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Ami Suzuki (鈴木 亜美 Suzuki Ami, born February 9, 1982) is a female singer and songwriter from Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Suzuki was one of the most popular female singers between 1998 and 2000 and the known rival of Ayumi Hamasaki, but in 2000 after some legal problems with her management company, she was dumped from her label and fell from popularity, becoming unnoticed in the Japanese entertainment business for years.
With the help of Max Matsuura, Suzuki finally "returned" to the music scene under the Avex Trax label in 2005 with her comeback single, Delightful, a Trance song that reached No. 3 on the Japanese Oricon charts and became one of 2005 summer's hits. In October 2005 the singer released her first studio album on Avex entitled AROUND THE WORLD, which has sold over 62,000 copies.
Biography
Early life
While she was attending high school, Ami auditioned to the Japanese talent show ASAYAN, which was looking for young girls who could sing. The grand prize winner was to receive a deal with Sony Music Entertainment Japan for a music career. The TV show became very popular and daily viewers increased; soon it was aired even in other Asian countries. From 13,500 contestants, only five girls were chosen to be in the final round, and Ami won the competition supported by 802,157 phone calls from the audience. She was only 15 years old.Sony Music signed Ami to the label, and Tetsuya Komuro sponsored her to his own sub label on Sony, TRUE KiSS DISC, with Komuro as writer and producer on all of Ami's songs.
Debut and Success
In April 1998 Ami recorded her first song and single "love the island." The song was written and produced by Tetsuya Komuro, who was on the top of his career at that time, working with popular singers like Namie Amuro and hitomi. Sony Music and the government of Japan made a deal for use of Ami's song "Love the Island" as the main theme of the "Guam Island Campaign Summer '98", which campaigned for an increase in Japanese tourism in Guam. The song was well promoted, with Ami appearing on covers of magazines like Young Jump and even traveling to Guam to promote the song live on the local version of the international music channel MTV. The single was finally released on July 1, 1998, and debuted at No. 5 on the Oricon charts, which was good for a debut single. Ami's second single, "alone in my room" was also used for the Guam campaign, and also did well, debuting at No. 3 on the charts and selling even better than the first single.As the "Asayan" show has already ended its run, Ami debuted her first radio show in October 1998. The show was called , which topped the radio rankings in popularity. She also signed a deal with the Japanese product Kissmark for advertisements and promotion all around Japan and Asia. Sony began promoting her third single, "all night long". The dance song was featured constantly at the most famous discotheque of Japan, Velfarre, and was a big hit. It debuted No. 2 on the Oricon charts. Later that year, Suzuki Ami won various awards including the Japan Record Award for Best New Artist. Ami was constantly compared with "rival" Ayumi Hamasaki. The two young female singers were often called "enemies" by the tabloids because they began their careers at the same time and each had potential to be the next "Queen of J-Pop". Both Ami and Ayumi have always denied the rivalry existed.
1999 started well for Suzuki with the huge success of her first photo book titled Ami-Go, which sold around 200,000 copies. Later in March of that year, her debut album "SA" was released, becoming one of the Top 10 best selling albums of 1999.
At the release of her highly-expected 7th single "BE TOGETHER" (which was a cover of TM Network), Ami competed with "rival" Ayumi Hamasaki for the first time for the top position in the charts. Ayumi released her 9th single "Boys & Girls" on the same day. Ami went to the first position at Oricon, leaving Ayumi behind in second; this was the first time Ami reached the number one position in the charts with "BE TOGETHER" becoming one of the most popular songs of 1999. Her next single, titled "OUR DAYS," also ranked number one in the charts later that year, becoming a huge hit inside Japan Asia.
As Ami evolved into a more mature artist, she began writing her own lyrics. The first song Ami wrote, with the help of Mitsuko and Tetsuya Komuro, was her 10th single "Don't need to say good bye." The lyrics were influenced by events occurring in her personal life at that time, specifically her upcoming high school graduation.
Legal Problems
In 2000 the young singer's career came to an abrupt halt after her parents sued her management company, Tokyo-based AG Communication (whose president, Eiji Yamada, had been convicted on tax evasion charges) in order to terminate what they saw as an unfavorable contract. The lawsuit resulted in Ami Suzuki's blacklisting because of an unwritten rule of the entertainment business in Japan: Artists who get into legal trouble are blacklisted.2001 wasn't a good year for Ami. In March of that year her radio program RUN!RUN!AMI-GO!! was canceled, and in April her official fan club ami spice (which had at that time at least 15,000 members) was abruptly closed. In the middle of this earthquake Sony Music released their last Ami's album, her Best Of collection entitled "FUN for FAN", already considering Ami a retired artist. Many people and fans started to show their support to Ami, and the Best Of album reached the first position of the Oricon charts, despite a lack of major promotion. Even more reflective Ami's continued popularity, her first single, "love the island," once again appeared in the Oricon charts in April 2001, four years after its original release, and it was one of the Top 50 best-selling singles for days (selling approximately 1,000 more copies that week). However, the support of Sony Music and Tetsuya Komuro to Ami's career was not there anymore. In 2003, Ami finally negotiated an out-of-court agreement with Sony. Her contract with the label was scheduled to end in December 2004 with no singles or albums released after 2001 by Sony due to her blacklisting.http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/鈴木亜美
Going Independent
Ami decided to change her stage name from 鈴木あみ (kanji/hiragana) to 鈴木亜美 (completely in kanji) to try to make a comeback to the music industry. In April 2004 the singer released a photo book called "Tsuyoi Kizuna" with a CD Single included published by Tokyo-based Bungei Shunju. She made few appearances on TV shows to promote it, and it sold pretty well despite the low promotion, reaching the No. 1 place of the best-selling non-fiction books. In August of the same year, she released another release called "FOREVER LOVE" under her own independent label, Amity. The release sold well despite poor promotion and ranked #21 on Oricon's General Singles Chart and #1 in Oricon's Independent Singles Chart. In addition, a mini-concert DVD was released. The DVD included the two singles released during the year and was titled "2004 Summer Fly High -Ami Shower-".Everything changed drastically for Ami when she performed live at the annual festival of her school, Nihon University. Max Matsuura, the president of Avex Trax (one of the largest record labels in Japan) was in the audience. Matsuura is famous for finding and developing artists into famous stars. One example of his work is Ayumi Hamasaki. After watching Ami's performance, Matsuura signed her to his label, Avex.
AROUND THE WORLD
On January 1, 2005, Ami's official website under the Avex label was officially opened. The promotion of her first single under the new label, "Hopeful," started as well. The release date was scheduled for February, but was later cancelled for unknown reasons. "Hopeful" was never released as a physical single but was known as the first Avex downloadable ring tone and tune single. Despite of this, a music video for the song was later made with a remixed version by Japanese Trance DJ Overhead Champion; the original version of the song was never released on a regular CD, just on Avex airplay promos. In March, Ami finally marked her return to the music industry with a "comeback" single (a physical CD single) titled "Delightful," a song produced by German "hands up" trance producer Axel Konrad and executively produced by Max Matsuura. The trance song was massively promoted by Avex with a diverse array of releases of the single (CD, CD+DVD, CD+Photobook, CD+Illustration Essay), with a different remix on each version, and also a b-side: a j-pop ballad "About You...." The single debuted at number 2 in Oricon's charts its first week and became one of the spring hits of the year. "Delightful" got the 97th place in the Oricon's Yearly Top 500 best singles of 2005.Her second single under Avex, titled "Eventful", also a dance track, had moderate sales, debuting at number nine on Oricon music charts and it got the 245th place in the list of the top 500 best singles of 2005. Later in the year, "Eventful" won a gold prize for Best New Artist at the 47th Nihon Record Taishou on December 31, 2005. The gold prize is awarded to 10 of the top songs of the year. Other winners of the prize for that year include Ai Otsuka and Kumi Koda.
For the release of Ami's third single, Avex and the artist decided to move away from the dance genre and decided to release a ballad, "Negaigoto". However, even before the release of the single Ami faced controversy once again; this time for being compared with J-Pop rival Ayumi Hamasaki because of the similarity between the music videos of "Negaigoto" and "alterna" from Hamasaki's single "fairyland". Both videos were recorded during the same period, and because of their obvious similarities, an Ami/Ayu rivalry started to appear again as fans were trying to figure out who copied who. Although the videos do have clear similarities, their inner messages were, in fact, really different. "Negaigoto" is a story of Ami's history with the music industry with her rise and fall. Ayumi's "alterna" is a covered attack to the Japanese media with a message of anger. Possibly due to this controversy, "Negaigoto" did not have as much success compared to Ami's previous Avex singles, selling only 22,000 copies and debuting at #13 on the Oricon charts. The B-side included on the single, an upbeat J-Pop song called "Times", was used as the main theme of a TV commercial of N's STREET Online Shopping.
During the same month, her new official "Mobile" (via-cell phone) Fan Club Ami Sapuri was founded, and, on her official website, Ami announced that a live tour for promoting her upcoming album would start in the following months. Later, Ami also participated on the 2005 version of A-Nation, a concert where the most popular artists of Avex Trax get together and sing their hits. During A-Nation, Ami performed her singles "Delightful" and "Negaigoto". This was also the first time that Ami shared tour and stage with known rival Ayumi Hamasaki.
In October 2005 Ami released her first studio album in five years, and her debut album on Avex Trax. The album was originally going to be called "HOPEFUL", but ended up being titled "AROUND THE WORLD". The album included all the singles that Ami released in 2005: "Hopeful", "Delightful", "Eventful", "Negaigoto" and "AROUND THE WORLD" (the single of this song was released the same day of the album). The album was released in four different formats including a version with a bonus DVD with the music videos. The name of her live tour also was changed from "HOPEFUL TOUR LIVE House Body Shake It!" to "AROUND THE WORLD LIVE HOUSE TOUR". Although the album sales were not too bad, sales did not reach the level of Ami's previous albums, selling only 50,000 copies. Also, it was her lowest debut on the Oricon albums charts at number five. However, album sales were helped by the AROUND THE WORLD tour.
The following month Ami took part on the Japanese 55th Anniversary of Snoopy, officially calledSnoopy Life Design Happiness is the 55th Anniversary, by recording a song titled "Happiness is..." which was sold as a CD Single exclusively at the event, which took place in Tokyo.
On Christmas Eve 2005, Ami released her 5th Avex single, "Little Crystal". The Maxi Single was full of Christmas feeling, including four different ballads of four different arrangers. Two different music videos were made to promote the singles, "Crystal" and "To be Free". This is the first of Ami's Avex label CD+DVD releases that do not include any bonus material. Previously, singles with a bonus DVD included behind the scenes footage. "Little Crystal" had poor promotion by the Avex label for unknown reasons with only one live performance on Music Station and at its release it debuted at #22, selling only 15,000 copies in its first month.
Once finished her first nation-wide tour in 5 years from her first Avex album, Ami was already recording new material. Just two months and a day after "Little Crystal", and one day before Ami's 24th birthday. "Fantastic", the 6th single, was released. The song was her first to be used as a opening theme on an anime series, in which the TV adaptation of the third season of Blackjack was chosen. But just like her previous single, "Fantastic" did not get enough recognition, debuting only at #14 with low sales (only 14,000 copies its first week and only 3,000 more copies its second week). At the moment, the single has sold more copies and did pretty well based on its low promotion and debut. It has already outsold "Little Crystal", which is the single with the lowest amount of sales.
The first remix album of Ami, entitled "AMIx WORLD", was released on March 29th, 2006. It contained a remix of the song "AROUND THE WORLD" and of every single Ami released on Avex except for "Little Crystal" plus remixes of some non-single tracks from Ami's album "AROUND THE WORLD". The remixers who worked on the album are some of the most popular and recognized artists from Japan's dance scene these days. They include Sham-Poo, M.O.R., and Ferry Corsten, who remixed the songs "AROUND THE WORLD" and "Fantastic". However, the release is not expected to be a big success or a chart-topper. The album at the end of its first week peaked at the #78 position on the Oricon charts, making it Ami's album with the lowest peak on the charts.
For her 7th single was chosen a different style, a little far from the previous trance style, and got into more pop tunes. Music producers HΛL were chosen to work with Ami in "Alright!", single released on May 17, 2006, and considerably cheaper than her previous works, with a cheaper video and just a few performances. In the first week the single did not reach even the 10 thousand copies, being one of the lowest-selling singles for the artist in its first week. But the song has already sold more, which can be considered good.
The 8th single released under Avex, "Like a Love?", will be out on July 26, 2006. The single had catched more attention before its release mainly because is the first composition of J-Pop star Ai Otsuka* for another artist besides herself, and it's expected to sell more because of that.; this is the also first music work of Ami with another female singer. The two girls met at last year's a-nation, and now are good friends.
Trivia
- Blood Type: A
- Height: 1.59 m
- Stage Names:
- Specialty: Running (since junior high school)
- Hobby: Singing (for hours at Karaoke bars), dance, sports
- Favorite Subject: Mathematics
- Most Hated Subject: Society / History
- Favorite Food: Omerice (an omelet which contains fried rice), cakes
- Most Hated Food: Green peppers, green onions
- Favorite Things: Hats, digital cameras, computers, Internet.
- Artists She Respects: Keiko from Globe, Namie Amuro, Shizuka Kudo.
Discography
See Ami Suzuki discography.
DVD
- 1ST CONCERT Oh Yeah! 1999 (1st concert, released in 2005)
- AMIGO'S PARLOR SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE, November 1, 2000
- AMI-GO-ROUND TOUR, December 23, 2000
- Video Clips FUN for FAN, July 7, 2001
- 2004 SUMMER FLY HIGH -ami shower-, November 17, 2004
- SUZUKI AMI AROUND THE WORLD ～LIVE HOUSE TOUR 2005～, February 8, 2006
Books
Awards
| Years | Awards |
|---|---|
| 1998 | |
References
External links
- Ami Suzuki Official Website
- Ami Suzuki at Avex China
- Ami Suzuki at Avex Taiwan
- Ami Suzuki Sony Official Site
- Ami Suzuki at Oricon
- Ami-Suzuki.Net Ami Suzuki Online Community
- Beautiful Fighter Ami Suzuki Forum
1982 births | Female singers | Japanese language vocalists | Japanese musicians | Japanese singers | Avex Trax artists | Living people | People from Kanagawa Prefecture
Ami Suzuki | Ami Suzuki | 鈴木亜美
"Ami Suzuki"