Seiko Matsuda

Seiko Matsuda is the number one Japanese music idol, pure and simple. The "idol" phenomenon, or the art of manufacturing ultimate media stars, has spread through Japan in the '70s and early '80s, and survived as a perfected business practice in the following decades, but, for all the abundance of idols of all sorts, Matsuda remained the top one. Later stars are known to have called her "Goddess," the number of her sales and her charts achievements look like a Guinness Book of World Records, and her career longevity has led the Japanese press to call her "the Eternal Idol." Her music was never groundbreaking -- she played ballads and dance-pop tunes conscious of Western models of the '80s and '90s -- but Matsuda still drew comparisons to Madonna, mainly due to the ambition and the showbiz independence which the two pop queens shared with each other. Matsuda's image, however, was the shy girl-next-door type, despite her fairly complicated love life. Matsuda was born Noriko Kamachi into an aristocratic family in the southern city of Kurume. Her career began at 16, when she won the regional Sony talent show of 4,500 participants, only to be banned from finals by her father, who, however, wasn't the despot he seemed to be and allowed Matsuda to continue working with Sony and doing vocal training. Matsuda's professional debut came in a year with the single Hadashi no Kisetsu (1980), and its follow-up Aoi Sangosho (1980) already shot to sell 250,000 copies. Her third release, Kaze wa Aki Iro (1980), was the first of her 24 consecutive number one singles -- an unprecedented achievement at the time, though bested later by B'z. Matsuda's debut album Squall came out in 1980, marking the real beginning of her ultra-prolific recording career: she put out two albums per year up until...