(Japanese?) female cover of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now"?

March 12, 2009 10:02 PM

This is going to be a bit of a longshot, but when I was in Japan a few months ago, I heard a cover of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" sung presumably by a Japanese female, and I've been trying to find it ever since.

I heard it while I was in one of the gift shops/convenience stores at the Tokyo/Narita Airport, and I was there at the end of November, if any of those details help.

I have tried google searches to no avail. I was wondering if anyone out there knows of this cover, or, barring that, if one of the Japanese-speaking mefites could possibly do a search for this online in Japanese? Thanks a lot / Arigato Gozaimasu !

posted by wander to grab bag (6 comments total)

Is it this Bossa a.m. cover sung by Saegusa Yuuka (U-ka)? Preview here. (#4)
posted by carnival of animals at 11:01 PM on March 12

I just did a search of Japan's iTunes store and there are at literally dozens of covers of that song.

Were the vocals in Japanese, or with a Japanese accent? Was it a straight cover or was it more dancy or loungy or anything?
posted by Ookseer at 11:09 PM on March 12

carnival of animals: Wow! I was not expecting such a quick response. Part of me wants to say that isn't it, as I remember thinking that the singer's english was very good when I heard the song (which also made me wonder if it was potentially a cover from Australia). Another part of me is wondering maybe if that is it, since I only heard it the once, being played at a normal background music level, in a public area. I hope there are more suggestions so I can be more sure.

Either way, I really appreciate your answer!
posted by wander at 11:30 PM on March 12

ookseer: Whoops, should have used the preview button instead of just the live preview. I missed your response. Wow. Dozens? Let me try to remember what I can.

As I mentioned, female vocals, in english. Her english was very good. Pretty straightforward cover, from what I remember, as it was recognizable very quickly. I remember it being fairly sparse in terms of instrumentation. The vocals were clear and definitely were the main focus, there were other instruments, but nothing like a dance beat or anything like that. I hope that's enough to help narrow it down.

Let me know what you come up with! I'm off to check and see if I can access the Japanese itunes store from here.
posted by wander at 11:39 PM on March 12

Ookseer: Also, I should add that I recall the singer having a slight accent, but it was hard to tell what kind (as singing tends to smooth out accents, and it was being played as background music). I don't remember the accent sounding particularly Australian, nor do I remember it sounding particularly Japanese.

I also found out that I can access the Japanese itunes store from here, and am attempting to sift through the various things I can look up in english. Thank you, at least, for the idea.
posted by wander at 11:54 PM on March 12

Hmm. With the itunes search, I'm not sure if it's just giving me regular search results just with the prices in yen, or if it is actually searching the japanese itunes store. I tried copy-pasting in the katakana from carnival of animals's suggestion into the search box, but that only returned two results, and those results were in english. Come to think of it, all the results I'm getting from the japanese itunes store are completely in english, which seems strange and like I'm missing something.

Edit: Okay, I cross-referenced the results by switching to a different itunes store and it seems like it actually was searching the japanese store, as there were more and different results at the japanese store in comparison.

As for what I've found among the various covers that I was able to find searching the japanese itunes in english:

It is not any of these artists:

Jean Gidon feat. Sophie, It's M.E., Faith Riviera, Ideal, or Ukelili.

After listening to fifty or so various versions (karaoke! jazz! rock! instrumental! instrumental... baby album version?!) of the same part of the song now, I think I will take a break.
posted by wander at 12:32 AM on March 13