[English Version] [Version en Español]
Ayumi Hamasaki, born October 2, 1978, is a famous Japanese pop artist. She is one of the most prolific and influential Japanese pop singers in Japanese music history, and is dubbed "the Empress of J-Pop".
Since her debut in 1998 with her first single "poker face", she has sold more than 45 million copies in Japan alone, with the releases of 8 full-length studio albums, 1 mini-album, 2 compilation albums, 41 singles, and several non-studio albums, being the top selling solo and female artist and the fourth top selling Japanese artist in the history of Japan. With the release of her 40th single "Blue Bird", Hamasaki's single sales have passed the 20 million mark, making her the first solo and female singer to do so.
With the release of her 39th single "Startin' / Born To Be..." in 2006, Hamasaki became the first female singer to have 27 #1 singles (the most #1 singles a Japanese female artist has ever achieved) and 39 singles in the Top 10 of the Japanese Oricon charts. To date, she has 30 Singles placing #1 in the Japanese Oricon Charts, 40 in the Top 10 and 17 of those placing #1 consecutively (starting from "Free & Easy"). Hamasaki is also the first Japanese artist to have her first original eight studio albums top the charts.
Ayumi has also won the Grand Prix at the Japan Record Taishou (the Japanese equivalent of the Grammys) three times in a row, from 2001–2003. She refused to be nominated in 2004 due to the Avex-Matsuura incident (see My Story era). Ayumi Hamasaki no longer accepts awards.
Early life
Although Ayumi lived with her mother, she was primarily raised by her grandmother. She has vague recollections of her father as he left the family at around the time she was five, and she has not seen him since. She grew up in a very liberal household where she was expected to do what was right for her without her mother intervening in her affairs, since her mother was always out working to support the family.
In her youth, Hamasaki started her modeling career as a model for a local bank. Her grandmother died shortly after Hamasaki started modeling. During high school, she was considered a delinquent because her dyed hair and short skirts were considered extremely unconventional in Japan at that time. She did not enjoy her time at school much and did not get along well with the teachers. Surprisingly, she found studying chemistry a very easy thing to do, but she eventually dropped it because she found that it doesn't seem necessary to make a living.
Occasionally, Hamasaki would go from home Fukuoka to Tokyo for short periods of time, to do various modeling jobs and during her stays, she would make friends with people she met at work. After graduating from junior high school, she had her mind made up to go to a senior high school in Tokyo. She took entrance exams to Horikishi Gakuen (art/entertainers school) together with her friends, and she was the only one to fail — much to the surprise of herself and the school.
As an artist
The first steps Ayumi gave on music was in the rap scene. On December 1, 1995, Hamasaki's first album along side with Dohzi-T, DJ Bass Nothing from Nothing was released. There's poor information about this era in Ayu's life but it is known that there was virtually no promotion for the album. After failing to chart in Oricon, the project was most probably dropped by the company Nippon Columbia.
Hamasaki met her future producer, Masato Matsuura in a disco club called Velfarre; which was owned by the Avex company. As she had not known him nor seen him in person, when he was introduced to her as the executive director of Avex, Hamasaki mistakenly greeted a person sitting next to him, as she had heard he was much younger than he was. She later met Matsuura again, at a lowbrow karaoke bar, and while she was singing random songs, he picked one song for her to sing (which was by Tetsuya Komuro). Afterwards, he asked Hamasaki if she wanted to pursue a singing career. Not feeling confident in singing, she stated firmly that she didn't want to.
After a while, Hamasaki lost contact with Matsuura. She had given him her phone number before, so he left few messages on her answering machine, but as she quickly forgot his name, she didn't do anything about it. One day, when she was walking through the center street of Shibuya, she received a phone call from Avex. She was put through to Matsuura and as they talked, she initially expressed new interest in singing, because she didn't have any other activities, but as Matsuura mentioned vocal training and singing classes, she resigned again. A week later, she changed her mind once more and went to Avex offices herself.
Hamasaki was contracted to take vocal training in Tokyo but she stopped attending as she found it too rigid. She kept skipping the classes but didn't tell Matsuura about it. When he started calling her, she would switch off the phone, knowing that she'd be asked about the classes. When he finally found out, for a more relaxed atmosphere Matsuura sent Hamasaki to New York, an event she would later say was exactly what she needed. Impressed by the writing style in her letters to him, Matsuura suggested that she try her hand at writing her own lyrics for her songs.
Promotional Picture of: "A Song for XX"
A Song for XX and Loveppears era
In 1998, Ayumi's debut single, "poker face", was released. The single debuted #22 on the Oricon charts and sold 43,000 copies, and started to gain more fame since then. At the release of her 3rd single, "Trust", she got into the Top 10 of the charts for the first time. "Depend on you" which is Hamasaki's 5th single was the main theme of videogame "Thousand Arms". She got her first #1 spot on the charts with her debut album "A Song for XX", released on January 1, 1999. The album quickly became certified platinum.
Her first #1 single also came in 1999 with the release of "Love ~Destiny~", song produced by Tsunku. Since the release of the 9th single, "Boys & Girls", her singles changed format from 8 cm to 12 cm discs (which could hold more data), following the trend of the music industry. As a result her singles began to feature more tracks, namely, remix tracks. "Boys & Girls" its first week didn't get the 1st spot on the charts (Mainly because of known rival Ami Suzuki and her single "Be Together"), but in the second week she reached the 1st place; "Boys & Girls" is her first certified million seller single. "Be Together" ended up selling around 800,000 copies total. However, "Boys &a Girls" sold over one million copies.
Her 10th single "A" is at the moment her best-selling maxi with more than 1,600,000 copies sold. Oricon recently announced "A" as the 6th highest selling single from a female artist during the last 10 years. In November 1999, she released her second album, "Loveppears", less than a year after her first. The album sold over two million copies. However, a controversy arose due to the front cover of the album which featured her topless with only her hair covering her breasts. The single "appears" was released the same day. Following the release of "Loveppears", were two re-cut singles from the album because of her big success. Those singles were "kanariya", released in December, and "Fly high", released in March of the following year. The song Trauma was also a popular hit.
Promotional Picture of: "Duty"
Duty era
In 2000, she became a spokeswoman for Kose, a cosmetics company in Japan. When she appeared in commercials to promoted Kose's lipsticks, a record 500,000 lipsticks were sold in only two days. Her single "Vogue", which was used as background music, also benefited from this commercial, selling over 700,000 copies. She also became a spokesperson for Tu-Ka and promoted their cell phones. At this moment she was already very popular, being featured in articles about her successful life and style.
From April to June of 2000, she released one single per month, "Vogue", "Far away", and "Seasons", which would later be coined as The Trilogy because of the similar themes in lyrics and connected music videos. September saw the release of her third full-length album Duty. Duty, like her previous studio albums, topped the charts and went on to sell 3,000,000 copies, making it her highest selling original studio album. On the same day, the limited pressing single, "Surreal", was released, and it also topped the charts, and with her "Ayumi Hamasaki Concert Tour 2000 A" also topping the DVD charts that week, it made her the first artist to top three charts on the same week.
Promotional Picture of: "I am…"
A Best and I am… era
To round off the year 2000, the single "M" was released, and became her fourth million selling single, selling over 1,300,000 copies. The song "M" saw Hamasaki take more creative control of her music, as she started to compose some of her songs under the pseudonym Crea. Following year, a controversy was started when the label forced Ayu to release "Never Ever" followed by her compilation album "A Best". Its release date was changed to put her in direct competition with Utada Hikaru's second album Distance. Though Distance topped the charts first week, A Best topped the following week, and although both albums sold over 4,000,000 copies, this change staggered the sales of both albums. "Distance" and "A Best" were the 1st and 2nd best selling albums of 2001 respectively.
However, it was made clear in interviews that it was not her wish to release the best album, as she felt that was too early to release a best album. Matters were made worse with all the public attention on the "competition" between the two.
Later in 2001, her second eurobeat remix album became the second remix album in Japanese history to top the charts, following Misia's "Little Tokyo". When her 4th album's release was delayed, stock prices for avex trax began to decrease, showing the amount of influence she wielded. It was estimated around that time that she was responsible for 40% of the avex trax's profit. In December, her duet with Keiko of globe was released as a single for avex's nonprofit project, Song Nation, which raised money for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On the first day of 2002, her fourth album I am... was released, and like its predecessors Loveppears and Duty, it achieved triple-million status, with sales of 2.3 million copies.
Promotional Picture of: "Rainbow"
A Ballads and Rainbow era
The release of "Free & Easy" in April saw a complete shift in the trend of Hamasaki's singles, away from multiple remix tracks. The single only featured two remixes alongside the title track. The single also threatened to break her string of consecutive number ones, as Mai Kuraki's "Feel fine!" single (released on the same date), briefly topped the daily charts. However, "Free & Easy" eventually claimed the top spot only the weekly chart. Her fifth platinum single "H" was released in July of that year. Like "A", this single featured multiple a-sides; however, unlike "A", this single did not contain any remixes. Her follow up single "Voyage" had an extended music video to promote it — a short film titled Tsuki ni Shizumu (or Sinking into the Moon), which featured Hamasaki acting for the first time since her idol days.
The much-hyped studio album "Rainbow" was released in December. Though "Rainbow" broke the one million mark in the first week, it was the first of Hamasaki's albums since "A Song for XX" to not reach double-platinum status. The album featured more of Crea songwriting and composition like the previous album, and saw her first use of English phrases in her songs (other than her song "Limit" on her first album "Nothing from Nothing"). The album had a massive promotional campaign, where the buyers of the more-expensive initial pressings could access a password-only website that featured a part of the instrumental version of the title track "Rainbow" that was not on the album. Once accessed, fans could submit their own lyrics and suggestions for the song. Over 100,000 people accessed the website. The song was later featured on her ballad compilation album "A Ballads", which was released on March 2003. Though promoted extremely well, "A Ballads" experienced slow but steady sales, and has recently passed the million threshold. Many of the songs on the album had already been featured on her previous compilation album, "A Best", and the album featured only two new songs, possibly leading to these low sales. "A Ballads" is Hamasaki's third lowest selling album in her avex discography.
Promotional Picture of: "Memorial address"
Memorial address era
In July, "&" was released — her first single in nine months. Like the single "H", "&" featured three prominent tracks, but also featured the b-side "theme of a-nation '03". This was Hamasaki's last single to sell over 500,000 units on the Oricon Charts. The follow up single, "forgiveness" would continue Hamasaki's string of number one singles, but underperformed saleswise in contrast to her previous efforts, barely selling 220,000 copies in contrast to the sales of "&", which netted sales of over 570,000. After the releases of the "forgiveness" (August) and "No way to say" (November) singles, she released her first mini-album, "Memorial address", which only featured three new songs. "Memorial address" was unique because all of the songs, except for the title track (which was a bonus track), had a music video. "Memorial address" was also her first album to be available in CD only or CD+DVD formats. Memorial address made her the only female solo artist to have a million seller mini-album.
Promotional Picture of: "MY STORY"
MY STORY era
In the spring of 2004, Hamasaki released "Moments" in both a CD only and CD+ DVD combination, something which she continues to do now. It was featured in her last Kose Visee commercial before her contract with the cosmetics company ended. In July that year, internal strife in her recording company, Avex Trax, occurred. A feud between Max Matsuura and Yoda, an executive at Avex Trax, caused chaos and also sparked rumors that Hamasaki and other popular artists in Avex Trax including hiro, Every Little Thing, hitomi, and Do As Infinity might leave the record company. As a result, the stock prices for Avex Trax began to plunge; when Hamasaki sided with Matsuura (stating that whatever he does, she would do too), Yoda ended up resigning, effectively ending the feud. However, because of this, she also announced she would not participate in the major music awards anymore.
In December of 2004, she released her sixth studio album "My Story" which was certified million-status, selling over 574,000 copies in the first week, and netting sales of over 1,140,000 copies, making it the second highest selling female album of the 2005 Oricon year.
Promotional Picture of: "(miss)understood"
(miss)understood era
Her 35th single, STEP you/is this LOVE?, was released in April. It was a double a-side single ("STEP you" used in TV spots for Panasonic and "is this Love?" for Morinaga chocolates). The single topped the daily, weekly, and monthly Oricon charts. It held the #1 spot on the weekly charts for 2 weeks in a row. This single went on to sell over 345,000 copies, her highest selling single since her 2003 single "No Way to Say" and for the year of 2005.
Her 36th single was "fairyland", released on August 3, 2005. It debuted at #1 on the Oricon charts. The single was coupled with (c/w) a B-side track, "alterna". It is also her first single to feature different cover art for the CD version and the CD + DVD version.
Her 37th single was "HEAVEN" released on September 14, 2005. The song was used as the theme song of the movie "Shinobi: Heart Under Blade". The single also included a B-side track, "Will" which she co-composed under the name of CREA. It was her 12th consecutive #1 single starting with "Free & Easy" in 2002.
Hamasaki’s 38th single, "Bold & Delicious/Pride", was released on November 30, 2005. This single is one of the most different for the artist with a completely new sense of music style, away from her previous works. She listened to some of Sweetbox's music and asked Geo (composer), if she could use some of her music. The single had low first-week sales of about 84,000, and barely held the #1 position for the week but continued her streak of #1 singles. This was the single that tied her with Seiko Matsuda for most #1 singles by a solo female artist: 25.
Hamasaki’s 7th studio album, (miss)understood, was officially released on January 1, 2006. It debuted with sales of about 650,000 copies reaching the #1 spot on the World Global Charts, a first-time feat for her personally. This would become her first album since her debut "A Song For XX" to not attain at least one million units in sales, or a million certification from the RIAJ.
Promotional Picture of: "Secret"
Secret era
Hamasaki's thirty-ninth single Startin' / Born To Be... was released on March 8, 2006. The single debuted at #1 on the Oricon chart with sales of 116,000, and thus broke the record of most #1 singles in Japan for a solo (female) artist previously held by Seiko Matsuda. It was her 26th #1 single. However, Seiko still holds the record of the most consecutive No.1 singles for a female artist, a record that she has been holding for two decades and not likely to be broken anytime soon (Ayumi has 15 consecutive number 1 singles as of March 2007). The song "Startin'" was used as the opening theme song for the PS2 video game, "Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams" while the song "Rainy Day" (which was featured on her (miss)understood album) was the ending theme. The song "Born To Be..." was used for Nittele's coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
She then embarked on the "Ayumi Hamasaki Arena Tour 2006 ~(miss)understood~" which spanned three months with its first date in Saitama on March 11, 2006 and made its last stop at Yoyogi on June 11, 2006. With 30 concerts, it was her largest tour to date. The last concert of the tour was recorded and released on DVD in November. It entered both the music-DVD and general-DVD charts at the top position.
Hamasaki released her 40th single "Blue Bird" on June 21, 2006. It contains the title song "Blue Bird" (featured on a Zespri Gold Kiwi beverage commercial), coupled with the track "Beautiful Fighters" (featured on her Panasonic D-snap and D-dock commercials). A trance remix of "Blue Bird" and a rock version of the (miss)understood album track "Ladies Night," called "Ladies Night ~another night~" (which was featured in an earlier Panasonic Lumix commercial), are also featured in the maxi single. "Blue Bird" scored the #1 position on the daily Oricon chart. Just a single day after going on sale, Oricon confirmed the single had outsold its competition already, securing the weekly #1 for Hamasaki's 15th consecutive number one single and 27th total number one single, selling 160,572 copies in its first five days.
On October 25, 2006, a number of artists from the Japanese iTunes store, including Ayumi Hamasaki, were added to iTunes USA.
Hamasaki released her eighth full-length album, Secret on November 29, 2006. Originally, the album was slated to be released as her second mini-album with seven songs overall. The speculation proved to be false when her official website announced a change of plans and that Secret would be a full-length album in October 2006. The album was completed on November 8. Hamasaki also raised media attention for the music video of "Jewel," which shows 100 million yen (almost $900,000 U.S. dollars) worth of diamonds, jewels, and Swarovski crystals. The video is one of the most expensive videos ever made. On that same day, she sang "Jewel" in an orchestra version on 130,000,000 Choose Best Artist 2006. The album debuted at the top spot of the Oricon weekly chart with first week sales of 386,280 copies, outselling the number two album for a large 160,129 copies, but sold 263,000 lower than her last studio album (miss)understood showing. This is because the "first week sales" of (miss)understood were actually the sales of two weeks, as Oricon blends the last week of a year with the first one of the following year, making an Oricon Year with 51 weeks only. The same rule applies for the first week sales of her I am... album.
Secret is also believed to be Hamasaki's most successful album yet in worldwide sales. Not only did Secret top the Japanese charts, the album was an instant number-1 hit in countries as Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China surpassing the (miss)understood international success, being in Taiwan the #1 Japanese album of the year with a 3.54% of total sales.
On December 8, 2006, CNN International channel aired a special 30-minute interview with Hamasaki as part of a special Talk Asia show week "Japan Now" (that also featured BoA and Ken Hirai as representatives of entertainment in modern Japan/Asia). During the interview, Hamasaki talked about her feelings towards her own success, her life as a pop icon and her plans for future. She answered some of the questions in English. More importantly, she confirmed information about her upcoming Asia tour, which was subject to recent rumors in Chinese media. For her Asian tour in 2007, it was confirmed she would make stops in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Promotional Picture of: "A Best 2 -White-"
A Best 2 and Tour of Secret era
On February 28, 2007, Hamasaki released two compilation-albums entitled A Best 2 -Black- and A Best 2 -White-. They are both released as Limited edition 1CD+2DVD-packages, as well as a normal edition 1CD package. The songs included on this album are from her evolution single to her Bold & Delicious / Pride single, including a few album tracks. A Best 2 -Black- includes sad, dark songs, a black cover for the limited edition, and a new song entitled "part of Me" which will be featured in a new Panasonic CM. The backstage footage of her Best of Countdown Live 2006–2007 A can be found on the DVD for the Black edition, as well the PVs or promotional clips for the songs included. The white edition of A Best 2 will feature up beat songs, as well as the live footage of her CDL 2006–2007, and promotional clips for the respective songs on the album.
The special site abest2.com was set up on February 15, 2007 to promote and celebrate the release of the album.
From March until the end of June, Hamasaki will hold an Asia tour, Tour of Secret, visiting not only Japan, but also Taiwan, Shanghai and Hong Kong. According to her official fanclub Teamayu, the Japanese version of the tour will promote her album Secret, while the ones held in the respective countries will bring back more of her older songs.
A flyer listing the Asia Tour was handed out at the CDL 2006–2007, Ayumi Hamasaki Asia Tour 2007 ~ Tour of Secret ~ There will be an JAL package from Japan to the countries, tour official website (not active yet 1st January 2006). Dates of the JAL package tour are Taiwan, March 23–25, Hong Kong, April 6–8, Shanghai, April 21–23. She will not perform at Singapore and Beijing. According to the Singaporean news, no label there can afford Hamasaki to perform. Avex's CEO has also said on his blog that since Beijing is reconstructing their stadium for 2008 Olympic games, no venue is available for a stop. This concert is already highly anticipated since it is her first time venturing outside of Japan. As a result, tickets were sold out to the Taiwan concert in less than two hours. Similarly, tickets were sold out in less than three hours in Hong Kong and six hours in Shanghai, China.
On the release day of A Best 2, the -Black- version reached to the top #1 position on the Oricon Charts while the -White- version reached #2. By the 2nd day, both versions switched positions as -White- got the #1 position while the -Black- got the #2 position. A Best 2 first day sales totaled a whopping estimate of 170,000 copies.
The first week sales figure of A Best 2 gained a total of 950,000 copies. -White- version sales totaled to 475,284 and -Black- version sales totaled to 470,057 respectively, while holding the first and second positions of the Oricon Weekly Albums Chart. Also both of the CDs ended up at the top of the United World Charts as well.
Setting yet another record, Hamasaki's is the first time in 36.5 years that a female artist has occupied the #1 and #2 spots on the Oricon album charts at the same time. And she is the only artist ever to do this also in the United World Charts.
On March 10, 2007, the day of the first ~ Tour of Secret ~ concert, an English version (along with Chinese) of the official website was released. As of March, 2007, according to Oricon, Hamasaki is the 4th best selling Japanese artist of all time. She is also the best selling female and solo artist of all time in Japanese history with average sales per year of over 5 million.
Recently while performing in Taiwan on March 24, 2007, Hamasaki sang the song Who..., part in Japanese, part in Chinese, and part in English. At the end of the show, she said "Wo Ai Ni", which is Chinese for "I love you". Afterwards, she said goodbye to Taiwan, and set off for Hong Kong.
Promotional Picture of: "glitter / fated"
glitter / fated era
On May 16, 2007 it was announced Ayumi Hamasaki's new song, glitter, would be used in a commercial for "Zespri Gold Kiwi". The following day, it was announced on Tower Records in Japan that her new single would be called glitter / fated, and would be released July 18, 2007. Glitter is said to be a "shimmering up-tempo track", while Fated is described as a "medium-tempo rock ballad", and will be the theme for the movie "Kaidan", which shares the same director as "The Ring 2". The single will also contain the track Secret.
On May 30, it was announced that Hamasaki will be going back to Hong Kong to shoot a short movie for her latest single, Glitter / Fated. The film has a leading male role, played by Shawn Yue. The film was supposed to be directed by Andrew Lau, but he was going to be in America at that time. It was also announced that Andrew Lau will be doing a special collaboration with Hamasaki, although the details are still unknown. The PV of glitter was aired on MTV Japan on July 10, 2007. It is said to show clips of the short film "Distance Love". The PV ends on a cliffhanger, tying into the second part of the short film, where fated will be played. On July 14, fated was played on MON, continuing the story of Distance Love with a sad ending.
The release of glitter / fated tied another record for Hamasaki, who now has a #1 single every year for 9 consecutive years (1999-2007). She is tied with Akina Nakamori, who is now inactive giving way for Hamasaki to break the record next year.
On April 1, 2007, it was rumored that Hamasaki and her boyfriend of seven years, Nagase Tomoya of TOKIO, were engaged. The wedding was to take place as early as October; however, with their hectic schedules, it was expected not to occur until December. However, on July 13, 2007, Hamasaki separated with Nagase and announced on her blog that the split was due to her love for him growing into something more of a brotherly love. Since then, it is rumored that she'd moved from their home.
On July 24th, it was announced on the Panasonic Lumix website that the commercial for the new "Lumix FX-33" would feature her. This is less than a week after the release of her newest single so it is highly speculated whether there will be a new song or not (the former of which is the typical trend for Hamasaki commercials).