Do song lyrics in Japanese typically rhyme?


I've been listening to Japanese music a bit lately and, while I do not
understand any of it and even have trouble even making out what syllables are
being used, I sometimes get the impression, that it doesn't really rhyme all
that much.

Is that true, or does the very different nature of the language fool my ears?




Lyrics in most Japanese songs do not rhyme at the end of each line. Only some
J-pop songs influenced by the western culture actively use rhymes. Japanese
hip hop songs tend to use rhymes often. For example, lyrics written by
[Rhymester](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhymester_\(group\)) usually contain
a lot of rhymes, as the name suggests :) Listen to [this
song](http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9985291), and I believe you can easily
feel the rhymes even if you don't understand Japanese.

Some Japanese songs use other methods to make the lyrics sound nice. One
example is 七五調 ("7-5 rhythm"), which is the rhythm heard in _haiku_ poems.
See: [Is the layout of this text supposed to resemble a style of
poem?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30106/5010)

**EDIT** : [Classical Chinese
poems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_poetry) typically used
line-end rhymes, and Japanese people have understood them. But according to
Wikipedia, Western-style rhymes have never been popular among Japanese
poets/lyricists.

