Ayu-mi-x

Please Note: I'm not the real Ayumi Hamasaki
Name : Ayumi Hamasaki a.k.a. Ayu
BirthDate : 2nd October 1978
BirthPlace : Fukuoka Prefecture
Zodiac : Libra
Blood type : A
Height : 156 cm
Weight : 40kg
Measurement : 80-53-82
Favorite Female Entertainers : Keiko (Globe), Rie Miyazawa, Seiko Matsuda Musical Influences : As a child I listened to rock music (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple), influenced by a relative. Now I like listening to soul music such as Babyface and En Vogue.
Favorite Actors : Nicolas Cage, Rie Miyazawa
Favorite Movies : The Bodyguard, Betty Blue, Leaving Las Vegas
People I Respect : People who have things I don't have.
People I Dislike : Liars, people who don't say hello.
Favorite Food : Biscuits (maybe my staple diet!), cakes, chocolates, kimchee (Korean marinated cabbage)
Favorite Things to Read : Most of the fashion magazines. Modern-language translations of the Manyo tanka poems are especially interesting. Poems of Natsuo Giniro, Mitsuo Aida, etc.
Lessons : Piano, Japanese calligraphy (5th rank), abacus calculation, Japanese flower arrangement, Kumonshiki study system
About My Lyrics : I like to try to view my own and my friends' experiences objectively, and put my honest feelings into words. If I write when I'm low, it will be a dark song, but I don't care. I want to be honest with myself at all times.
To be honest. To be myself. This is easy to say, but difficult to do. Nowadays the world is full of greed and lies, and most people just stand aside avoiding trouble. But some people do strive toward their dreams and try to be themselves. Such people shine and make the rest of us willing to support them.
Ayumi Hamasaki released her debut single "poker face" on April 4, 1998. Ayumi chose to be an artist to express her true self and feelings, and took a trip to New York in the summer of 1997 to take vocal lessons. "Going to New York promised me nothing in terms of becoming professional. I just had to believe in myself," she says.
A debut as an artist... how could she succeed as a professional singer? What would she have to do? With no answer to these questions, Ayumi flew to New York full of anticipation and fear. Sensitive as she is, Ayumi not only developed her skills as a vocalist, but also developed mentally by coming across fresh ideas unknown in Japan and by watching the self-confident behavior of New Yorkers.
"To tell the truth, I was very anxious at first. But I was encouraged by the sight of young children living earnestly, and valuing themselves honestly without hesitation. In New York, I made many technical achievements, and moreover, I grew stronger at heart."
Now mature both as a vocalist and a person, Ayumi started writing lyrics as soon as she returned to Japan. Her style is to view her own and her friends' experiences objectively, and to write about them in her own honest words. In "poker face," she writes about strength within sorrow.
"At first, the song was about a weaker girl," Ayumi remembers. "But you can cry anytime, and I wanted to smile at those sad, lonely moments. I rewrote the lyrics over and over, and finally finished the song the day before the vocal recording." Starting with this debut single, Ayumi has written all the lyrics of the songs she releases. The lyrics won't include fake thoughts or even flights of imagination. As Ayumi says, "I don't want to lose myself or lie to myself. I don't feel much stress about being myself. It's not difficult for me. It's just being natural. Being true to yourself isn't something you strive for."
The music on "poker face" is produced by Yasuhiko Hoshino (composition) and Akimitsu Honma (arrangement). The track is done in a pop style that captures the essence of the 80s sound. Its melody blends seamlessly with the world described in Ayumi's lyrics, and sweetly embraces her lonesome touching voice.
"When I received the song's tape, I thought 'What a difficult song!' When I made a trial recording with the first lyrics (before rewriting), I hated it. But with the current lyrics, I could feel the song at once... and could sing it better than any other song I had tried. My voice came out naturally and the song became so much mine that I forgot I'd thought it was difficult."
Brilliant vocal technique perfecting difficult songs. Talented lyrics of honest feeling. Ayumi's rise has just begun. Look for her to soon make a name for herself as a top artist.
Ayumi Hamasaki is a Japanese pop singer born October 2, 1978 in Fukuoka, Japan. Commonly known just as Ayu, Ayumi Hamasaki is one of the most popular and influential Japanese pop singers and Japanese idols, considered one of the biggest J-pop artists.
Since her debut in 1998 with her first single "poker face", she has sold more than 46 million copies, with the releases of her seven full-length studio albums, one mini-album, two compilation albums, 40 singles, and several non-studio albums, being the fourth top selling Japanese artist in the history of Japan. [1] With the release of 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 singles ..1 singles (the most ..1 singles a Japanese female artist has ever achieved) and 38 singles in the Top 10 of the Japanese Oricon charts. She is also the first Japanese artist to have her first original seven studio albums top the charts.
Ayumi has also won the golden prize on the Japan Record Taishou (the most important award in Japanese music) three times in a row, in 2001, 2002 and 2003. She would have also won it in 2004, but she rejected the award saying she didn't want her song INSPIRE to win an award, also Ayumi 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 two, 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. During high school, she was considered a delinquent because of her dyed hair and short shirts which were considered extremely unconventional in Japan at that time. Eventually she dropped out of high school and moved to Tokyo to pursue a fulltime modeling career, supported by her grandmother.
[edit]
Idol career
Hamasaki used the pseudonym Kurumi Hamazaki, acting in low budget dramas like Miseinen and b-movies like Sumo momo momo; however, she did not find success. She was too short to become a professional model. As a result, she spent her days wandering the streets of Tokyo, shopping, and dancing at clubs in the Shibuya district. [edit]
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, her talent agency and record label, Nippon Columbia, dropped her. After this, Hamasaki supposedly met her future producer, Masato Matsuura in a karaoke bar (She met Matsuura in a music club/bar "Velfarre" owned by Avex Traxbig independent label that Matsuura worked for. He was impressed by Hamasaki's vocals, and when he asked her if she wanted to pursue a singing career, she said she agreed, "only because I had nothing to do". (She didn't say that at first. She first said "No way!" and was pretty suspicious of Matsuura, because of the age difference. She finally agreed to do vocal training because he kept pressing her and she indeed had "nothing better to do") 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 trainings. 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. [edit]
A Song for XX to LOVEppears era
Hamasaki has never had any formal instruction in lyric writing, but is able to draw on her emotions to write her lyrics. Her producer, Max Matsuura has stated repeatedly that she has a gift which only develops with practice and that it is highly unusual for such a young artist to be so articulate and mature in her writings. Also, Hamasaki's song writing abilities have been repeatedly compared to those of Utada Hikaru, although their styles are in fact markedly different.
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 4th single, "Depend on you", she got into the Top 10 of the charts for the first time. "Depend on you" 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; the single is her first certified platinum. "BE TOGETHER" ended up selling around 800,000 copies total. However, "Boys & 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.
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 feautured her topless with only her hair covering her breasts. The single "appears" was released the same day. Following the release of "LOVEppears", were two recut 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. [edit]
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 benefitted 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. [edit]
A BEST to 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. That year, a controversy was started when her compilation album "A BEST"'s 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 2000 respectively.
However, it was made clear in interviews that it was not her wish to release the best album, as she felt that a best album seems to indicate the end of a career. 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 double-platinum status, with sales of 2.3 million copies.
[edit] A BALLADS to 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 followup 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 second lowest selling album in her avex discography. [edit]
Memorial address to MY STORY 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 mini-album go platinum.
In the spring of 2004, Hamasaki released "Moments" in both a CD only and CD+ DVD combination, something which she remains 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 rewards anymore.
In December of 2004, she released her sixth studio album "MY STORY" which was certified platinum, 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.
[edit] (miss)understood era
Her highly-expected 35th single, "STEP you/is this LOVE?", was released in April. It was the first time that Ayumi released a double a-side single ("STEP you" used in TV spots for Panasonic and "is this LOVE?" for Morinaga chocolates). The single was number one in the daily, weekly and monthly ORICON charts, and went on to sell over 345,000 copies, her highest selling single for the year of 2005.
Her 36th single was "fairyland", released on August 3rd, 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. The single also included a B-side track, "Will" which she co-produced under the name of CREA. It was her 12th consecutive ..1 single starting with "Free & Easy" in 2002.
Hamasakis 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 Sweetboxs music and asked Geo (composer), to use some of her music. The single was not very successful, debuting with sales of about 84,000, very low on Ayumi standards. The single 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).
Ayus 7th studio album, "(miss)understood", was officially released on January 1st, 2006. It debuted with sales of about 650,000 copies reaching the ..1 spot on the World Global Charts. So far in the year, it's the first best selling original studio album by a female artist As of July 28th, Utada Hikaru's 2006 studio album "ULTRA BLUE" is approaching (miss)understood's sales, and might be able to surpass them before year's end.
[edit]2006 events
Hamasaki's thirty-ninth single "Startin' / Born To Be..." was released on March 8. As the single debuted at ..1 on the Oricon chart with sales of 116,000, Ayumi broke the record of most ..1 singles in Japan for a solo female artist previously held by Seiko Matsuda. This was her 26th ..1 single. 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 for 3 months with its first date in Saitama on March 11th, 2006 and its last stop at Yoyogi on June 11th, 2006. With 30 concerts, it's the largest tour to date. Ayu recently released her 40th single "BLUE BIRD" on June 21st. It contains the title song BLUE BIRD (featured on a ZESPRI Gold Kiwi beverage commercial), a second a B-side entitled Beautiful Fighters (featured on her Panasonic D-snap and D-dock commercial). A trance remix of BLUE BIRD and a rock-version of "Ladies Night", called "Ladies Night ~another night~" (which was featured in an earlier Panasonic LUMIX commercial), are also on this maxi single. "BLUE BIRD" has 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 Ayu's 15th consecutive number one single and 27th total number one single, selling over 160,572 copies in its first five days. This is the highest opening sales for a female artist in 2006.
Recently, it's been rumored her 41st single will be out in September. This single is supposed to be a ballad, similar to Ayu's September 2002 ballad, "Voyage".
Rivalry
Ayumi Hamasaki is commonly considered to be the direct rival of (also J-pop star) Utada Hikaru, which caused intense debate between fans of both artists.
On March 28, 2001, Utada Hikaru and Ayumi Hamasaki came in direct competition. Utada's album Distance and Hamasaki's album A BEST were released on the same day. Distance topped the charts for the first week while A BEST was ..2. The following week A BEST hit ..1 and Distance dropped to ..3. At the end of the year, Distance and A BEST were the top 2 highest selling albums of the year.
However, on one of Ayumi's most recent TV-appearance on MUSIC STATION in December 2005, both Hamasaki and Utada appeared together and got along very well. Utada even commented that she sang some of Hamasaki's songs when she went to karaoke.
The Hamasaki-Utada rivalry has been regarded as one of the biggest rivalries in the Japanese music industry.