Freegal Tips For J-Pop and K-Pop Fans (2023 Update)

I’ve probably mentioned Freegal Music a million times on this blog. I can’t help it—Freegal is one of my favorite public library services. I’ve collected countless songs from there over the years, and my wish list is still a mile long. I can’t wait for Monday morning to come every week so I can pick a new set of songs.

The most pleasant surprise about Freegal is how much Korean Pop (K-Pop) and Japanese Pop (J-Pop) music is available on the service…if you know where to look. As a huge fan of both genres, I’ve picked up numerous tricks on that front that I’m now going to share with you, my fellow international music fans and Freegal users, in this post.

Note: You can access Freegal on its website or through its mobile apps. I made this tutorial using the Google Chrome browser on a Windows 10 computer and its Android app.

Search By Genre

The easiest way to search for K-Pop (but not J-Pop) on Freegal is through its Genres page. K-Pop is one of the many major types of music featured there.

The K-Pop page shows you the artists, songs, and albums that are currently trending amongst library patrons. Though it’s an excellent place to start, it barely scratches the surface of the amount of K-Pop that’s available.

Website (Desktop)

Here’s how you get to the Genres page on the desktop version of Freegal’s website:

1. Click the Genres tab on the menu on the left side on the homepage. The Genres page will open.
2. Click the “View All Genres” link to the far right side of the “Genres” header. A complete list of the available genres in alphabetical order will load.
3. Find the “K-Pop” option in the list.
4. Click the button to open the K-Pop page.

Website (Mobile)

Here’s how you get to the Genres page on the mobile version of Freegal’s website:

1. Click the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) next to the “Log In” button at the top of the screen. A menu will slide in from the left side of the screen.
2. Click the “Genres” link in the menu. The Genres page will load.
3. Scroll down the list of genres until you find “K-Pop” button.
4. Click the button to open the K-Pop page.

Mobile App

Here’s how you get to the Genres page in the app:

1. Tap the hamburger icon in the top right corner. A menu will open.
2. Select the “Genres” link from the “Navigation” side of the menu. The Genres page will load.
3. Browse the list of genres until you see the “K-Pop” button. If you don’t see it listed, tap the “View All” link to the far right side of the “Genres” header and scroll until you see the “K-Pop” button.
4. Tap the button to open the K-Pop page. The K-Pop page will open.

The more you use Freegal, the more it learns your musical habits. Eventually, “K-Pop” will be listed in the “My Top Genres”section at the top of the Genres page if you visit the page often enough.

Perform an Advanced Search

Although Freegal labels J-Pop music as such, the genre isn’t as mainstream as K-Pop, and therefore isn’t listed on the Genres page. One trick I use to find those artists and songs is the Advanced Search form and its Genre field.

Website (Desktop)

Here’s how to use the Advanced Search form on the desktop version of the website:

1. Tap the Advanced Search tab on the left side on the homepage. The Advanced Search form will pop up in the middle of the screen.
2. Type “J-Pop” into the Genre field towards the bottom of the form. A drop-down list of genres will open.
3. Select “J-Pop” from the list.
4. Click the Search button.

Website (Mobile)

Here’s how to use the Advanced Search form on the mobile version of the website:

1. Tap the “Search” icon (the magnifying glass) at the bottom of the screen. The Advanced Search form will pop up in the middle of the screen.
2. Type “J-Pop” into the Genre field towards the bottom of the form. A list of genres will open.
3. Select “J-Pop” from the list.
4. Click the Search button.

Mobile App

The Advanced Search form isn’t available in the app, but there’s a workaround, the Genres search bar!

Here’s how to access the Genres search bar in the app:

1. Go to the Genres page.
2. Tap inside the search bar at the top of the page. The Freegal Genres search page will load.
3. Type “J-Pop” into the search box. A drop-down list of genres will open.
4. Select “J-Pop” from the list. A page that looks similar to the K-Pop page will load.

Perform an Advanced Search For Anime Songs

An advanced search is also great for finding opening and ending songs from Japanese anime. As I write this, the soundtracks from shows like Cowboy BeBop, Vision of Escaflowne, Evangelion, and practically every iteration of Gundam are available on the service. Just follow the above instructions, substituting the word “Anime” for “J-Pop” in the Genre field.

Anime is a relatively new genre on Freegal, however, so a lot of anime songs are simply labeled as “J-Pop.” There are also times when I’ve had better luck entering the artist and song title into the Advanced Search form because Freegal may only have the version of the song that appears on the artist’s personal album rather than the version on the soundtrack.

For example, when I was looking for Gundam themes from the J-Pop singer Nami Tamaki that I didn’t already own, I entered her name into the Advanced Search form’s Artist field and the songs “Reason” and “Result” (separately) into the Song Title field. The Gundam Seed Destiny soundtrack wasn’t available at that time, but the songs were on Freegal as part of Tamaki’s Greatest Hits album.

Look for Dedicated Playlists

Occasionally, Freegal adds playlists full of the newest and most popular K-Pop and/or J-Pop songs. As I write this, I’ve seen several such playlists:

• K-Pop
• Tick-Tock: A K-Pop Playlist
• Dancing on Glass: A K-Pop Playlist
• Due East: K-Pop & J-Pop All-Stars
• K-Pop Party
• J-Pop Radio
• All-Star K-Pop
• A-List K-Pop
• All-In: K-Pop Gold
• Los Angeles Public Library: 80’s J-Pop Gems
• Calgary Public Library: Anime Time

There are multiple ways to access these playlists.

Use the Genre Page

The K-Pop and J-Pop Genre pages include a section for related playlists.

Just follow the directions in the “Search By Genre” section above for directions on how to get to the Genres page. You will find the playlist section towards the middle of the page.

Search the Playlist Section

If you’re using the mobile app, you can visit the full playlist section and filter out playlists that contain a song from that genre or that are in their title.

Here’s what to do:

1. Tap “Explore Playlists” on the homepage.
2. Type either “K-Pop” or “J-Pop” into the playlists search bar at the top of the page. All of the eligible playlists will appear in a drop-down list.
3. Select a playlist.

Do an Advanced Search

You can also do an Advanced Search using the “Playlist Name” field. Just type “K-Pop” or “J-Pop” into the field and hit the “Search” button.

This method only works on the desktop and mobile versions of the website, as you can’t access the Advanced Search form in the mobile app.

Use Keywords

If you’re looking to browse what’s available rather than find a specific artist or song, it’s often helpful to throw random words, or “keywords,” into the search box to see what pops up.

Keywords are particularly good at finding hidden J-Pop gems. Searching using common Japanese words like “ai (love),” “tsuki (moon),” or “hikari (light)” can turn up a lot of J-Pop songs, which can give you new ideas for artists to check out.

Keywords work for K-Pop (and a lot of Chinese pop) too. The terms “soundtrack,” “original soundtrack,” or “OST” will yield some nice Korean Drama (K-Drama) albums if you’re willing to sift through a lot of other soundtracks. An Advanced Search works here too. A combination of the word “OST” in the Album field and either “World Music” or “Pop” in the Genre field turns up all sorts of goodies.

Search By Record Label

Freegal doesn’t tell you the exact record labels its music comes from. The FAQs only say, “The content is based upon agreements with over 28,000 music labels, including the labels of Sony Music Entertainment.” With some research, however, you can make educated guesses about the labels and thus, the possible J-Pop and K-Pop artists available.

Your best friend here is Wikipedia. Start by checking the Sony Music Entertainment or Sony Music Japan Wiki pages, which include lists of their subsidiaries and major artists. If you directly wiki an artist, their bio will have links to their past and current record labels, which you can use to find out who their labelmates are. Eventually, patterns will emerge.

You can even perform an Advanced Search in Freegal for a specific record label. Freegal puts the record label at the top of each album listing if you click the “i” in the circle. I can tell you right now, though—the only major label whose artists are available is JYP Entertainment. You won’t find artists from SM, Avex, or YG except in the rare case where one of their artists collaborated with an artist who is available on the service (ex. Koda Kumi on Soulhead’s “XXX,” or Taeyeon on Crush’s “Don’t Forget”).

The record label method isn’t foolproof. First, Freegal might have music from a certain artist but only their stuff from a certain label. The recent albums Hatsukoi and Bad Mode that the J-Pop artist Utada Hikaru released through Epic Japan/Sony Music are available on the service, but none of their previous albums are there.

This applies to situations where artists sing in multiple languages too. ATEEZ doesn’t put their Japanese albums on Freegal, which are released through Nippon Columbia, while Stray Kids only put up their Japanese albums, which are released through Epic Japan. Nippon Columbia and Epic Japan are not on the list of available record labels.

Second, it’s not guaranteed that an artist will be on Freegal just because they belong to one of the supported labels. It was a long time before the discographies of my two favorite J-Pop singers Tommy February6 and Angela Aki, both Sony Music artists, showed up on the service.

It’s also not unusual for an artist to completely disappear. The full Korean discographies of artists like BTS, Infinite, and Nu’est used to be available on Freegal before their record labels pulled their music from the service. It can be confusing and a downright bummer sometimes, but you have to be thankful for what you can get.

If you still want more albums, please check out my guide for finding J-Pop and K-Pop albums on hoopla, another library service.