Dragon Ash is a Japanese rap rock group founded in 1996 by Kenji "KJ" Furuya and Sakurai Makoto. They were one of the first groups to popularize hip hop in Japan. Dragon Ash is a member of Mob Squad, which is an affiliation with the bands Source and Endive. Dragon Ash uses the French fleur-de-lis as their band logo/symbol.
Hikaru Utada, who is also known by the mononym Utada, is a Japanese-American singer-songwriter and producer. Born in the United States to Japanese parents, record producer Teruzane Utada and enka singer Keiko Fuji, Utada began to write music and lyrics at an early age and often traveled to Tokyo as a result of her father's job. Eventually, a recording contract with Toshiba-EMI was signed. Under the stage name Cubic U, she released an English-language debut album Precious in early 1998, but it was a commercial failure. In the following year, heavily influenced by R&B and dance-pop, a Japanese-language debut First Love was released and became an immediate success. Backed by the success of singles "Automatic", "Time Will Tell", and "Movin' On Without You", the album sold two million copies in its first week in Japan, topped the Oricon charts for six non-consecutive weeks and went on to sell six million more throughout the rest of 1999. First Love eventually became the country's best-selling album of all time.
L'Arc-en-Ciel is a Japanese rock band, formed in Osaka in 1991 by bassist tetsuya and vocalist hyde. Following the departure of original members hiro and pero, guitarist ken and drummer sakura were recruited to replace them in 1992 and 1993, respectively. While they first got their start as a visual kei band, L'Arc-en-Ciel have not had any association with the movement since their major label debut in 1994. sakura left the band in 1997 and was replaced by yukihiro in January 1998, completing the current line-up.
Mai Kuraki is a Japanese pop and R&B singer-songwriter and record producer. After releasing her US debut single "Baby I Like" in 1999, Kuraki signed with Giza Studio and released her Japanese debut single "Love, Day After Tomorrow" in 1999. In 2000, she released her debut album, Delicious Way, which debuted at number-one and sold over 2.2 million copies in its first week. The album has spawned four top-three singles, "Love, Day After Tomorrow", "Stay by My Side", "Secret of My Heart", and "Never Gonna Give You Up". Eventually, the album sold over 3.5 million copies nationwide and became the best-selling album in Japan in 2000, and has been the ninth best-selling album in Japan of all-time.
Karl Martin Sandberg, known professionally as Max Martin, is a Swedish record producer, songwriter, and retired singer. He rose to prominence in the late 1990s making a string of hit singles such as Britney Spears's "...Baby One More Time" (1998), the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" (1999), Céline Dion's "That's the Way It Is" (1999) and NSYNC's "It's Gonna Be Me" (2000).
Rika Kakiuchi, professionally known by her stage name, Rina Aiuchi and formerly known as R, is a Japanese singer, songwriter, businesswoman, fashion model, and YouTuber. Born in Higashiōsaka, Japan, she won the first season of the audition Super Starlight Contest, winning a recording contract with Giza Studio. Her eurobeat-sounding debut album, Be Happy (2001) was certified gold in Japan and spawned a top-five single, "Koi wa Thrill, Shock, Suspense", which served as the theme song to the Japanese anime television series Case Closed. Aiuchi's second album Power of Words became her best-selling album, selling over 419,000 copies nationwide and certificated platinum in Japan.
Ai Otsuka is a Japanese singer-songwriter from Suminoe-ku, Osaka, Japan. She is a popular artist on the Avex Trax label and is best known for her 2003 hit "Sakuranbo", which stayed in the Top 200 Oricon Weekly Singles Chart for 103 weeks.
Tomoko Kawase is a Japanese singer, songwriter, producer, actress, and model from Kyoto. She is the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Brilliant Green. She also has a solo career under the alter-ego pseudonyms Tommy february6 and Tommy heavenly6.
Yuna Ito is an American-born former singer and actress who was active in Japan.
Super Monkey's were a Japanese pop-singing and dancing group that spawned the careers of Namie Amuro and some members of the girl group MAX.
Kobukuro (コブクロ), a Japanese band, formed in 1998 and made its major label debut in 2001. The name is a portmanteau of the two family names, Kentarō Kobuchi and Shunsuke Kuroda.
Heart Station is the seventh studio and fifth Japanese-language album by Japanese–American recording artist Hikaru Utada. It was released on March 19, 2008 by EMI Music in Japan, and globally on March 26, 2008. It is Utada's eighth consecutive studio album to be fully written and produced by her, with the help of her father Teruzane Utada and long-time collaborator Miyake Akira through the production. Recorded between 2006 and 2008, it was worked on whilst she was recording her ninth studio and second English-language studio album, This Is the One (2009). With the album artwork photographed by Japanese photographer Mitsuo, Heart Station was released in two formats: a physical CD, and as a digital download.
"A World to Believe In" is a song recorded by Canadian singer Celine Dion, taken from her tenth English-language studio album, Taking Chances (2007). It was written by Tino Izzo and Rosanna Ciciola, and produced by the Grammy-winning producer, John Shanks. Re-recorded as a duet with the Japanese singer Yuna Ito, it was released as the second single in Japan from Taking Chances on 16 January 2008, and also as the lead single from Dion's Japanese greatest hits album, Complete Best (2008). The duet version was also included on Ito's album, Wish (2008). The song reached number three on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and number eight on the Oricon Singles Chart.
"Ride on Time" is MAX's 10th single released under Avex Trax. The title track and its b-side were used as the opening and ending theme songs to the drama "Sweet Devil" which starred the members of MAX as a group of college women who become cursed after using forbidden magic after getting involved in the case of a serial killer. The single debuted in the top 5 of the Oricon chart upon release and is the group's third best selling single.
"Give Me A Shake" is MAX's 6th single released under Avex Trax. Until the release of this single, all of MAX's music was covers of Italian Eurobeat songs, "Give Me A Shake" is their first original Japanese language song. Upon its release the song debuted at #1 on Oricon weekly charts, becoming their first and only top charting single. The song brought the group their first Japan Record Award grand prix nomination and allowed them to make their first appearance on Kōhaku Uta Gassen.
"Sorafune"/"Do! Do! Do!" is a double A-side single by the Japanese boy band Tokio, released on August 23, 2006. It is the thirty-sixth release for the group, and also has been their most commercial successful effort after their 1995 best-selling debut single "Love You Only".
Best of 4Minute is the first Japanese compilation album by the South Korean girl group 4Minute. It is composed of all the Japanese tracks released by the group since their debut in Japan. It was released on September 26, 2012 in three different editions: 2 limited CD+DVD and a Regular edition.
The discography of Every Little Thing, a J-pop duo formed in 1996 by Mitsuru Igarashi, Kaori Mochida and Ichiro Ito, consists of eleven studio albums, six compilation albums, five remix albums, and numerous singles and videos, many of which were commercially successful. The band debuted with their single "Feel My Heart" on August 7, 1996, which peaked at number twenty-four on the Japanese Oricon charts. Their first number one single was "For The Moment", released on June 4, 1997. Their most successful year was 1998, in which they released their 8th single "Time Goes By" which topped the charts and sold more than a million copies. Their second studio album Time to Destination released that year sold more than 3.5 million copies in Japan, their best-selling album to date. Number one singles of the band include "Forever Yours" (1998), "Fragile" (2001), Untitled 4 Ballads (2002) and "Koibumi" (2004).
"Face My Fears" is a song by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada and American record producer Skrillex, released on January 18, 2019, by Epic Records Japan. Along with its English-language counterpart, it serves as the opening theme song to the Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts III. It was written as a collaboration between Utada, producer Skrillex, and R&B songwriter Poo Bear.
"My Head & My Heart" is a song by American singer Ava Max, released on November 19, 2020, through Atlantic Records. It was included on the digital reissue of Max's debut studio album, Heaven & Hell (2020). The dance and pop anthem was written by Max, Madison Love, Aleksey Potekhin, Sergey Zhukov, Tia Scola, Earwulf, and Cirkut, with production handled by the latter two producers and Jonas Blue. It interpolates the 2000 song "Around the World " by ATC, which is a cover of the 1998 composition "Pesenka" by Ruki Vverh!.
