Miyuki Nakajima

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Biography

(born February 23, 1952) is a Japanese people|Japanese singer-songwriter and radio personality. She has released 37 studio albums, 40 singles, 2 live albums and multiple compilations to date, and whose sales have been estimated at more than 21 million copies.In the mid 1970s, Nakajima signed to Pony Canyon|Canyon Records and launched her recording career with her debut single "Azami Jo no Rarabai" (?????????). Rising to fame with the hit " The Parting Song (Wakareuta) ," released in 1977, she has since enjoyed a successful career as a singer-songwriter, most strikingly in the early 1980s. She has produced four singles that sold more than a million copies in the last two decades, including " Earthly Stars (Unsung Heroes) ", a theme song for the Japanese television documentary series Project X . She has also done experimental theater performances, called "Yakai", performed every year-end from 1989 through 1998. The idiosyncratic acts featured scripts and songs she wrote, but have continued irregularly in recent years.

In addition to her work as a solo artist, Nakajima has written over 90 compositions for numerous other singers, and has produced several chart-toppers. She has also had many cover versions of her songs performed by Asian singers, especially Taiwanese and Hong Kong ones.

Nakajima is one of the most acclaimed Japanese songwriters of modern times, with numerous awards for her contributions as a lyricist. She is the only musician to have participated in the National Language Council of Japan.

Early life

was born in February 1952 in Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido. Her grandfather Buichi had been a Hokkaido politician, and her father Shinichi ran a clinic in obstetrics and gynecology . Her family moved to Iwanai when she was 5, remaining there for six years. She spent most of her teenage years in the city of Obihiro. She was one of the most eminent graduates from Obihiro Hakuyou High School, along with singer-songwriter Miwa Yoshida and television announcer Shinichiro Azumi. She graduated from Sapporo's Fuji Women's University in 1974.
She gave her first live performance during her third year in high school, playing the self-penned song "Tsugumi no Uta" on stage at a cultural festival .

In 1972 she played in a folk contest at the Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall in Tokyo , winning the songwriting prize for her "Atashi Tokidoki Omouno." The song, included in the contest album, became her first recorded material.

After graduating college, Nakajima continued striving to be a professional musician for nearly a year. Reportedly, she had already written more than a hundred songs before she debuted.

Career as a recording artist

Early career (1975-1980)

In May 1975, her composition "Kizutsuita Tsubasa (Wings of Love -I Knew Nothing-)" won the prize on the 9th Popular Song Contest (also known by its abbreviation "Popcon"), organized by the Yamaha Music Foundation . After the contract with the Yamaha and Canyon Records (Japan)|Canyon Records , she debuted with a single "Azami Jo no Rarabai" that was released in September of the same year. In October, Nakajima entered the above mentioned contest with another her songs, " Jidai (Miyuki Nakajima song)|Jidai (Time Goes Around) ", and won the prize. It also won the grand-prix of the 6th World Popular Song Festival , the other awards organized by Yamaha and held in December.

In May 1976, she released her first studio album, Watashi no Koe ga Kikoemasuka . Since then, she has been a prolific recording artist, producing one album a year. In the same year, Nakajima composed her first number-one hit single, "Abayo", recorded by Naoko Ken, which sold over 700,000 copies. Throughout her over 30-year career, she has written 90 songs for other artists, some of them huge hits such as "Shiawase Shibai" (recorded by Junko Sakurada ), "Kamome wa Kamome" (a comeback single for Ken, released in 1978), and "If I Could Take to the Sky (Kono Sora wo Tobetara)" (performed by Tokiko Kato , released in 1978). Nakajima occasionally released retrospective albums which comprised songs written for other artists. The first one, Okaerinasai came out in 1979 has sold more than 500,000 units, and it became one of her best-selling albums.

Like the other than popular folk-rock singers in Japan such as Takuro Yoshida and Yosui Inoue , she has refused to appear on any kind of television program after she gained popularity, except handful of specials. Still Nakajima promoted her materials on TV in early career, particularly through the Cocky Pop which was sponsored by her management office Yamaha.

Miyuki Nakajima's fifth single " The Parting Song|Wakareuta (The Parting Song) " released in September 1977, became her commercial breakthrough song as a singer. The song reached number-one on the Oricon for only a week in December 1977, knocking " Wanted (Shimei Tehai) " by Pink Lady (band)|Pink Lady from the top of the hit parade. "The Parting Song" has finally sold more than 700,000 copies and became one of 1978|the following year 's biggest hits on the Japanese record chart.

Her 4th studio album entitled Aishiteiru to Ittekure built up her long-lasting popularity as a performer. The album that featured "The Parting Song" also includes the other highlight; a protest song entitled "Sejou (World's Context)", which became popular after used in the well-known Japanese television drama|TV drama Kimpachi Sensei in 1981.

In addition to the career as a recording artist, Nakajima has been known for the working as a personality of radio programs. Most eminent is All Night Nippon which has been one of the longest lasting programs aired by the Nippon Broadcasting System , which she participated as a host from April 1979 through March 1987. Instead of TV appearances, she fostered her popularity through the witty and somewhat manic talking on the program.

Most of her compositions came out in the 1970s and 1980s are featuring lyrics which exposed grief or hatred explicitly. Sometimes such her works gained mixed reputations. Particularly, her 1980 album Ikiteitemo Iidesuka (it stands for "May I Live? " in Japanese language|Japanese ), and its lead-off track "Urami Masu" (it features haunting lyric which means "I'll continue having a grudge against you 'til I die", and vocals like sobbing) brought about controversy because of their extreme titles.

1980s: Commercial peak and decline

The first half of the 1980s was the commercial heyday for Nakajima. Seven of her studio albums that were released during that era (from Ikiteitemo Iidesuka to miss M. ) reached the number-one on the Oricon Charts successively. "Akujo" was released as a single in autumn 1981 and became one of the biggest hits of the following year, her first number-one on the Oricon singles chart since "Wakareuta" in 1977. Kansuigyo , her eighth studio album, featured another interpretation of "Akujo", was her most commercially successful LP. The album peaked at number one on the Oricon for six weeks, and also reached the top of the Japanese year-end albums chart of 1982. In the same year, she also produced a couple of top-3 charting singles; "Yuwaku" and "Unrequited Love".

As a composer and lyricist, Nakajima continued to write for other artists and gained success. "Suzume (Sparrow)", the first solo single for ex- Pink Lady (band)|Pink Lady Keiko Masuda who was not successful at that time, led the performer to the top-10 spot again. In 1983, Nakajima won the 25th Japan Record Award for her songwriting on "Haru Nanoni", a song sung by then teenage pop icon Yoshie Kashiwabara .
She continued career as a recording artist regularly during the mid 1980s, though subsequent releases were commercially less successful compared with previous materials. A string of her efforts that came out at that era has featured harder-edged sounds, because she came to introduce digital recording radically.

"Cold Farewell (Tsumetai Wakare)" released as a single in 1985 was the first song she produced in countries outside Japan. A top-ten charting song features lengthy harmonica solo performed by Stevie Wonder . He also played the synthesizer on Nakajima's subsequent single "Atai no Natsuyasumi", released in the following year.

In 1987, Nakajima contributed lyrics for the composition by Tsugutoshi Goto, a bassist and a record producer who had been one of long-term collaborators for her.
The song entitled "Fu-Ji-Tsu" was released as a second single for a teen idol Shizuka Kudo who has also well known as ex-member of Onyanko Club . During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, Nakajima and Goto wrote 17 songs for Kudo and some of them topped the chart, including "Dokoku (I Cried All Night)" released in 1993 and certified quadruple platinum by the RIAJ for shipments of in excess of a million copies. Songwriting partnership with Goto was ended in 1993, but Nakajima has been continuing to write several songs for Kudo in later years.

Project with Ichizo Seo and Yakai

Goodbye Girl released in 1988 was the album which she worked with a long-term co-record producer Ichizo Seo for the first time.Nakajima, who was highly satisfied with the recording of the album, considered Seo to the most appropriate musical partner for her. She has been working with him since the end of the 1980s.

Enlisting a new collaborator, Nakajima launched the experimental musical Yakai at the Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon, Shibuya, Tokyo. Yakai has composed of intricate story lines she newly wrote, and it was initially started as a sort of jukebox musical mainly comprising her songs that were previously issued. Her idiosyncratic efforts gradually became the famous stage performances which were held in every December for 10 years. Since the 7th act which was entitled 2/2 in 1995, Yakai came to be composed of new songs she specially composed. Most of those performances have been released on DVDs.

1990s

Since the 1990s, Nakajima gradually came to appear several television programs and advertisements, though she continuingly rejected to turn up on the pop music television shows. In 1992, Nakajima appeared the television drama ''Shin'ai Naru Mono e (its title was named after her 1979 studio album), and played the acting as a doctor on the first and the last episode.
From 1993 through 2000, Nakajima also continuingly appeared TV advertisements of Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Japan)|the Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications . Those commercials (most of them were featuring a new rendition of her early song "Time Goes Around" recorded in 1993) were aired during the Bon Festival and holiday seasons in Japan.

"Asai Nemuri (Shallow Sleep)", a theme song Nakajima wrote for the drama ''Shin'ai Naru Mono e was released as a single and gained massive success, selling more than a million copies and peaked at the number-two on the chart. It was included on her studio album East Asia'' released in October 1992. The album also features "Ito (Tapestry)", which is one of her songs that many artists covered, especially famous for the interpretation by Kazutoshi Sakurai and Takeshi Kobayashi's charity supergroup Bank Band .

In the middle of the decade, she wrote a couple of theme songs for Ienakiko , the Japanese television drama|TV drama series starring Yumi Adachi and which was aired on the NTV. The first one, a song entitled "Sora to Kimi no Aida ni (Between the Sky and You)" was released as a single in May 1994, and debuted at the number-one on the Japanese Singles Chart. The song became her most commercially successful record to date, selling in excess of 1.4 million copies. The other her composition "Wanderers Song" was featured on the sequel of the drama series aired in the following year, and it also gained similar success, reaching the number-one on the chart and selling over a million units.

Daiginjo , her compilation which was brought out in March 1996 provided her with last number-one spot on the albums chart, making her the oldest female artist who has produced number-one album on the Japanese music chart at that time (the record was overtaken by Yumi Matsutoya and Mariya Takeuchi in later years).

However, each of her studio albums released in the 1990s were commercially lackluster, and some of them failed to reach the top-10 on the chart. Tsuki; Wings and Hi; Wings released in 1999 are the worst selling albums for her, both of them has sold less than 50,000 copies.

Lyrics written by Nakajima has been acclaimed literarily and educationally. She is known as the first and the sole musician who was a participant of the National Language Council of Japan, took part in the late 1990s.

2000s

A quarter of a century after her debut, Miyuki Nakajima left the Pony Canyon label and moved to the newly founded Yamaha Music Communications. There she released a double A-side single " Earthly Stars (Unsung Heroes) "/"Headlight Taillight", which later became her most well-known songs. She wrote them as theme songs for Project X , a television documentary program which premiered on NHK in March 2000. The single debuted at number 15 on the Oricon in July 2000, and it kept on charting for over two years. To express thanks for the unexpected commercial success of the theme songs of Project X , Nakajima decided to appear the 53rd annual music program Kohaku Uta Gassen aired by the NHK on New Year's Eve of 2002. It gained public attention because it was her first live performance on TV since the late 1970s.

In 2006, Nakajima wrote the song called "Sorafune (Ship in the Air)" for the boy band Tokio (band)|Tokio . The song was used as the closing theme for My Boss, My Hero , the TV drama starring the group's frontman Tomoya Nagase . It became the second most commercially successful materials for them which followed their debut single, remaining on the Oricon chart for more than a year and selling approximately 480,000 copies. "Ship in the Air" was also the first chart-topper that Nakajima contributed both lyric and melody for other artist in 30 years, since "Abayo" recorded by Naoko Ken in 1976. After a month from the release of her studio album Lullaby Singer that features her own interpretation of "Ship in the Air", her contribution for the Tokio won the "best lyrics" of the 48th Japan Record Award .

Her latest studio album entitled I Love You, Do You Hear Me? was released on October 3, 2007. The album debuted at the number-four on the Oricon with in excess of 39,000 copies sold in its first week of release, and its provided Nakajima with the 34th top-ten hits on the Japanese albums charts.

Honors

In November 2009, Nakajima was awarded with a Medals of Honour (Japan)|Medal of Honour with purple ribbon by the Government of Japan . Mainichi Shimbun. November 3, 2009.

Discography

Studio albums

(1976)

(1977)

(1978)

(1979)

(1980)

" (1981)

(1982)

(1983)

(1984)

(1985)

miss M. (Miyuki Nakajima album)|miss M. (1985)

36.5°C (1986)

(1988)

Kaikinetsu (1989)

(1990)

(1991)

East Asia (album)|East Asia (1992)

(1993)

Love or Nothing (1994)

10 Wings (1995)

(1996)

(1998)

(1999)

Moon: Wings (1999)

(2000)

(2001)

(2002)

(2003

(2004)

(2005)

(2006)

(2007)

Drama& #33; (Miyuki Nakajima album)|Drama! (2009)

(2010)

(2011)

Filmography

Year !! Title !! Role
1985
1997
2005
2005
2006

Live performances

Tours

1977 Spring Concert

1977 Autumn Concert

1978 Spring Tour

1978 Autumn Tour

1979 Spring Tour

1979 Autumn Tour

Miyuki Nakajima Concert (1980 Autumn Tour)

(1981)

(1982)

(1982–83)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert (1982–83)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert '84 (1984)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert '84 (1984–85)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert '85 (1985)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert '85 Page 85" (1985)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert '86 " (1986)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert '86 Page 86 " " (1986)

Miyuki Nakajima Concert '87 "Suppin Vol.1" (1987)

Nakajima Miyuki Concert 1989 " (1989)

Concert Tour '90 "Night Wings" (1990)

Concert "Carnival 1992" (1992)

Concert Tour '93 "East Asia" (1993)

Concert '95 "Love or Nothing" (1995)

Concert Tour '97 "Paradise Cafe" (1997)

Concert Tour '98 (1998)

XXIc. 1st. (2001)

Concert Tour 2005

Concert Tour 2007

Yakai

Yakai (1989)

Yakai 1990 (1990)

Yakai Vol.3 Kan-Tan (1991)

Yakai Vol.4 Kinkanshoku (1992)

Yakai Vol.5 "Hana no Iro wa Utsuri ni keri na Itazura ni Waga Mi Yo ni Furu Nagame Seshi Ma ni" (1993)

Yakai Vol.6 Shangri-La (1994)

Yakai Vol.7 2/2 (1995)

Yakai Vol.8 Tou Onna (1996)

Yakai Vol.9 2/2 (1997)

Yakai Vol.10 Kaishou (1998)

Yakai Vol.11 Winter Garden (2000)

Yakai Vol.12 Winter Garden (2002)

Yakai Vol.13 24-ji Chaku 0-ji Hatsu (2004)

Yakai Vol.14 24-ji Chaku 00-ji Hatsu (2006)

Yakai Vol.15 Ganso Konbanya (2008–09)

Awards

Year	Title	Category	Personnel
Japan Record Awards
1976 (18th)	"Abayo"cite web	language=Japanese	Vocal Performance	(Performer: Naoko Ken / Composer and lyricist: Nakajima / Arranger: Kuni Kawauchi)
1978 (20th)	"Shiawase Shibai"cite web	Gold Prize	(Performer: Junko Sakurada / Composer and lyricist: Nakajima / Arranger: Kei Wakakusa)
1981 (23rd)	Month of Parturition (Ringetsu) cite web	Best 10 Albums	(Performer, composer, lyricist and producer: Nakajima / Arrangers: Katz Hoshi, Hiromi Yasuda, Mitsuo Hagita, Masataka Matsutoya)
1982 (24th)	Kansuigyo cite web	Best Albums/ Best 10 Albums	(Performer, composer, lyricist and producer: Nakajima / Arrangers: Nozomi Aoki, Masataka Matsutoya, Tsugutoshi Goto)
1983 (25th)	"Haru Nanoni"cite web	Best Songwriting	(Lyricist and producer: Nakajima / Performer: Yoshie Kashiwabara / Arranger: Katsuhisa Hattori)
1984 (26th)	"Saiai"cite web	Gold Prize	(Performer: Yoshie Kashiwabara / Lyricist and composer: Nakajima / arranger: Nobuo Kurata)
1988 (30th)	"Mugo, n... Iroppoi"cite web	Gold Prize	(Performer: Shizuka Kudo / Lyricist: Nakajima / Composer, producer and arranger: Tsugutoshi Goto)
1992 (34th)	East Asia (album)	Best 10 Albums	(Performer, composer, lyricist and producer: Nakajima / Co-producer and arranger: Ichizo Seo)
2006 (48th)	"Ship in the Air (Sorafune)"cite web	Best Lyrics	(Performer: Tokio (band)>Tokio / Lyricist and composer: Nakajima / Arranger and producer: Motoki Funayama)

Year	Song	Category	Personnel
Japan Gold Disc Award
1989 (4th)	"Kousa ni Fukarete"cite web	Five Best-selling Singles of year	(Performer: Shizuka Kudo / Lyricist: Nakajima / Composer, producer and arranger: Tsugutoshi Goto)
1994 (9th)	"Between the Sky and You (Sora to Kimi no Aida ni)"/ "Fight!"cite web	Five Best-selling Singles of year	(Performer, composer, lyricist and producer: Nakajima / Co-producer and arranger: Ichizo Seo, Takayuki Inoue)

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1. Hiroko Yakushimaru 2. Shizuka Kudo 3. Wong Faye

Undetermined Music Artists