hitomi

A former fashion model turned singer, hitomi has been riding high in the Japanese pop charts since debuting in 1995. While hitomi's success has not been as all-conquering as that of her contemporaries Hikaru Utada and Ayumi Hamasaki -- she's yet to score a mega-hit on the scale of either of those two divas -- she has nevertheless been a consistent hitmaker, selling more than 8.5 million singles and albums combined. That she's done so for more than a decade, a period longer than that of the average shelf life of a J-pop idol, is a result of a perennially youthful image (Hitomi is looked upon as a fashion idol by her teenage fans), and because her music has never strayed too far from the winning uptempo dance-pop formula of her label, Avex, albeit with a vocal delivery far less mannered than many of her labelmates. As well, hitomi's lyrics have struck a chord with a rising but significant demographic in Japan: young females with disposable income to burn. Like many Avex artists, musical Svengali Tetsuya Komuro shaped hitomi's early career. The songwriter/producer's dance-pop template did much to define the J-pop sound to listeners inside -- and outside -- Japan. Komuro had already penned hits for globe and Namie Amuro in the mid-'90s by the time he discovered hitomi (born Hitomi Furuya on January 26, 1976, in Tochigi Prefecture) at a modeling audition. Despite Komuro being at the helm, hitomi's first two singles flopped, and it was only after her third single, "Candy Girl," was picked up in a Kodak camera commercial that she scored her first hit, entering the Top 20 of the Oricon charts in April 1995. Hitomi's debut album, Go to the Top, followed in September of the same year. As expected for any J-pop artist, Avex wasted little time in putting their latest starlet back...