Western artists singing in Japanese

[Pretsy 1343]

Since we are talking about western artists (preferably household names) doing tracks (e.g. self-covers, covers, original songs by any chance etc.) in our lovely Nihongo, this section would be the nice place for us to spread all that weeb love we have around here. So as it says: post western artists that may have (surprisingly enough) some (bonus) tracks in Japanese

 

For instance

 

 

Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) and Scott Murphy (Allister)

 

 

Mew (yes, that Danish band)

 

 

The Police

 

 

France Gall

 

 

Nat King Cole

 

And as you may have noticed, this mainly revolves around artists who would otherwise do their stuff in English - and to restrict certain choices, definitely NO swede kei NOR Avril at this point (tacky and cringy).

 

 

[Hakari 282]

Does this count?

 

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

 

[Tokage 5930]

Would Asobi Seksu count, or would that be cheating?

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

Slagsmålsklubben (swedish electro/synthpop group) has a track with only Japanese (although I think it's completely sampled from a movie?)

 

 

[beni 2149]

 

I hate how this is the only thing that comes to mind. 

[fitear1590 2414]

3 hours ago, Carmelzors said:

France Gall

Cool! I only knew of her Japanese version of "Poupée de cire, poupée de son," but this one is way better.

That awful Chairlift music video, also lovingly known as "I Belong in Your Arm(pit Hair)s," is in Japanese:

Scottish indie pop group Belle and Sebastian tried to perform this song in Japanese:

 

[CAT5 9075]

Not sure if this counts, but in this song by Cocaine 80s titled "kuro to shiro" (black and  white), James Fauntleroy sings "kuro to shiro" in the chorus.

 

 

[indigo 389]

Italian screamo band Shizune, they have some songs in Japanese. (it's not really singing but yeah)

 

Edited August 11, 2016 by indigo

[Jigsaw9 6783]

So there's this semi-popular Hungarian supernatural/comedy movie called "Liza the Fox-Fairy" that deals with some quirky Japanese ghost stuff in Budapest (idk, haven't seen it), and a Hungarian band called Erik Sumo Band made the soundtrack. Among the songs there are some Japanese-language ones, with lyrics written by the Japanese actor who plays in the movie, but the songs are sung by Ambrus Tövisházi (the lead singer/songwriter of the group) afaik. The tracks are in a kinda retro '60s Japanese 'group sounds' style, pretty catchy.

 

Here's an example (more on the band's YT channel here or here)

 

 

(it even has obligatory ENGRISH parts :'D)

Edited August 11, 2016 by Jigsaw9

[Bear 1817]

7 hours ago, Jigsaw9 said:

So there's this semi-popular Hungarian supernatural/comedy movie called "Liza the Fox-Fairy" that deals with some quirky Japanese ghost stuff in Budapest (idk, haven't seen it)

 

This film looks so cool.

 

That's all I have to add.

[Tokage 5930]

It's pretty much Wes Anderson: Hungarian Edition, I've seen it and it's fun. Great soundtrack too.

[Pretsy 1343]

Revamping this with some Western-approved Yellow Magic Orchestra coverage:

 

Spoiler

(Keane themselves do not sing in Japanese but oh well lol)

Human League doing the kind of semi-Japanese cover of aforementioned YMO "hit"

 

 

Edited May 11, 2017 by Alroy

[Tokage 5930]

 

The lyrics are only partially in Japanese, but this is still basically just westernized shibuya kei . If I'm not wrong, the guy also composed the music for the indie game Lovely Planet (which basically looks the way this sounds imo)

Edited May 12, 2017 by Tokage

[jaymee 405]

On 2016/8/12 at 1:40 AM, fitear1590 said:

Cool! I only knew of her Japanese version of "Poupée de cire, poupée de son," but this one is way better.

That awful Chairlift music video, also lovingly known as "I Belong in Your Arm(pit Hair)s," is in Japanese:

 

 

 

The video (and overall look) in this vid is pretty cheesy, but compared to other artists that don't speak Japanese her pronunciation isn't that bad, and the song is pretty cute. (I actually prefer the lyrics of the Japanese version, seeing as they paid for a decent translator.)

 

Chairlift just played their last shows, and they were nice enough to play a show in Japan before they made the official disbandment announcement. One of the better Western artist shows I've seen, for sure. Caroline's range is incredible. She even had the salarymen dancing along.

 

To add to the thread, though, it seems like a lot of people were unaware Sixpence None the Richer did a Japanese version of "Kiss Me":

 

 

And omg this is one of the worst releases/most weaboo thing I've ever seen try to pass itself off as "music".

 

 

Edited May 14, 2017 by jaymee

[Furik 832]

I don't know majority of these posted artists. Except Sixpence and Nat and Charli. 

[LIDL 692]

Interesting, didn't know there's Japanese version of some songs except Kiss Me

 

Just now, Furik said:

I don't know majority of these posted artists. Except Sixpence and Nat and Charli. 

 

Wait, not even The Police and that Weezer guy, Rivers Cuomo?

[whitegrey 115]

For German artists there is this 2007 compilation which is called Poptastic Conversation Japan, bundled with a language-course/study CD and released in both Japan and Germany, where German bands / band-members re-recorded their songs in Japanese language (with support of an professional interpreter). I features bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Ärzte, Wir sind Helden, Stereo Total... And is pretty funny and interesting in my opinion (there is also a 'China' version of the compilation btw).

 

You can listen to samples of all songs here (not much up on YT sadly);

https://www.exlibris.ch/de/musik/cd/various-artists/poptastic-conversations-japan/

(scroll down to 'DISK 2' on the left side, 'DISK' 1 is the language course CD)

 

YT-Sample from Die Ärzte:

 

Short TV-piece about it in English (with a few cringe-worthy moments, but still interesting):

 

Edited May 14, 2017 by whitegrey
fixed stuffs...