Yui

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Yui (disambiguation) .

Yui at the 2006 MTV Music Awards

Yui , real name Yui Yoshioka (born March 26, 1987 in Fukuoka Prefecture , Japan ) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and actress . With her debut album From Me to You she made her breakthrough on the Japanese market. Her subsequent albums all reached # 1 on the Oricon charts.

biography

Beginnings and youth

When she was a child, Yui planned to become a singer one day. After writing poetry regularly before, at the age of 15 she finally decided to devote her life to music. According to her own statements, she was very influenced by the music of Avril Lavigne in this decision , as she admired their skills and they were hardly older than herself. A group of street musicians advised her to attend a music school after they asked them what she had to do to become a musician.

At the age of 16, Yui entered a private music school in Fukuoka. There she learned professional songwriting and began to learn to play the guitar . Since she mostly had time to practice at night, this brought her trouble with many neighbors, which is why she decided to ride her bike to nearby Shingū at night in order to practice alone and undisturbed in a rice field. The music video for their debut single It's Happy Line , which was released only two years after these events, was also shot in this rice field. Yui had her first public appearance a short time later, when she took over the rhythm guitar and the backing vocals for the song Goodbye to You by Michelle Branch at a street concert of some of her schoolmates . A little later, she performed alone in a live house for the first time and played her first self-written song Why Me there. She herself said that she was very tense during the entire performance, but then felt free and happy . After that she started performing regularly as a street musician. The music school in Fukuoka is an important part of her life to this day, as she not only learned music there, but also the important things in life , as she stated in the diary on her website after her debut .

Breakthrough and acting debut: From Me to You and Taiyō no uta

In March 2004, Yui entered a music competition hosted by Sony Music Japan . After she first sent a demo recording to Sony, she was later, together with nine other musicians, selected from almost 20,000 applicants and invited to a final casting in Tokyo . Although only two songs of her own were requested by Sony, she played a total of three of her songs during her appearance there with Why Me , It's Happy Line and I Know . Shortly after this gig she got a contract with Sony Music Japan, which released her song It's Happy Line as a single on December 24, 2004, but still under the independent label Leaflet Records . Since she only moved to Tokyo in September 2004, she had to commute between Tokyo and Fukuoka for most of the recording time. According to her own statements, this change was very difficult for her, as the air in Tokyo is very bad and the sky is not particularly beautiful. In October, Yui started her own radio show, which gave her the opportunity to travel to her hometown several times as the recordings took place there. Shortly before that, she wrote the song Feel My Soul , which got her attention from Fuji TV . The TV station decided to use her song as theme music for her TV drama Fukigen na jin . Shortly afterwards, Feel My Soul was also successfully released as a single. Since then, her songs have been used regularly for various TV dramas and anime series . In the same year, other singles followed with Tomorrow's Way and Life . This, like the single Tokyo released at the beginning of 2006 , could not quite build on the success of their major debut Feel My Soul despite good chart positions .

In February 2006, their first studio album, From Me to You , was released, which was highly praised by most of the media. The album reached number 4 on the Oricon charts, platinum status in April 2007 and managed to stay in the official rating for a total of 115 weeks. Following the album, she started her first tour, the Live Life Love Tour, which included a total of eight concerts in seven different locations, including the Shibuya AX Club in Tokyo. In March 2006 she received the 20th Nihon Gold Disc Taishō in the New Artist of the Year category .

In 2006, Yui played the lead role in the film Taiyō no Uta . For her acting debut, she received the Japanese Academy Award in the Best Young Actress category. The film's theme song, Goodbye Days , was released as a single on June 14, 2006. Goodbye Days entered the Japanese charts at number 3 in the first week and was her greatest success to date. With I Remember You and Rolling Star , two more singles followed, both of which reached high positions in the Japanese charts. The song Cherry , released in March 2007, could not build on the sales success of Goodbye Days , but - thanks to a good advertising campaign - became one of their most famous songs. In 2008, Cherry was named the third most popular love song of the year in a poll by Oricon Style magazine.

Chart successes: Can't Buy My Love and I Loved Yesterday

On April 4, 2007, her second studio album was released. Can't Buy My Love sat at the top of the Japanese album charts with just under 300,000 copies sold in the first week and reached triple platinum status in August 2007, which also surpassed the successful previous album. The album was followed by the nationwide Spring & Jump tour, which took them across Japan for a total of three weeks between April and May 2007. On June 13th of the same year her double A single My Generation / Understand was released, which entered the charts at number 1 in the first week of its release, making it her first number 1 single. The music video for My Generation received an award for the best music video 2007 in the Pop category at the Space Shower Music Awards 2008 on March 15, 2008 . Shortly thereafter, the single Love & Truth was released , which achieved good sales, but was sometimes received with disappointment by its fans. The associated B-side Jam is, in addition to the promotional video for Laugh Away , which was released in early 2008 , the only non-single for which a music video was shot.

In November 2007, Yui appeared for the first time in the Nippon Budōkan . The concert was sold out after a short time. Video recordings of the concert were later released on the album I Loved Yesterday . The single Namidairo released in February 2008 is the first single since Cherry that did not reach number 1 in the Japanese charts.

On April 9, 2008, Yui's third studio album was released. With almost 300,000 copies sold, I Loved Yesterday made it to No. 1 in the Oricon rating and No. 2 in the world charts. The album will be followed by the Oui ~ I Loved Yesterday ~ tour between May and July 2008 , which is their longest tour to date with twenty-five concerts. On November 12th, 2008, their first B-side collection, My Short Stories , was released, which contained all of their previous B-sides and the new song I'll Be . This was released again on September 2, 2009 as a Blu-spec CD .

After the initial release of My Short Stories , Yui took a long break. During this she met the band Stereopony while on vacation in Okinawa , where she composed the music for I Do It from the later stereo pony single of the same name. She then released the single Again , which was also the opening title for the 2009 broadcast of the anime series Full Metal Alchemist , on June 3, 2009 and the single It's All Too Much / Never Say Die , both of which are the main and secondary themes of the film Kaiji: Jinsei Gyakuten Game were on October 7, 2009. Both landed at number 1 and, together with their previous number 1 single Summer Song Yui, after Hikaru Utada more than seven years earlier, made it the first female artist with three consecutive singles 1. Their 15th single Gloria was released on January 20th, 2010 , their 16th To Mother on June 2nd and their 17th Rain on November 24th, 2010 and their fifth album Holidays in the Sun on July 14th, except for Rain everyone started at number one.

In 2011 she released her 18th single It's My Life / Your Heaven on January 26th and her 19th Hello - Paradise Kiss on June 1st, both of which went to number 3, as well as Green a.Live on October 5th , which again took place 1 reached. Their 5th studio album How Crazy Your Love from November 2nd also managed to enter the top position.

Their 21st single, Fight , was released on September 9, 2012. The tribute album She Loves You was released on October 24, 2012 , in which twelve of her pieces by other singers ( Scandal , Negoto , Miwa , Goosehouse , Shōko Nakagawa , Ayaka Ide , Kylee , Stereopony , Miku Sawai , Dancing Dolls , Eir Aoi and joy) have been covered.

On December 5, 2012, the best-of albums Green Garden Pop and Orange Garden Pop , which started at number 2 and 3, were released.

Flower flower

After her appearance at the 63rd Kōhaku Uta Gassen on December 31, 2012, she took another break to reorient herself. On April 2, 2013, the retirement as a solo singer and the founding of the rock band Flower Flower became known, with whom she gave some incognito concerts in March, where she acts as lead singer and guitarist and her official debut concert at the Japan Jam 2013 on 3. May 2013 gave. This was accompanied by both an outward and a change of the stage name from YUI to yui .

The band mainly performs at festivals and released four digital singles in 2013 and 2014, as well as their first album Fruit on November 26, 2014 , which reached number 5 on the Oricon charts, and the mini album Color on February 18, 2015, which debuted at number 10 .

In March 2014, she announced that she had panic disorder , which meant that she had to cancel some concerts. They married in April 2015.

Discography

Albums

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		JP
2006	From me to you	JP4 (121 weeks) JP
2007	Can't Buy My Love	JP1 (74 weeks) JP
2008	I loved yesterday	JP1 (40 weeks) JP
2011	How Crazy Your Love	JP1 (21 weeks) JP

• 2010: Holidays in the Sun

compilation

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		JP
2008	My Short Stories	JP1 (21 weeks) JP

Best of albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		JP
2012	Green Garden Pop	JP2 (21 weeks) JP
	Orange Garden Pop	JP3 (21 weeks) JP

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		JP
2005	Feel my soul	JP8 (13 weeks) JP
	Tomorrow's Way	JP15 (10 weeks) JP
	Life	JP9 (13 weeks) JP
2006	Tokyo	JP15 (5 weeks) JP
	Good-bye days	JP3 (44 weeks) JP
	I remember you	JP2 (21 weeks) JP
2007	Rolling Star	JP4 (16 weeks) JP
	Che.r.ry	JP2 (23 weeks) JP
	My Generation / Understand	JP1 (14 weeks) JP	Double A single
	Love & Truth	JP1 (17 weeks) JP
2008	Namidairo	JP3 (10 weeks) JP
	Summer song	JP1 (10 weeks) JP
2009	Again	JP1 (21 weeks) JP
	It's All Too Much / Never Say Die	JP1 (18 weeks) JP	Double A single
2010	Gloria	JP1 (13 weeks) JP
	To mother	JP1 (9 weeks) JP
	Rain	JP2 (11 weeks) JP
2011	It's My Life / Your Heaven	JP3 (10 weeks) JP	Double A single
	Hello - Paradise Kiss	JP3 (11 weeks) JP
	Green a.Live	JP1 (7 weeks) JP
2012	Fight	JP5 (9 weeks) JP

• 2004: It's Happy Line / I Know (double A single, limited independent release)

Video albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		JP
2007	Thank you my teens	JP4 (38 weeks) JP	Live DVD with recordings of the Spring & Jump tour in April and May 2007

Filmography

Taiyō no Uta

→ Main article : Taiyō no Uta

The film Taiyō no Uta was shot in Shingū, Fukuoka, between September and November 2005 and was released in Japanese cinemas on June 17, 2006. In this film, Yui plays the lead role as Kaoru Amane, a girl who suffers from xeroderma pigmentosum . The film refers to various biographical elements of Yui. Kaoru dreams of becoming a singer and - just like Yui in her youth - regularly performs as a street musician. During these performances Kaoru plays the songs Goodbye Days , It's Happy Line and Skyline . All of the music in the film consists entirely of variations of songs that Yui wrote. The title track Good-Bye Days was also successfully released as a single.

Taiyō no Uta stayed at the top of the Japanese film charts for several weeks after its release and was voted eighth of the ten saddest films of all time in a poll by Oricon Style in late 2007 . For Taiyō no Uta, Yui received the Japanese Academy Award in the Best Young Actress category.

From July 14 to September 15, 2006, a dorama adaptation with Erika Sawajiri in the lead role was broadcast on TBS .

Trivia

• Since 2007, Yui has been in the top 3 of the CDTV ranking of “artists who are desired as lovers” ( 恋人 に し た い ア ー テ ィ ス ト ); from February 2007 to August 2008 in first place four times in a row.
• Between 2003 and 2004 she attended the same music school in Fukuoka as the Japanese singer Ayaka .
• Goodbye Days is her best-selling single to date, with around 240,000 units sold, and Can't Buy My Love , with almost 660,000 copies sold, her most successful album.
• Yui masters several instruments; among others guitar, piano and drums , where she only plays guitar at concerts.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oricon Style: From Me to You ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 14, 2008 (Japanese) 
2. ↑ Recording Industry Association of Japan: List of singles and albums with at least gold status in April 2006 , April 14, 2008 (Japanese)
3. ↑ 第 20 回 日本 ゴ ー ル ド デ ィ ス ク 大 賞 ・ 受 賞 作品 ／ ア ー テ ィ ス ト . (No longer available online.) In: The Japan Gold Disc Award. Archived from the original on March 9, 2007 ; Retrieved December 18, 2008 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Oricon Style: Goodbye Days ( memento of October 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), April 14, 2008 (Japanese)
5. ↑ Oricon Style: Valentine Special , April 14, 2008 (Japanese)
6. ↑ Oricon Style: Can't Bye My Love ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 14, 2008 (Japanese) 
7. ↑ Recording Industry Association of Japan: List of singles and albums with at least gold status in August 2007 (Japanese)
8. ↑ Oricon Style: My Generation / Understand ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 14, 2008 (Japanese) 
9. ↑ Space Shower Music Awards 2008: Best Pop Video ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , April 14, 2008 (Japanese) 
10. ↑ I do it. (No longer available online.) In: stereopony. SME Japan, archived from the original on April 5, 2010 ; Retrieved January 25, 2010 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Ｉ ｄｏ ｉｔ - ス テ レ オ ポ ニ ー . (No longer available online.) In: オ リ コ ン ラ ン キ ン グ 情報 サ ー ビ ス 「you 大樹」 . Oricon, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 23, 2010 (Japanese).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
12. ↑ YUI が シ ン グ ル 3 作 連 続 首位 、 ユ ー ミ ン 、 宇多田 に 続 く 史上 3 人 目 . In: Oricon Style. October 13, 2009, Retrieved October 25, 2009 (Japanese). 
13. ↑ YUI ト リ ビ ュ ー ト ･ SHE LOVES YOU 【初 回 限定 仕 様】 . In: Sony Music Shop. Sony Music Distribution (Japan), accessed October 25, 2012 (Japanese). 
14. ↑ YUI 、 『CDTV』 で 活動 休止 前 ラ ス ト 唱 「次 に 向 け て 頑 張 り ま す」 . In: Oricon Style. January 1, 2013, Retrieved April 4, 2013 (Japanese). 
15. ↑ YUI が 新 バ ン ド で 音 楽 活動 再 開 、 5 月 に フ ェ ス ＆ イ ベ ン ト 出演 . In: Natalie.mu. April 3, 2013, Retrieved April 18, 2015 (Japanese). 
16. ↑ info. In: FLOWER FLOWER official website. April 3, 2013, Retrieved April 4, 2013 (Japanese). 
17. ↑ FLOWER FLOWER の ラ ン キ ン グ . In: Oricon Style. Retrieved April 18, 2015 (Japanese). 
18. ↑ yui 、 パ ニ ッ ク 障害 で フ ェ ス 出演 キ ャ ン セ ル . In: Oricon Style. March 5, 2014, Retrieved April 18, 2015 (Japanese). 
19. ↑ yui が 一般 男性 と 入籍 ＆ 妊娠 . In: Natalie.mu. April 17, 2015, Retrieved April 18, 2015 (Japanese). 
20. ↑ ^{a b c d} リ リ ー ス 一 覧 . (No longer available online.) In: Oricon Style. Archived from the original on April 2, 2009 ; Retrieved July 28, 2010 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
21. ↑ ^{a b c} Ｔｈａｎｋ ｙｏｕ Ｍｙ ｔｅｅｎｓ / ＹＵＩ. In: Oricon Style. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012 ; Retrieved January 15, 2010 (Japanese). 
22. ↑ 第 30 回 日本 ア カ デ ミ ー 賞 . In: Japanese Academy Award. Archived from the original on May 25, 2009 ; Retrieved November 15, 2007 (Japanese). 
23. ↑ 恋人 に し た い ア ー テ ィ ス ト （from 「CDTV」） ： 女性 編 . February 14, 2010, Retrieved January 17, 2010 (Japanese). 
24. ↑ Oricon Style: Yui Profile , April 14, 2008 (Japanese)

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)
• Yui in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Yui on MusicBrainz (English)