Early life
Although Ayumi 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.
Show business in Tokyo
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.
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 a lowbrow karaoke bar, and while she was singing random songs, 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.
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. 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, "B ys & 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.
In 2000, she became a spokeswoman for Kose, a cosmetics company in Japan. When she appeared in commercials to promote Kose's lipsticks, a record 500,000 lipsticks were sold in only two days. 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. Duty, like her previous studio albums, 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", was released, and it also topped the charts, and with her Ayumi Hamasaki Concert Tour 2000 A also topping the DVD charts that week, it made her the first artist to top three charts on the same week.
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. 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.[6] 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.
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.[11] The white edition of A Best 2 will feature up beat songs, as well as the live footage of her CDL 2006-2007, and PVs or promotional clips of the songs on the album.[11]
The special site "abest2.com" was set up on February 15, 2007 to promote and celebrate the release of the album.[12]
From March until the e d of June, Hamasaki will hold an Asia tour, Tour of Secret, visiting not only Japan, but also Taiwan, Shanghai and Hong Kong.[13], 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 Jan 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.[14] 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.[15]. Similarly, tickets were sold out in less than three hours in Hong Kong.[16]
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.[17]
