The Unsung Appreciation of Anime Karaoke Tracks

Apr 17, 2009 21:21

A while back, I complained about the lack of full-length OP & ED songs on OSTs, and songs which sounded like they were written for a TV edit and then had another verse tacked on (sometimes done better than others).

Today, on a somewhat similar topic - karaoke tracks on anime CDs and CD Singles!

I've noticed a trend recently with many popular anime CD single's not having a karaoke track on them. Japan has moved almost entirely to the 12cm-size discs, yet often still include only a couple of tracks (title and a "comes with"). Why not give us the karaoke track also? Several of the offenders seem to be specific to the artist or (rarely) the label. Good examples: almost all Soul Eater OPs & EDs (except Papermoon which, I might add, came with a very nice PV); several of the Fullmetal Alchemist songs (especially Melissa and Lost Heaven - the latter almost doesn't count, though, as it was only available on an album); and the Kara no Kyoukai themes by Kalafina.

On the flip side of that coin, I do have to acknowledge the companies that have gone back and released karaoke tracks for songs that had never before been available (or available only on extremely rare albums, such as Condition Green from Patlabor, which was originally only on a karaoke disc for the artist). For that matter, Patlabor in general is a good example, although you did have to get a limited edition boxed set of ALL of the music from the series to get the tracks. Kimagure Orange Road also released several (but not all, sadly) on the 1995 rereleases of all of the full-length albums (two songs per album, some apparently chosen randomly - but no Night of Summer Side).

Drifting away a bit, trying to get romanized lyrics of songs which are accurate is becoming increasingly difficult, as apparently there are now a vast number of morons who think they can transliterate songs with one semester of Japanese and a dictionary (and, sometimes, some exceptionally bad listening skills). They may eventually fix it, but the lyrics listed on www.animelyrics.com for G Gundam's Flying in the Sky are laughably bad. Ultimately, of course, it would be best just to use the original lyrics that came with the disc in conjunction with listening skills and memorization, but what's the point of having entire sites devoted to lyrics if you're going to get them wrong?

That said, I think I'm now going to drift off to sleep….
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