It’s official, Ayumi Hamasaki has surpassed all other Asian female solo artists–having the most singles sold over the course of her career. The record was set after her latest single “Blue Bird” entered the Oricon music charts at No. 1, selling just over 180,000 copies at the time of this writing. With the single in Oricon’s top spot, Ayumi will be breaking another record as well, having more No. 1 singles than any Japanese female in history. She’s still in the early stages of her career, so these records will be quite interesting to watch in the coming years.
Archive for the 'japanese music' Category Page 3 of 5
Japanese pop idol Younha, seems to have been flying under the public’s radar up to now, but that all looks to be changing, as there’s been a new flurry of media attention showered on the Korean born singer lately. With a recent mini-concert held in Tokyo going over better than planed, the young pop star seems to be endearing the Japanese public to her. Considering she has strong Japanese language abilities, and a refreshingly humble public persona, it’s not surprising that Japan has embraced her with such open arms.
SM Entertainment wants you! At least that’s how it appears, as the Korean entertainment giant is aggressively recruiting fans for several of it’s artist fan clubs. Some of SM’s most popular artists, including BoA, Kang-Ta, and new Korean group Super Junior will be available and ready to join immediately. Membership will include an invitation to each club’s opening ceremony, with each artist scheduled to be in attendance..
Oricon, the Asian music ranking company, is celebrating it’s 40th birthday this month, and as part of the celebration they are releasing some long-term statistics. Most interesting, being best selling artists from both past and present. Japanese rock group B’z tops the list, with an astonishing 40+ million albums sold over their very illustrious career. Female artist Ayumi Hamasaki is also listed, topping the singles category with over 19 million singles sold. But that was not enough to beat veteran Japanese singer Yumi Matsutoya, who has sold close to 30 million albums dating all the way back to the late 1970’s.
The MTV Asia Awards 2006 are over, and this years show was quite a glittery affair– broadcasted live from Bangkok, Thailand, to over 100 million viewers. It was definitely the place to be for anyone connected to the Asian music industry. Notable winners were: Twins (Hong Kong), Se7en (Korea), and Lee-Hom Wang (Taiwan), all winners of the “Favorite Artist” award from their respective countries. Congratulations to Jolin Tsai who won this years “Style Award” for her contribution to Asian fashion in 2006.
The Korean wave shows no signs of abating after the latest K-Drama installment, Lee Byung-Hun, made his rounds this month. Even with it being one of Japan’s longest holiday’s, an unbelievable 40,000+ fans, mostly young women, showed up to see the actor during a special appearance inside the Tokyo Dome. This came as quite a shock to Japanese media, as audiences this large are quite unusual for events such as this, even with some of Japan’s biggest superstars.
Speaking of the Korean invasion, word has it that plans had to be scraped for several Korean stars, including Park Yong-Ha, and members of the Korean band Shinhwa, to land at Haneda airport in Tokyo, due to security concerns. Japanese authorities decided to disallow the flight, when it was learned that the last time Park Yong-Ha tried to fly out of the more central and low-key Haneda airport, too many fans turned up, prompting a security crisis. He then required a hasty transfer to Narita International, and a quick exit out of the country–all things that Japanese authorities don’t want to happen again.
Up-and-coming Japanese artist Nana Kitade, whose “gothic cute” style has been sweeping Japanese fashion of late, is trying the Koda Kumi marketing strategy of releasing multiple singles over an extended period of time. Her plan is to release 7 downloadable singles over the next several months, and will convert these to regular CD singles if all goes well.
Want to rent a pop star for the night? That’s just the idea behind the latest fad spreading throughout Japanese cities at the moment. The Host club phenomenon has been around for ages, but what’s different about the new surge of interest, has been Host clubs that cater to young Japanese females, and their unbounded enthusiasm for pop idol worship. This new breed of Host clubs are hiring young male staff that have all of the charm and charisma of real-life pop stars, but with the on demand availability that the real life stars can’t offer. All of this comes at a price, of course, but female fans don’t seem to mind paying top Yen for the privileges.
Congratulations to pop diva Ayumi Hamasaki, for becoming the most successful selling female Japanese pop artist ever, after her latest single topped the Oricon charts and brought her career total to 26 #1 singles. The previous record holder was Matsuda Seiko, whose fame and success was unprecedented in the 1980’s. Ayumi also holds records for having the most Top 10 singles, as well as for the total amount of singles sold, with over 20 million.
