K & J-Pop Fans: Looking for Strong, Big-Voiced Female Pop Stars, Aretha & Janis Style

try UA. she prob has a more cool & restrained approach to vocals in some breeezy sade/corinne drewery kinda way but can also rip the shit out of her chords sometimes

an earlier tune from mid 90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE5jYNMfGyI

and this one is a great collab w/ yamp kolt from last year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTETiRhdTGw

Yr welcome!

Insooni's father was African-American military personnel, like (recently eliminated) kpopstar Lee Michelle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_IAMVW7RQA

And rapper T(Tasha):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fAKvA7uIL8

Whale from W and Whale grew up outside Korea, I believe. There are some 100% Korean idol group members who are US-influenced, though... the ones I'm thinking of at the moment are guys but I'm sure there are some girls are well... aside from the 2NE1 girls (CL/Bom/Minji), Taeyeon from SNSD can pull off RnB vocals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgr9AI2TEo

Wanna thanks everybody for contributing to this thread, despite the weird tone of the opening posts. Will check out these tubes this evening. <3<3<3 to all

According to marxy at neojaponisme, African-American "soul" vocals are more familiar in Japan due to the influence of the Japanese version of <i>Hair</i>:

http://neojaponisme.com/2007/12/18/easy-to-be-haado/

Here's a recording from Hair (African-American singers brought in for backing vocals on the chorus):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGocpJ70Pgc

Superfly? although singer Shiho Ochi is a bit more Joss Stone than Aretha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izOOizwXfnY

http://mbmelodies.tumblr.com/post/22681848230/a-little-on-that-marty-friedman-what-is-j-pop

the basic assumption you have is that liking japanese anime/manga = liking j-pop.

Yeah, this is maybe an easy mistake to make but very wrongheaded. I generally don't care much for the former but love the latter.

Yuki isn't exactly what contenderizer's talking about here, but she definitely has one of the more distinctive voices in j-pop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd1ggCENFto

Utada Hikaru is another good one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-IIj4YClI

I have a lot of other favorites, but I can't think of many that stray from that general high-pitched range.

woah, timely revive. was thinking of this thread last night, sorry that i'd let it die. anyway, a bunch of great recommendations from two weeks ago. lee michelle is amazing, and i fucking LOVE that superfly track. it's exactly the kind of singing i was hoping to find when starting his thread, and i'm a sucker for 70s metal. also, been hearing about shiina ringo & tokyo jihen for years on ILM, but had never checked her/them out. great stuff. thanks again to all who responded.

the basic assumption you have is that liking japanese anime/manga = liking j-pop.

again, not to mutilate a dead horse, but hatsune miku was an example chosen for specific reasons and wasn't meant as a general exemplar of all j/k-pop. i do think she's an instructive example when talking about the way japanese & korean pop culture is often marketed and (mis-)understood in the US, but i don't wanna get distracted by an argument about that.

also like that yuki song a hell of a lot, and it does help answer my initial question, cuz she's got a bit of that joan jett, punk style, "fuck you" rasp and swagger (lol, despite the fact that she's basically offering herself to the listener, check the video)