Ayumi Hamasaki (浜崎 ã‚ゆã¿ Hamasaki Ayumi, born October 2, 1978) is a Japanese pop singer and Japanese idol originally from Fukuoka. In Japan, she is commonly called by her nickname Ayu. To this date, she has released six full-length studio albums, one mini-album, two compilation albums, and 38 singles. She officially debuted in 1998 with her single poker face. She is the first Japanese artist to have her first original six studio albums top the charts. Although Ayumi lived with her mother, she was primarily raised by her grandmother. She has vague recollections of her father, but he left the family at a very early time, around the time she was two, and has not seen him since then. She recalls playing a cassette tape that her father gave her that she drew from later on. 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 liked to wear short skirts and to dye her hair, which was extremely unconventional in Japan at that time, and she also rarely came to school. Eventually she dropped out of high school as well and moved to Tokyo to pursue a fulltime modeling career. Hamasaki used the pseudonym Kurumi Hamazaki, acting in low budget dramas like Miseinen and b-movies like Sumomomomomo; 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. She was "discovered" by her producer Max Matsuura, an avex trax producer when she was singing karaoke. When he asked her if she wanted to pursue a singing career, she said she agreed, "only because I had nothing to do." Hamasaki was contracted voice lessons in Tokyo, which she did not attend, as they were too rigid. 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. Hamasaki has never had any formal instruction in lyric writing, and yet could draw well on her emotions to write her lyrics. Matsuura has stated repeatedly that such a gift comes along only with much practice and that it is highly unusual for such a young artist to be so articulate and mature in her writings, being the only female of her generation to write lyrics with such impact and meaning. In 1998, Hamasaki released her debut single poker face, which sold 43,000 copies. But with the support of her producer Max Matsuura, she released four additional singles, with Depend on you eventually breaking top 10 with its tie-up as the theme song for Thousand Arms video game for Sony PlayStation, before she released her first album A Song for XX on January 1, 1999. Her album quickly became certified platinum. LOVE~Destiny~, her seventh single, was her first #1 single. The title track was specially comissioned for her to be a sub-theme for a drama series SemiDouble, and its b-side featured a duet with Tsunku, the vocalist of a hit band Sharan Q and the producer of Morning Musume, called LOVE~since1999~, which was the theme song for the drama series. Starting with the release of Boys & Girls, her singles changed format dramatically. Hamasaki's production team, following the music industry trend, moved away from the 8cm single format to 12cm maxi-singles; her new releases contained many remixes. As a result, Boys & Girls became the first of her singles to be certified platinum. In August, A was released. In an unprecedented move by avex trax, A featured 4 a-sides and 10 remixes. The single sold over 1,600,000 copies and remains her best-selling single. In November, she released her second album, LOVEppears, less than a year after her first. The album sold over two million copies. She brought out a positive reaction from her fans when she appeared on her album cover posing topless and covering her breasts with her hair. The single appears was released on the same day limited to 300,000 prints. Following the release of LOVEppears, two recut singles from the album were released in the same manner as appears, kanariya in December and Fly high in March of the following year. In 2000, she became a spokeswoman for KOSE Visee, a cosmetics company in Japan. When she appeared in commercials and promoted Kose's lipsticks, a record of 500,000 lipsticks were sold in only two days. vogue, which was used as a 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. Her fans, who were mostly teenage girls and young women, loved her Barbie-like fashion. She was constantly featured on front covers of fashion magazines, which featured articles about her successful life and her style. From April to June of 2000, she released one single per month, vogue, Far away, and SEASONS, which would be later known as The Trilogy because of the similar themes in lyrics and the 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 2 900 000 copies. On the same day, the single SURREAL was released, which was an initial pressings only single, and it also peaked the charts like Duty, making Hamasaki the fourth artist following Seiko Matsuda, KinKi Kids, and WANDS to have a single and album top the charts on the same week, and with the release of Ayumi Hamasaki Concert Tour 2000 A 第1幕 topping the DVD charts, it gave her the record of being the first artist to top three charts on the same week. Since the release of vogue, her voice started to change in a way that it was darker and heavier, and starting with the release of SURREAL, her songs started to take on a rock-feeling edge, which would later reach its climax. To close up the millenium, her single M was released, and became a huge hit, making the single her fourth platinum single. The song M saw Hamasaki take more creative control of her music. Prior to M, she had always written lyrics for her songs (with the special exception of LOVE~since1999~), but with M, Hamasaki started composing her own songs under the pseudonym "CREA". That year, a little controversy was started when her compilation album A BEST's release date was changed to put her into direct competition with Utada Hikaru's second album DISTANCE. Though DISTANCE topped the charts first week, A Best topped the following week, thus staggering the sales of both albums. 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 decreased, which shows how much power 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, SongNation, 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 sold very well, just breaking 2 300 000 copies sold. The release of Free & Easy in April saw a complete change in the trend of Hamasaki's singles. The single only featured two remixes alongside the title track. The single also threatened to break her string of consecutive number ones, as Kuraki Mai's Feel fine! single (released on the same date), briefly topped the daily charts. However, Free & Easy eventually claimed the top spot and gave Hamasaki the top spot on the weekly charts. Her fifth platinum single H was released in July. Like A, this single featured multiple a-sides, however, unlike A, this single did not contain any remixes. Her next single Voyage had an extended music video to promote it - a short film titled Tsuki ni Shizumu (or Sinking into the Moon), featured Hamasaki acting for the first time since her idol days. The much-hyped release of RAINBOW in December 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 like the previous album and saw her using English for the first time in her releases. 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 lyrical ideas 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 fell just short of platinum status (although it has sold well considering it only included two original songs). Sales were further dinted as most of the tracks already appear on her first best album, A BEST, and only received a subtle remix, plus only two years had passed since that release. In July, & was released. Like the single H, included was three a-sides. However, unlike H, it contained an extra track that wasn't considered a-side, theme of a-nation '03, and videos were filmed for all three a-sides of the single. After the releases of the forgiveness (August) and No way to say (November) singles, she released a mini-album, Memorial address, which only featured three new songs. Memorial address was unique in a way that all the songs except for the title track (which was a bonus track) had a music video and it was available in CD only or CD+DVD formats. Memorial address gave her the record for the only female solo artist to release a platinum status mini-album. The following year was a year of internal strife in her recording company, avex trax. A feud between Max Matsuura and Yoda, an executive at avex trax, caused chaos and also started rumors that Hamasaki and other popular artists in avex trax like hiro, Every Little Thing, hitomi, and Do As Infinity were leaving the record company, causing the stock prices for avex trax to plunge. However, when Hamasaki sided with Matsuura, Yoda ended up resigning, effectively ending the feud. Her singles since Moments were released at least in two formats - CD only or CD+DVD. Moments was used as a background music for her last KOSE Visee commericial. INSPIRE also saw something she hasn't done since the release of vogue in 2000, a b-side track. CAROLS was released in four formats - CD only, CD+DVD, SACD, and DVD-Audio. Since the release of &, she has also experimented with various composers to arrange her songs. In December of 2004, she released her sixth album MY STORY which was certified platinum. MY STORY, like its singles was also available in CD+DVD package as well as the CD only package.
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