Translated by Mandilinn
January 16, 2014

Singer Namie Amuro’s (36) large-scale tour “Namie Amuro FEEL Tour 2013” which saw 240,000 people will be be released on DVD and Blu-ray next month on the 26th.

Most of the 11 tracks from the album “FEEL” and 28 songs in total on tour were sung completely in English. With an English title and lyrics together with a high-quality production, the tour left a strong impression like that of a foreign artist touring Japan.

The latest album sold about 400,000 copies, which is highly unusual for a release with so much English that is not a cover album.

Not quite Western, but not quite J-Pop, Amuro has begun a new genre of Japanese music being dubbed “World Pop”. It begun with the full-length original English songs in her previous album “Uncontrolled”, which hit #1 in 5 countries, including South Korea and Japan. “FEEL” did also topped the charts in four countries with it’s release.

It has been thought up to now that with her success abroad, that the right course of action would be to sign with an overseas label and release her albums internationally. However, it appears Amuro wants to continue working in Japan making music for her fans in Japan, just letting the music spread over the world as is.

Amuro’s Facebook has topped 1.2 million likes and is on the rise to 1.3 million. She sits at the top of the popularity charts as an entertainer, and the interest from overseas is increasing rapidly. Namie has been daring to overturn the common sense of the Japanese music scene, and for the first time it has steadily begun to bear fruit.