Ayumi Hamasaki
(born October 2, 1978) is an award-winning J-Pop singer.
Commonly known just as "Ayu", Ayumi Hamasaki
is one of the most popular and influential Japanese pop
singers, and is dubbed “The Empress of Pop”.
She was born and raised in Fukuoka and moved to Tokyo to
pursue a career in the entertainment industry. Since her
debut in 1998 with her first single poker face, she has
sold more than 45 million records in Japan alone, with
the releases of her eight full-length studio albums, one
mini-album, four 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 history.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 reach that milestone.
With the release of her 39th single Startin' / Born to
be... in 2006, Hamasaki became the first, and so far the
only, female singer to have 27 #1 singles and 38 singles
in the Top 10 of the Japanese Oricon charts. She has 15
consecutive #1 singles to date (starting from Free &
Easy). Hamasaki is also the first Japanese artist to
have her first original eight studio albums top the
charts.
Biography: Although Hamasaki lived with her
mother, she was primarily raised by her grandmother. She
has vague recollections of her father as he supposedly
divorced her mother and 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.During high school, she was
considered a delinquent because she dyed her hair and
wore short skirts, both of which 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. She found studying chemistry a
very easy thing to do, but eventually dropped it because
she found that it didn'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.
When taking the entrance exams again, Hamasaki ventured
from her former talent agency SOS (targeted mostly at
young models) to Sun Music, because the chief of SOS
felt she would not do well because of her short height
and would do much better in other activities, such as
appearing on television.
Hamasaki reportedly used the pseudonym Kurumi Hamazaki
once during her works, as she acted in low budget dramas
like Miseinen and b-movies like Sumomo mo momo; however,
she did not find success.
Hamasaki recalls the times of her activities in show
business as a terrible period. She felt she simply
couldn't quit her agency as she lived in the agency
dormitory at the time, and she needed her jobs to make a
living. She remembers the confusion she felt when acting
in dramas with people she had seen on television back in
Fukuoka. Also, she was unable to understand many of the
girls in the business, who acted flamboyantly towards
photographers during photoshoot works and were often
selfish, which gave her the impression that they were
very silly. This resulted in her having a lot more boys
as friends rather than girls.
In order to release pressure and forget about her
confusion, Hamasaki would spend her free time wandering
the streets of Tokyo, shopping, and dancing at clubs in
the Shibuya district with her friends.
She finally decided to leave show business after finding
out about certain aspects that did not feel right to
her. For example, many photos from some of her photo
shoots were not used afterwards, and while working on
television productions, not all of the footage would end
up in the final product.
Hamasaki decided to drop out of high school at fifteen,
something she vaguely remembers by sending a fax message
with the words "I quit." written on paper. The
reason for quitting was because she did not want to see
the people and teachers anymore, feeling conspicuous
among them, as her appearance and looks were different
to others' in the entertainment school.
Around the time when Hamasaki dropped out of both high
school and the talent agency, where her contract was
soon to expire, her mother was coming to Tokyo to start
a new job. Ayumi went on to live with her together in
the apartment her mother rented. As peaceful days
entered her life again, she would once more go back to
spending long hours having fun with friends in
fashionable places in Tokyo's entertainment districts.
Professional career, 1995: Nothing from Nothing era:
The first steps Hamasaki 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
Velfarre club in Tokyo. 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.
A Song for XX and 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. Her grandmother died shortly before her
debut single was released - it's now believed that, due
in part to that, Ayumi strongly dislikes the song. 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. A Song for XX held the top spot for a total of
5 weeks and 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 &
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 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.
2000: Duty era: In 2000, she became a spokeswoman
for Kosé, a cosmetics company in Japan. When she
appeared in commercials to promote Kosé's lipsticks, a
record 500,000 lipsticks were sold in only two days.[9]
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. Like her
previous studio albums, Duty 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 and her Ayumi Hamasaki
Concert Tour 2000 A were released, both topping the
charts in the Single and DVD Charts respectively. These
three releases on the same week made her the first
artist to top three charts on the same week.
2001–2002: 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. The 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 September 11, 2001
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.
2002–2003: 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
million-seller 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. Voyage set a new
record for Hamasaki for it topped the Oricon Chart for a
total of 3 weeks. This makes Voyage the first and only
single from Hamasaki which has stayed at the top spot
for so long.
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 that failed to sell two million
units. 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.
2003–2004: Memorial Address and 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 million
seller mini-album.
My Story (Ayumi Hamasaki album): 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 and follow Max Matsuura. 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. She also announced that she
felt she was receiving the same awards every year, and
by forfeiting her right to claim awards she was giving
opportunity to new singers.
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.
2005–2006: (miss)understood era: Hamasaki's
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 "Fairyland" was released on
August 3, 2005. It debuted at #1 on the Oricon charts.
The single was coupled with (c/w) the rock-track
"Alterna." It is also her first single to
feature different cover art for the CD version and the
CD + DVD version.
Hamasaki's 37th single "Heaven" was released
on September 14, 2005. The song was used as the theme
song of the movie Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. The single
had also included "Will", which she
co-composed under the name of CREA. It was her 12th
consecutive #1 single starting with "Free &
Easy" in 2002.
Her 38th single "Bold & Delicious/Pride"
followed with its release on November 30, 2005. This
single carried a remarkably different flavor, bringing
with it a completely new sense of music style away from
her previous works. She had listened to some of
Sweetbox's songs and had asked Geo (the composer), if
she could use some of his music. The single had low
first-week sales of about 84,000, and barely held the #1
position for the week although it continued her streak
of #1 singles. This was the single that tied her with
Seiko Matsuda for the 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.
2006: 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 rumours in Chinese media. For her Asian tour in
2007, it was confirmed she would make stops in Taiwan,
Hong Kong and Shanghai.
2007: 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) here: 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 (我愛你)",
which is Chinese for "I love you". Afterwards,
she said goodbye to Taiwan, and set off for Hong Kong.
On April 1, 2007, it was rumored that Hamasaki and her
boyfriend of six years, Nagase Tomoya of TOKIO, are
engaged. The wedding is to take place as early as
October; however, with their hectic schedules, it may
not occur until December.
2007: New Single: 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.
Fashion: Hamasaki has been considered the fashion
leader amongst Japanese females ever since reaching
superstar status in 2000 , especially amongst Japanese
high-school girls. Regularly appearing in leading
Japanese fashion magazines such as ViVi, Cawaii and
Popteen, she became a trend-setter with her unique
style. Japanese streets were filled with young females
trying to imitate her style with fashion items such as
oversized sunglasses and fake fox tails. Her influence
in Japanese fashion has seen her win an unprecedented
three consecutive Nail Queen awards and five Best
Jeanist awards, and was inducted into the respective
Halls of Fame for her achievements. Japan's cosmetics
giant, Kose, has also used Hamasaki in many endorsements
for Visee cosmetics pieces such as mascara and lipstick.
In Oricon's 2006 spring and summer polls, she was named
the most fashionable female artist. She has appeared on
the cover of Vogue twice, once modeling for an entire
spread featuring Bulgari, and the other for popular
designers Dolce & Gabbana. Numerous pieces were
designed for Hamasaki. She was recently featured in a
spread for Dior jewelry and luxury items featuring an
Ayumi in a manner of timeless and classic elegance, as
compared to her usual "popstar" appearance.
Hamasaki is also often seen with designer goods from
major fashion houses from all over the world such as
Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen, Juicy Couture, and
Christian Louboutin.
Lyrics: As the lyricist of all of her songs,
Hamasaki is well known for her deep and poetic lyrics,
setting her apart from other pop stars. As others
concentrate on matters of love and heartbreak, recurring
themes in Hamasaki's lyrics are loneliness, self-doubt,
and hope, themes which deeply resounded with the younger
generation of Japan. "Seasons" won the Best
Lyrics Prize at the Japan Record Awards in 2000.
Music videos: Besides her CD releases and tours,
Hamasaki has also become quite well-known for her
stylish, innovative music videos. Often making videos
for album tracks as well as singles, these PVs
(promotion clips) have become selling points in
themselves, now packaged along with her albums and
singles. This was considered a smart move by industry
insiders in light of flagging CD sales and rampant
piracy.
Her videos often have dark themes and imagery, including
horror and supernatural elements. Popular clips have
featured death, ghosts, executions, werewolves,
reincarnation, clowns, doppelgangers, cyborgs, angels,
and Santa Claus. Others have been pure upbeat pop in
style, so much so that they are considered to be ironic
and post-modern.
Ayumi Hamasaki x Hello Kitty: merging of Hello
Kitty and Ayumi Hamasaki has been made, and was first
seen when the "Tour of Secret" goods became
available on mu-mo on March 9th, 2007. It is said they
together "will make a new character". Hamasaki
is assumed to be depicted by her popular 'Ayupan'. All
other information on the "Ayumi Hamasaki x Hello
Kitty" project between Sanrio and Avex Trax is
currently unknown. It is also unknown if "Ayumi
Hamasaki x Hello Kitty" will be released outside of
Asia.
Hamasaki released a statement about the new character on
her official website, saying: “ I am so happy to have
the opportunity to do a collaboration with the kitty
that I've loved since I was a little girl. Hello Kitty
has a special place in the heart of girls everywhere, no
matter their age or nationality. My ASIA tour starts on
March 10, and I'll be performing not just in Japan but
in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. We've created all
sorts of tour goods as well as other Hello Kitty
collaboration projects for the tour, and I hope you will
enjoy them. ”
An Ayumi Hamasaki x Hello Kitty x Ash & Diamonds
collaboration item has been made. Ash & Diamonds is
a Japanese jewelry company. The item, a strap, comes in
either gold or silver and sells for ¥9975 (roughly $83
USD).
On May 8th, 2007, her website announced an Ayumi
Hamasaki x Hello Kitty x Lumix collaboration. Lumix is a
brand of digital cameras from Panasonic, whom Ayumi
Hamasaki is the spokesperson for. The slim camera has an
imprint of Hello Kitty on top of Hamasaki's logo. The
camera sells for ¥54600 (roughly $455 USD), and
includes a handbag.
Symbols: Ayumi Hamasaki uses some symbols to
represent her own name or some of her singles/songs.
Usually, when typed, the symbols are just replaced with
the special symbols.
Her main symbol, is used to represent her full name
while symbols such as the H and M were used for once
only to represent their respective singles. Variations
to the have been used on some of Hamasaki's albums such
as My Story, (miss)understood and Secret
Rivalry, Ami Suzuki: One of Hamasaki's first
rivals since her debut was Ami Suzuki. They both debuted
around the same time and both had a similar style of
music and singing. While Suzuki was working under Sony
Music Japan, the two artists were put in direct
competition with the release of Suzuki's Be Together and
Hamasaki's Boys & Girls. Be Together took the #1
spot in the first week, and Boys & Girls in the
second week. Despite this, Be Together sold
approximately 800,000 copies, while Boys & Girls
sold over a million. In 2005, Ami Suzuki joined the avex
trax label, and therefore she is no longer considered a
rival of Hamasaki.
Utada Hikaru: 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 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.
In a very personal interview that was broadcast by the
Japanese NTV on April 12, 2004, Hamasaki explained that
this rivalry made her feel terrible but that it was
pushed by the record companies. In protest, she is
depicted with a tear on her cheek on the cover of her A
Best album. It is speculated that this protest is also
the reason why she insisted on re-recording some of her
old tracks that are featured on this album.
On one of her TV-appearances 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.
Both Hamasaki and Utada appeared again on Hey! Hey! Hey!
Music Champ on February 26, 2007 and on Music Station on
March 2, 2007.
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