese You just have to purchase Japanese eshop credits from playasia or elsewhere if you don’t have a Japanese credit card. Singing karaoke is also one of my motivations for studying Kanji.
When learning Khmer, singing karaoke definitely helped my reading speed improve, especially for vocabulary concerning 
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.