Toshi Kubota (KUBOTA Toshinobu, 久保田利伸) is a Japanese singer who is originally from Shizuoka, Japan. Toshi is a pioneer of soul music in Japan. His music styles have varied over the years, from pop-oriented sounds through to reggae and soul.
Toshi has managed to sustain a lengthy recording career. He has released a total of ten Japanese albums, three English albums, and four compilation albums since his debut.
Toshi made his Japanese debut in 1986 with the album, Shake It Paradise. His popularity peaked with his award-winning 1990 release, “Bonga Wanga.” Toshi’s albums have consistently sold over a million copies each in Japan. His biggest hit single came in 1996 in a duet with Naomi Campbell entitled “La La La Love song”. The single was used as a theme song of a television drama “Long Vacation” and sold two million copies in Japan.
Toshi made his English debut in 1995 with the album “Sunshine, Moonlight” and followed up with 2000’s “Nothing But Your Love.” His latest release is 2006’s “For Real?”.
Porno Graffitti (ポルノグラフィティ, Poruno Gurafiti), also known as Porno (ポルノ, Poruno) is a Japanese male rock band from Innoshima. The band got their name from the album Pornograffitti by the band Extreme. They currently record under Sony Music Entertainment Japan Records (also known as SME Records) label.
The origin of this band is a band called “No score” that was formed by Haruichi Shindo with his cousin in high school. After Haruichi made the band, he asked Akihito Okano and Masami Shiratama (Tama) to join his band. As the band name says, all of them could not read a score for the first time. When they started the band activity, Haruichi was the vocalist, but they found out that Akihito could sing better than him, so Haruichi gave the vocalist position to Akihito, and he got the guitarist position. This is the foundation of Porno Graffitti.
They came out with the song Apollo in 1999. Two single CDs Saudade and Agehachō both sold over a million copies in Japan. They are also well known for the song Melissa, used as the opening theme of the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, in 2003. They also created the song Hitori no Yoru, used as the opening theme of the anime series GTO, back in 2000 and Winding Road, used as the ending theme of the anime series Ayakashi Ayashi, in 2006. A cover of their 2000 single Music Hour was featured in a stage of the Nintendo DS rhythm game Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2.
Chihiro Onitsuka (鬼束ちひろ, Onitsuka Chihiro?, born October 30, 1980 in Nango, Miyazaki) is a female Japanese popular music singer-songwriter and pianist.
Onitsuka debuted with her single Shine in early 2000 and has captured many people with her vocals. She can reach incredibly high and low tones, giving her a wide array of options for singing, from fast-paced guitar melodies to melancholy piano pieces.
Her parents encouraged Onitsuka to listen to Western music and by the time she was ten, she wrote her first poems, receiving praise from her parents, friends and teachers, who called them ‘earnest efforts’. Secretly, however, she knew that just writing ‘earnestly’ wasn’t enough. From that time onward, she tried to write every day, and by the time she was in junior high school, she began to gain more confidence.
Having been influenced by Alanis Morissette in junior high school days, it was the encounter with Jewel’s music and presence during the high school years that strongly impelled Onitsuka to become a singer-songwriter. With some 70 original compositions and several other auditions under her belt, Onitsuka entered the 1998 Virgin Tokyo Artists Audition, going on to winning Grand Prize. Then only 17, Onitsuka started her career as a professional and moved to Tokyo in spring 1999 after graduating from high school.
February 2000 saw the release of Onitsuka’s debut single “Shine.” The following single “Gekkou” was selected the theme song to a TV drama series, gaining nationwide attention to this new artist. While “Gekkou” remained a long-term best-seller, the up-tempo single “Cage” was released in November 2000, followed by the fourth single “Memai/Edge” in February 2001 which was Onitsuka’s first love song. The highly anticipated debut album Insomnia was then released in March 2001, immediately topping the Original Confidence album sales charts in the first week of release.
In early September 2003, Onitsuka recorded her October single “Ii Hi Tabidachi, Nishi e,” a cover of a 1978 song, to be used as the theme for Japan Railway’s “Discover the West” campaign. She recorded this song right before she took a hiatus to have throat surgery.[1]
In early 2004, Toshiba EMI released a Singles Box against the wishes of Onitsuka. This caused so much anguish for her that she left Toshiba and signed on as an artist under Universal Music, and given a lot more freedom in her work. She released one single, “Sodatsu Zassou (育つ雑草)”, which was a major change from her folk-pop style into rock. Prior to the release, she held a concert in which she performed the song and a Nirvana cover. Contrary to popular belief, she did not announce a hiatus at this time; no hiatus was announced and the subsequent lack of release from her had been a great mystery to her fans, who eagerly anticipated the next release and hoped that one would indeed be forthcoming. Later on, she admitted that the reason for her departure from the music scene was because of mental fatigue caused by the series of new releases and tight schedules.
Onitsuka started her full come-back to the music industry in 2007, with a live performance on March 17 at AP BANG! Tokyo Kankyo Kaigi, Studio Coast, Tokyo and has announced plans to release a come-back album and do concert touring. Her first release is the single titled “Everyhome”, which was released on May 30. It reached #9 on the Oricon weekly charts.
It is interesting to note that even though Onitsuka is on a different label now, Toshiba EMI has still been releasing her music in the forms of DVDs and singles collections. The singles collection does not even have a photo of Chihiro as the cover, and instead a drawing replaces her. It is most likely that they will stop soon as there are no more new songs or footage that they own.
Λucifer (sometimes spelled Aucifer, pronounced Lucifer because of the greek letter “L” lambda “Λ”) is a Japanese rock group, best known for contributing several of their songs to the popular anime, Kaikan Phrase. The band was formed in 1999, and disbanded in early 2003. They officially debuted on 15 September 1999 with their big hit single Datenshi BLUE, and became increasingly popular thereafter.
Λucifer was put together for the Kaikan Phrase anime to promote it. The anime was based on the popular shoujo manga by Mayu Shinjo. The band members of real life Λucifer changed their names to match with their anime/manga counterparts, except for the vocalist, who kept his name instead of changing it to Sakuya (the main character’s name). Several of Λucifer’s songs were used in the anime, along with songs of other j-rock bands like GLAY, Feel and e.MU. However, the band decided to go on even after the anime had ended, and continued to release more music afterwards.
Then finally on 25 October 2002, over two and a half years after the anime had ended, they announced that they were breaking up. Following the announcement, they did their last tour entitled “Λucifer Last Live 2002-2003 Energy” from 16 December 2002 to 10 January 2003, which included 9 shows. After that, they appeared for the last time in a TV music show, PopJam, on 11 January and then did their very last show (which was also their first show done abroad) at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand on 19 January.
At first, on the first album, the music was written by Takuya Asanuma (JUDY AND MARY), Chisato (Penicillin) and IPPEI & TAIZO (FEEL) but after that, the members of the band started writing more. BEATRIP featured one song from Atsuro and one from Santa, and the rest were by Takuya and Chisato, but by the third album, nearly all the music had been done by members of the band, save for one song by Takuya, and two of the songs Makoto did that were done as a collaboration with Masaki. The lyrics on the first two albums were all done by Mori Yukinojo (except for one song on BEATRIP, when Makoto did them). On the third album, only the lyrics to the song by Takuya were made by Mori and the rest were done by the band members.
After the break-up of the band;
* Makoto has gone on a solo career (going by the name Makoto). Towa and Santa also played on his first mini-album “VIBRATION”.
* Towa is in two bands called OLIVE SUNDAY and Birth of Life and has done some solo work as well.
* Santa is with Towa in OLIVE SUNDAY, and played on a few Angelique soundtracks and also on Anna Tsuchiya’s first mini-album “Taste My Beat”.
* Yuki is in a band called DUSTAR-3.
* Atsuro has been playing guitar for j-pop artists like meg rock, Marika and Chieko Kawabe.
Λucifer also made music videos for every single they released.
A mix parentage of Japanese and Italian, Angela is an internationally acclaimed indie artist. Known for her indie album, These Words, in 2002. Angela Aki (アンジェラ・アキ Anjera Aki), born on 15 September 1977 in Itano, Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku, Japan, to a Japanese father and an Italian-American mother, is a Japanese singer-songwriter. Her former Japanese real name is 安芸 聖世美 (Aki Kiyomi)
Angela Aki is completely bilingual in English and Japanese as she was raised in Japan, but moved to Hawaii at the age of fifteen where she graduated from Iolani School. From there she moved on to George Washington University where she graduated with majors in politics and music.
On March 9, 2007, she revealed in her official blog that she is married to a music director who has been supporting her before her debut. She also revealed that while she was in Washington D.C., she had married once before but the marriage ended in a divorce.
She is good friends with JPOP star Yuna Ito. Both singers attended the same Japanese language school.
Angela Aki is the daughter of Kiyoshi Aki, the owner/co-founder of AEON Institute of Language Education. This is one of the “Big Four” Eikaiwa (English conversation) schools in Japan.
In May 2006, Angela signed with Tofu Records in order to release English singles and albums. Her first release with Tofu was releasing “Kiss Me Good-Bye” as a digital single in the USA, with a slightly altered track list. Later that month she performed the Final Fantasy XII theme song, “Kiss Me Good-Bye” at the premiere PLAY! A Video Game Symphony concert in Chicago on May 27, 2006. With orchestral backup, she played piano and sang the English lyrics, which she had written herself. She also performed her own version of “Eyes On Me”, the theme song of Final Fantasy VIII with only the piano and her voice.
Song: Home
Song: Rain
Song: Kiss Me Goodbye
Not exactly the conventional beauty we’re used to but she is definitely very talented.
Olivia Lufkin, often known simply as OLIVIA, born December 9, 1979, in Okinawa, a bilingual Japanese singer (her first language is English). The daughter of an American father and a Japanese mother, she sometimes writes about being mixed-race in songs such as “solarhalfbreed.” Her sister Caroline Lufkin is also a singer (under the name Caroline).
Olivia attended the Okinawa Actors’ School and was there discovered by the director of “Rising Productions” (Vision Factory) and signed to Avex Trax as part of the Japanese idol group D&D. Then, the famous producer Tetsuya Komuro heard of Olivia one day and decided that she would be perfect for a project in which he was planning along with Jean Michel Jarre. The project was to make the theme song for the France 1998 FIFA World Cup entitled Together Now. The single was released a month after D&D’s 1st and one album. After it was decided that D&D would disband and separated into two different groups; ‘OLIVIA’ as Olivia’s solo-project and Aya & Chika as Aya & Chika from D&D.
In 2004 she released her second album The Lost Lolli. The primarily featured the best material from her four mini-albums except for two new tracks “Alone in Our Castle” and “Fake Flowers” (as well as two re-arrangements). This album was released nation-wide (though with a limited first press version available at Tower Records Japan), this album used “SpidERSpins (Lost Lolli Mix)” as a radio single for the release. The song also had a music video to go along with it. This album peaked at #111 on the Oricon. However, Avex Trax released an overseas version of this album, reflecting Olivia’s increasing success outside of Japan; typically, only chart-topping artists release overseas versions of their albums.
After releasing The Lost Lolli, Olivia went on an unofficial and long hiatus (except for a performance at the “Halloween of the Living Dead” hosted by Hyde on October 30, 2005) and worked as a model on fashion magazines. In March 2006, it was announced Olivia would once again be releasing music in the Japanese music industry. She would play the role of the rival band Trapnest’s lead vocalist Reira Serizawa, for the anime adaptation of Nana as her first release for this role, Olivia sings the first ending theme song entitled a little pain. This was alongside fellow avex artist Anna Tsuchiya, who plays the role of Nana Osaki, the vocalist for Trapnest’s rival band Black Stones. Similarly, Tsuchiya sung the opening theme song. The manga’s author, Ai Yazawa, asked Olivia to sing for the anime when a staff member at avex gave her a copy of Olivia’s Sea me and Into The Stars singles. It is reported that she exclaimed, “It can only be her!” when she first heard the music. For a little pain, Olivia first made the general theme to the lyrics, then wrote the song in English. Later on she would change the lyrics into Japanese. The single is about “Reira’s loneliness, pain and strength,” as Olivia found that she could relate well to the character.
Olivia has said that her musical expression has now changed, that the hiatus was because at the time of The Lost Lolli’s release, she was “feeling pretty depressed”, and “started to notice and realize a lot of her faults”and her style “has gotten a lot more detailed”, it’s “pleasing to the ear” and “a lot cooler”. She had to do a lot of research into Reira’s character, as she “never really read manga”. She specifically wrote the song tailored to the point of view of Reira. She states, “It was fun to sing as another person. Like an actress”. She said that she “wrote many different songs”, but they sounded too “western and dark”, whereas a little pain had more of a feeling of a top Japanese band”.[1].
When a little pain first was released, it reached a position of #8 (her first top 10 position), and two positions below Anna’s single (the opening theme song), which had been released on the same day. After the second week, this single had outsold the total sales for her debut single, I.L.Y.~Yokubou~ (which was her highest selling single to date at the time).
Olivia would continue to release Nana-related music. The next opening and ending theme songs used after Tsuchiya Anna’s rose and Olivia’s a little pain were both Olivia songs. The single Wish / Starless Night, was released in October and peaked #7.
Then, OLIVIA’s first US appearance was at the animation convention Pacific Media Expo held in Los Angeles, California in October 2006.
In early 2007, Olivia released The Cloudy Dreamer in January 17, 2007. The album debuted at #15 on the Oricon Weekly Charts; her highest ranking album to date. In addition to the several songs she recorded for the Nana anime, the mini-album also featured a new song called “Dream Catcher”, which was used as the ending theme for the live action television drama series of Jigoku Shōjo.
In February 2007, OLIVIA released an album called OLIVIA inspi’ REIRA (TRAPNEST) which contains singles from the show and some new songs; then was released an album called NANA BEST includes popular and some unreleased songs by both Olivia and Anna Tsuchiya from the Nana TV series. Both Olivia’s and Anna Tsuchiya’s songs from these albums were played in the Shibuya, Tokyo pedestrian area in March 2007.
Ami Suzuki (鈴木 亜美 Suzuki Ami, born February 9, 1982) is a female singer and songwriter from Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Suzuki was one of the most popular female singers between 1998 and 2000 and the known rival of Ayumi Hamasaki, but in 2000 after legal problems with her management company, she was dropped from her label and fell from popularity, becoming widely unnoticed in the Japanese entertainment business for several years.
With the help of Max Matsuura, Suzuki finally returned to the music scene under the Avex Trax label in 2005 with her comeback single, Delightful, a dance song that reached No. 3 on the Japanese Oricon charts and became one of 2005 summer’s hits. In October 2005 the singer released her first studio album on Avex entitled AROUND THE WORLD, which has sold over 62,000 copies. Her second studio album, titled “CONNETTA”, was released on March 21, 2007.
While she was attending the high school Ami auditioned for the Japanese talent show Asayan, which was looking for young girls who could sing. The grand prize winner would be rewarded with a contract with Sony Music Entertainment Japan and a high-profile music career.
The TV show became very popular and the number of viewers watching it grew and grew as the series progressed; its popularity was such that soon it was aired in other Asian countries. From 13,500 contestants, only five girls were chosen to be in the final round, and Ami won the competition supported by 802,157 phone calls from the audience. She was only 15 years old.
Coco d’Or is a jazz band, with Hiroko Shimabukuro as a singer. Hiroko Shimabukuro, also known as hiro, is a former member of a Japanese girl band, SPEED.
Their first release is a self-titled album “Coco d’Or”, which has been released in 2004. Their latest release is “Coco d’Or Parfait”, which contained same songs from the first album and extra three new songs. There is also a DVD of the promotional videos and making-of shoots included. Their new album will be released on July 26, 2006. The title is “Coco d’Or 2″. There will be a CD+DVD version too like before.
Coco d’Or songs are modern-remake version of popular classic jazz songs, such as “Misty” by Ella Fitzgerald and “Fly Me to The Moon” by Frank Sinatra.
I am a big Utada Hikaru fan and all her songs, I love. And thanks to Alan Petroline for pointing it out, Sakura Drops (one of her latest songs) have been out a while now and I am sharing it with you guys here! :)
No, not the Iceman from Marvel comics but an ex-Japanese J-Pop boy band of the same name. Iceman was a three-man Japanese J-pop music group, consisting of Daisuke Asakura (keyboards), Kenichi Ito (guitar), and Michihiro Kuroda (lead vocals).
They officially came together on June 5th, 1996, when a press conference was held in Tokyo to announce the two musicians who would accompany Daisuke Asakura in his next musical venture after the break up of Access
Between 1996 and 1999, they released six albums, a multitude of PV and live videos, and even a video game. They had a unique and varied sound; sometimes hard electronic rock (Shining Collection), sometimes soft pop (Edge of the season), and even techno sounds (Caution).
Iceman is probably most well-known for “Shining Collection”, a song used in the anime OVA Gravitation: Lyrics of Love by Asakura during his time as music director and composer for the series. The song has enjoyed a small spike in popularity outside of Japan thanks to its use in the anime, as well as a cult flash cartoon hosted on Newgrounds called “A Sticky Night of Love”[1].
The majority of the music was written by Daisuke Asakura, with several exceptions by Kenichi Ito. And though Michihiro Kuroda was the lead singer, Kenichi Ito and Daisuke Asakura had their hand at performing many of the songs.
The group was rumored to have broken up around 2000 when Michihiro Kuroda left the group to pursue a solo career. The split became official on 2001, when funding issues arose.
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