Singing karaoke is one of my favourite things to do in Japan. There are countless guides out there about what to expect when you go to karaoke, so I won’t repeat those details. But if you want to know exactly what English songs you can sing once you get there, you’re in the right place.

The selection of English songs can be difficult to predict. Therefore, in my days when I couldn’t read Japanese quickly enough to sing any Japanese songs, I liked to have a nice list of English songs that I like that I could access quickly. Though I am now able to sing some Japanese songs, it’s still great having this list. I use it every time I go. You might think that by me saying “list” I am writing down what songs I want to sing, but no, it’s alot more convenient than that.

Upon arriving to a karaoke establishment, you will be given a handheld console. It’s roughly the size of a tablet, and is what you use to set up the songs you want to sing. You will either be given this at the counter (and sometimes be given a choice between a few different ones), or the console will be waiting in your karaoke room for you. By far, the consoles that are most popular are made by either Dam Channel or Joysound. If you go to an obscure, small establishment, you might get something else. However, at the big chains such as Big Echo, Karaoke Kan, or Karaoke Ban Ban, it will most definitely be one of the two.

Luckily, both Dam Channel and Joysound have websites that let you search out songs and save them to an account. Then, you can log into your account on the console once you arrive. If your Japanese reading skills are not good, look for the characters ログイン (log in). If you’ve brought along a Japanese friend, they can help direct you. If you don’t have that luxury, simply saying the words “log in” to any staff member that delivers you a drink should get you some help.

You can go on these websites to search for songs without requiring an account. However, having them saved and at your disposal requires an account. I’ll show you how to make an account on both sites, and how to save songs.

Dam Channel

It’s definitely good to have accounts with both console providers. In my experience, they are basically dead even on market share. Both have exclusive songs that I like, however, I find that Dam Channel has more and a better selection of music that I like in general. They seem to add much more new metal compared to Joysound

Here’s the link to get started. It’s all in Japanese, so I’ll translate it for you. I recommend not using capital letters or special characters in your password (due to restrictions on the console). Lowercase letters and numbers work fine.

Here’s some more. Your nickname is not your username; typing your actual first name would be fine here. You have to press the profile picture button and choose a default image. Do so and then press the button on the right. Your nickname needs to be one to eight characters and in full-width characters. Without getting into what exactly that means, use this converter and choose the second option, “Half-width character → Full-width character” to get text that will work. Once everything has been filled in, press the green button below.

You then get brought to a confirmation page which may panic you as it displays your password. Click the green button at the bottom again.

Now, you’re at this page which informs you it has sent you a confirmation e-mail.

You should have this e-mail in your inbox. Click the link to confirm your account.

Your account is created! Clicking this big blue button will bring you to some settings you don’t have to worry about. You can begin searching and creating your own lists by using the bar up top, but I prefer to use the one on the main Dam Channel website. Let’s go there.

Press the log in link on the left. I’ve circled it in yellow. You may have to clear your cookies before doing this (just this one time).

You’re now at this log in page. Type your username and password in.

A promotion page like this usually pops up. Press the light grey button to continue to your session.

Now you’re logged in and at the main page. You can only search for one thing at a time on Dam Channel: either artist, song title, or lyrics. I’m going to choose choose artist, type one in, and then press the search button.

Dam Channel can be pretty picky. Capitalization doesn’t matter, but special characters and missing spaces can make a difference. Hopefully, the artist you’re looking for has yielded a result, as it has for me. We can then click the artist’s name to see which songs are available.

Scroll down to see the songs. To save a song, press the “My List” registration button.

You will then see this pop-up. Dam Channel gives you four playlists, titled “My List” one through four. You can choose to put different types of songs in each one, but I pretty much just use them all as one big list to sort through. To add your song, press the add button on whichever list. It will highlight that button. Then, press the pink confirmation button. Each list has a capacity of fifty songs.

You’ll then get this pop-up. The button on the left allows you to go back to searching, and the button on the right brings you to your profile to see your lists. For an example, let’s go to our lists.

That’s it! You can see all of your lists from here. Also important: you can press the My List button (right next to the tablet image) to access this page whenever you’re logged in.

Joysound

First, click here to be brought to the account registration page. There are two text boxes, both of which are asking for your e-mail address. Fill them in, and then click the dark grey button below.

Next, you’re brought to this page that is asking for you to confirm the e-mail address (that’s three times now, right?). Click the dark grey button on the right to send the e-mail to your address.

Now, check your inbox for the e-mail. All you need to do is click the big link in the middle.

You are now faced with this page requiring the rest of your details. It’s all in Japanese, but no worries, I will translate all the fields for you again. I recommend not using capital letters or special characters in your password (due to restrictions on the console). Lowercase letters and numbers work fine. Also, your nickname can just be your name; it is not your username.

Here, you need to chose a secret question for password recovery and a username. If you need this guide, I’m guessing you can’t read any of the questions. Therefore, even if I told you the translations, that wouldn’t help much if you actually need to use the password recovery feature and can’t remember what the question reads. Therefore, choose whatever random one, and type a random answer that you’ll remember. The username is important too, as you use this log in on the console and website. You can use the orange button to check if the name is available. Misleadingly, text will appear below the box in red font whether your username is acceptable or not. If it’s not acceptable, a second line of text will appear, showing you a suggestion.

The next ones are just various mail settings. Some will not allow you to unsubscribe, while others do. You can also uncheck the final one if you want.

Finally, there are the terms and conditions. Click the dark grey button below them.

This screen wants you to confirm the info. Dark grey button again.

Here, you have to choose an avatar. Choose whichever one and press the dark grey button.

This is a confirmation for your avatar. Dark grey button.

You’re done creating your account! You will receive another e-mail thanking you. Now, the fun part can start: finding songs.

Navigate to the top of the page to find the search bar. You can choose artist, song, etc., but the default is “all”. You can just keep it there. Now, type in whatever artist or song you’d like to find, and press the search button. It will also auto-suggest below where you typed, as you can see in my image.

Hopefully, you’ve found a result. Joysound is fairly forgiving for leaving out some punctuation, such as the hyphen in my search term. I searched for an artist, so there is one result for me under the “artist” section. Let’s click.

Here is the artist’s page. Joysound allows you to save artists as a whole, or just certain songs. I’m going to save the artist by clicking the “My Artists” button. You can only save 200 individual song titles but 100 artists, so I recommend saving artists you like with alot of songs available to My Artists. To give you an idea, some of these artists for me include Green Day, System Of A Down, and Nirvana. After clicking, you’ll get a confirmation pop-up with just one button; click it.

Scroll down and you can see which individual songs are available. You can click the “My Songs” button to save. It’s also worth noting here that some songs, while lyrics and iTunes are available, do not have the My Songs button. These songs are not available for singing (therefore there is not really any point of being listed, but I digress…). You’ll get a confirmation pop-up here too; just scroll to the bottom and click the dark grey button.

Okay, now we’ve saved an artist and two songs. To access what you have saved, you need to click the “My Songs & My Artists” button on the left. I have outlined it in yellow in the image above.

And that’s it! You can use the tabs in the top right to switch between My Songs and My Artists to see what you’ve saved. When returning to the site, there is a large, yellow log in (ログイン) button on the left.

That’s everything you need to know to sing English songs at karaoke in Japan! Of course, you can use the console in the room to search for English songs too, but it’s nice to be assured that there are some songs you really want to sing. Most consoles also have a clearly labelled “English songs” section too, which shows some of the most popular English songs at the moment. Have fun singing karaoke in Japan!

Top image from Kyuuso Nekokami – “Wakattendayo”