Japanese pop singer

Ayumi Hamasaki (浜崎あゆみ, Hamasaki Ayumi?), is a Japanese pop singer Commonly known just as Ayu, Ayumi Hamasaki is one of the most popular and influential Japanese pop singers and Japanese idols, considered one of the biggest J-pop artists. She is also considered to be the Queen of J-Pop. Since her debut in 1998 with her first single "poker face", she has sold more than 46 million copies, with the releases of her seven full-length studio albums, one mini-album, two compilation albums, 40 singles, and several non-studio albums, being the fourth top selling Japanese artist in the history of Japan. [1] With the release of BLUE BIRD, Hamasaki's single sales have passed the 20 million mark[2], making her the first solo and female singer to do so. With the release of her 39th single "Startin' / Born To Be..." in 2006, Hamasaki became the first female singer to have 27 #1 singles (the most #1 singles a Japanese female artist has ever achieved) and 38 singles in the Top 10 of the Japanese Oricon charts. She is also the first Japanese artist to have her first original seven studio albums top the charts. Ayumi has also won the golden prize on the Japan Record Taishou (the most important award in Japanese music) three times in a row, in 2001, 2002 and 2003. She would have also won it in 2004, but she rejected the award saying she didn't want her song INSPIRE to win an award, also Ayumi no longer accepts awards. Offering Cheap International Calls http://shop.ayusip.jp 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. That year, a controversy was started when her compilation album "A BEST"'s 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 2000 respectively. However, it was made clear in interviews that it was not her wish to release the best album, as she felt that a best album seems to indicate the end of a career. 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 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 achieved double-platinum status, with sales of 2.3 million copies.

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Japanese pop singer