2004.04.09
2004 most influential new artist Ai Otsuka creates her new “love” fashion
Recently, an amazingly talented new artist called Ai Otsuka appeared in the Japanese music industry. While she is still young, two of her singles have already gotten into Top 10, and her debut album “LOVE PUNCH”, which was just recently released in the end of March, swiftly climbed to the 3rd position on Oricon chart (after Utada Hikaru - SINGLE COLLECTION VOL.1 and L’Arc-en-Ciel - SMILE). For a new artist who has been in the industry for only 6 months, to achieve such excellent sales under competition with other famous and older singers, Ai Otsuka has already became the subject of dicussion in the music industry. It has been quite a while since new artist creates huge sales in the Japanese music industry, the appearance of Ai Otsuka not only creates a new “love” fashion, being a multi-talented singer, she has been named the most anticipated new artist of the year!
New promotion strategy captures fans’ heart
When Ai Otsuka released her first single “Momo no Hanabira” in September last year, she chose not to appear on TV but uses other promotion methods such as music video, magazine interviews and radio station promotion etc. in order to “progress slowly”. Ai’s fans can only sample her songs and watch those cute drawings she drew on her official site. This new type of “only know the artist by her music without knowing her looks” promotion has not only concocted huge curiousity among the fans, but also deeply planted her voice into her fans’ heart. Indeed, when Ai Otsuka released her 3rd single “Amaenbo”, and start to perform on various TV programs, those cumulated familiarity with her songs among the fans instantly created a huge impact, not only “Amaenbo” manage to get into Top 5, her previous single, “Sakuranbo”, which was released in December last year, quickly rebounced to Top 10 as well, making a beautiful record of having 2 singles appear on Oricion Top 10 at the same time!
The long anticipated new artist in the Japanese music industry
Following her singles great success, her debut album “LOVE PUNCH”, which she has composed and written all of the songs’ melody and lyrics, jumped straight to 3rd rank on the Oricon chart! Her unique and sweet singing style and talent also made her a hotly debated topic among the teenagers. Being extremely talented in music composing, she expressed “Singing really is a happy thing to do, especially during the recording, it gives me happiness. I hope all my audience can feel the same kind of happiness after listening to my songs.” As a result, while spending most of her time composing music for her debut album, Ai Otsuka, who actually own a kindergarden teacher license, included a 60-pages-thick drawing booklet together with the first press of her album. All of the pictures were drawn by Ai Otsuka herself, the booklet clearly showed her drawing talent to her fans.
In the past few years, having all major awards repeatedly won by those familiar faces, media and music enthusiasts in Japan naturally hope to listen to some new and unique voices. The recent success of Ai Otsuka has clearly proved this desire to listen to a fresh and new voice among the fans. Undeniably, Ai Otsuka is already one of the shiniest star among the new artists.
