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For those who are still interested, the list of singers will be released today.

Personally, like Akina, I don’t think she will be invited because there are no rumours this year, unlike last, that she will. Moreover, I felt that since NHK dropped her last year admist all the publicity and just made a silly remark that she declined, I don’t think her chances are here.

 Hence, my surprise today, which will please 乱火 that 德永英明 is likely to be invited, after his reasons for "pulling out" last year was the same that NHK gave for Akina. I guess his "Vocalist" success and his single 「Happiness」 hitting the Top 10, inspite of the super low first week sales (5600 copies or so). 「花よ踊れ」would have also made the Top 15 for that week too (instead of 23).

 I don’t look foward to 紅白 as much as I used to because my favourite singers are no longer performing and the newer singers all lack the X-factor to interest me. Camaderie is also missing in the program which was a huge selling/watching point for me in the 70s/80s. Then, it was like Japanese equivalent of Madonna singing with Mariah. Not gonna happen now.

If the same report is true, then I have one very good reason to watch 紅白 this year. One of my other favourite singers 今井美樹 (Akina’s too), is remoured to be appearing for the first time with her husband 布袋寅泰. I hope she will sing「ＰＲＩＤＥ」, which is one of her many wonderful hits, or a medley. She doesn’t dance but she has got such a soothing and lovely voice and presence. If anyone caught her singing live, it is mesmerising when she sings her ballads.

 Anyway, here is the article:

http://www.sanspo.com/geino/top/gt200611/gt2006112902.html#main

Since 乱火さん was so quick in givingthe correct answers for the first quiz, I felt that I had to up the ante here a little. Since most of us are non-Japanese, I thought it might be fun to do a special where we investigate the success of the Chinese (Taiwanese and Hong Kong) singers who tried to break into the Japanese market. Since there is only a very small selective few, I had to group them into a few questions, so that it will prove to be slightly more challenging than the first.

Question 1:

Who is the first Chinese singer to score a No. 1 in Oricon history?

Question 2:

Who has the most Top 10 hits?

Question 3:

Who is the first non Japanese to be invited to 紅白歌合戦? Who was only invited twice?

Question 4:

Name the 3 Chinese singers with No. 1s in their Japanese musical history? Who had the biggest hit?

Question 5:

Name the 3 Chinese singers who scored Top 10 debut hits? 

Question 6:

Who is the only non Japanese to win the most pretigious Grand Prix award? When she won and was in shock, who went ahead and helped her up, prompting the most "sporting competitor" compliment in its history?

Link to Akina: Most of them would possibly all have performed with Akina at some point in time.

Hope you will have more fun here!

Answers!!!

Question 1:

Who is the first Chinese singer to score a No. 1 in Oricon history?

Answer: Jerry came very close to answering this correctly. アグネス チャン did score her one and only No. 1 with 「小さな恋の物語」 in 1973 but 欧陽菲菲 beat her to it when her debut single 「雨の御堂筋」 hit the No. 1 spot in late 1971, making her one of those rare singers with a debut No. 1 single, let alone a Chinese then. A great achievement indeed!

Question 2:

Who has the most Top 10 hits?

Ans: 

欧陽菲菲 – 6 Top 10 singles

アグネス・チャン - 10 Top 10 singles

ジュディ・オング – 1 Top 10 single

テレサ・テン – 3 Top 10 singles

So, Jerry got it right here. I am sure I am not alone by saying that I am shocked by this statistic because personally, I find アグネス・チャン rather irritating, so I can’t understand why she did so well. I understand Japanese found her 可愛い but to me, it was just horrible. I also heard from my HK friend that she actually became famous in HK after she hit it big in Japan. Looking at the idol trend that has "plaughed" Japan, I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Question 3:

Who is the first non Japanese to be invited to 紅白歌合戦? Who was only invited twice?

Ans: Jerry was only partly correct. With her debut hitting the No.1 coveted spot, 欧陽菲菲 became the first non Japanese (read: not just Chinese) to be invited to 紅白. テレサ テン, アグネス チャン and her were invited thrice, which leaves ジュディ・オング the only singer to be invited twice. Even though one of my favourite songs of hers, which she sang in 1980 「麗華の夢」　failed to enter Oricon Top 100 Singles Chart, NHK invited her for the second time apparently to thank her for giving up her role in the movie "Shogun" when she insisted on appearing to sing 「魅せられて」. An unforgettable performance that was.

Alan Tam only appeared once in 1990 singing 「愛慕」.

Question 4:

Name the 3 Chinese singers with No. 1s in their Japanese musical history? Who had the biggest hit?

Ans: Jerry was correct here.

アグネス チャン :  「小さな恋の物語」 – 1 week at No. 1 – 58.0 万枚

ジュディ・オング :  「魅せられて」 – 9 weeks at No. 1 – 123.5 万枚

欧陽菲菲 :

「雨の御堂筋」 – 9 weeks at No. 1 – 79.2 万枚

「ラヴ・イズ・オーヴァー」 – 2 weeks at No. 1 – 52.2 万枚

So, 欧陽菲菲 had 2 no. 1s but ジュディ・オング had the biggest hit. Contrary to belief, テレサ テン’s highest charting position for No. 6 (twice) for 「つぐない」 and 「時の流れに身をまかせ」.

Question 5:

Name the 3 Chinese singers who scored Top 10 debut hits? 

Ans: In my opinion, this was the trickiest question. Jerry only scored 1/3 of the answer.

(1) 欧陽菲菲

(2) アグネス チャン – ひなげしの花 – No. 5 (followed by 8 Top 10 Hits) – 32.8 万枚

(3) Faye Wong – Eyes On Me  - No. 9 – 33.6 万枚

Question 6:

Who is the only non Japanese to win the most pretigious Grand Prix award? When she won and was in shock, who went ahead and helped her up, prompting the most "sporting competitor" compliment in its history?

Answer: This was another trick question. テレサ テン did win the only major award that eluded Akina – 全日本有線大賞 thrice but since it was listener based, it was not as prestigious as 日本レコード大賞, which is Japan’s equivalent to the Grammys, which only ジュディ・オング won.

It was indeed 西城秀樹 who helped her onto the stage after her name was announced and she told about how she was trying very hard not to cry and then came Hideki behind her. 西城秀樹’s big hit 「YOUNG MAN」 was not allowed into the competition that year because it was a cover song, so he was nominated for a lesser 「勇気があれば」. Still, Judy was not a shoo-in because they had never awarded it to a foreigner before. She talks in the interview (link below) about how her assistant rushed to tell her that theyhadn’t won, and hence the shock later when she did.

Judy Onng Interview

Akina appeared in HEART AID TAIWAN Charity Concert with Judy Ongg and a few other singers where she sang 「Dear Friend」 because she said that she didn’t have too many happy songs. She cried when fans applauded to show their support especially during this very difficult and scandalous period of her life. She joined Judy and the rest at the end for a chorus of 「いい日旅立ち」. 

Lastly, I want to say Thank you to all those who participated in this quiz. I am still ambivalent as to whether quizzes like this are good for this blog, but I had fun and maybe that is the most important ingredient of all.

In the lack of any really interesting news, I thought I might spice it up with some quizzes. As to whether this will continue, let’s see how this goes first. I will try to keep it "linked to Akina" and maybe through this, we might learn some trivia about Akina herself in the process too.

Quiz:

坂本隆一who wrote "Everlasting Love" for Akina in 1994, collaborated with "huge" pop singer A to write a bubbly pop song in the mid 80s for an upcoming pop singer B. The marketing strategy worked resulting in it being the biggest hit of pop singer B, but unfortunately, also became the last single that she released. Personally, it was the best song of pop singer B’s career, but I would never have imagined that 坂本隆一 could write a song like this.  

Name Pop singers A, B and the single?

Clue: Pop singer A has always been linked to Akina throughout most parts of her career and Pop singer B in an eerie way. Have Fun!

The release date for "歌姫ベスト – 25周年anniversary Selection" has been set … again. These are the links on HMV:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/Product/detail.asp?SKU=1203747 (CD only)

http://www.hmv.co.jp/Product/detail.asp?SKU=1203754 (CD + DVD)

There is only the mention of 「いい日旅立ち」 as a new song and the contents of the DVD are clips of Akina recording during 「歌姫２」「歌姫３」 and some interviews.

From a marketing standpoint, the decision to remarket this on 17th January is the work of a genius because Momoe Yamaguchi was born on 17th January 1959 and this seems like Akina’s part "tribute" to Momoe (or the press might pick that up as a "selling point"). Personally, I hope that there will be some new songs but if they are just going to use 17th Jan as a selling point, then we may be disappointed.

The DVD for "Live Tour 2006: The Last Destination " has also been set on the same date!!! However, HMV has used wrong information to advertise this new release, hence my shock when I saw the cover art and then scrolled down with relief when I saw the song list. Ha! Ha!

http://www.hmv.co.jp/product/detail.asp?sku=1204875

Nonetheless, this is great news for Akina fans and I can’t wait to see if 「GAME」 is added in the final edit.

On another note, 1982 produced some of my favourite female JPop idols so I am rather excited to see what their companies have to offer for their "real" 25th anniversary. Universal is releasing a revival series for some of them priced at only 999 yen (at the moment, only 堀ちえみ and 早見優 have been announced though they are both not from Universal), so I’m not holding out for it, but hopefully, they will a proper Best Collection for 早見優 in the near future.

Update: