Namie Amuro’s original album “PAST<FUTURE,” drew attention for its meaningful jacket that has Namie Amuro herself picking up the photo of her previous Best Album, “BEST FICTION,” and tearing it. “PAST<FUTURE” reached to top of all the charts in five Asian countries (Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore) one week after its release in December 2009. The expectations for this original album after a two and a half year blank were great, but its overwhelmingly high quality even far exceeded those expectations. This brilliant achievement was a first for a Japanese female artist. We would like to let you hear this woman of an almost dazzling existence.

“I am truly happy. I would have to answer”no” if I were asked whether it has sunk in or not (laughs).” Namie happily, and bashfully, gives us her impressions about topping the charts in five Asia countries. “When I make an album I imagine a live concert performance. I only choose tunes that I can concretely imagine being sung live. However this time, while I imagined a live performance, I also returned to the attitude towards making an album that I had at the time of my debut, and I tried to make “an album you listen to.” So there are songs of medium tempo and there are ballads. I will be happy if they are simply listened to and enjoyed.”

In the jacket and in the songs one feels the “rebirth” of Namie Amuro, there is a desire to “make everything clear and make a new start” in “PAST<FUTURE,” “The existence of the previous Best Album, “BEST FICTION,” was very big for me. So I made this album without trying to exceed the previous one, but by expressing myself honestly once again. If I decide too strongly what I want beforehand, I would feel a little lost of it doesn’t turn out the way I want, or it doesn’t quite reach my ideal… Many cases end up unsatisfactorily. So I made this album with care towards what I wanted to do at the moment, and with my own feeling and intuition.”

Since her debut at the age of fifteen, Namie marked million sellers in her teens, twenties, and thirties, a brilliant achievement and a first in Japanese music history. “I am thankful and it is great that I was able to sell, but when I was in my early twenties I was troubled about the balances between the music I wanted to make and the music that was demanded of me. During that period the album I made under the band name SUITE CHIC was one turning point. I was allowed to freely express what I wanted to with my music, without being conscious about how I was received on charts and with sales. I reconsidered that if I was going to continue making music I shouldn’t forget to enjoy it thus. Then when I released a CD as an original “Namie Amuro,” I felt somehow like a haze had cleared. Now I approach music with a fresh feeling. If there is even the slightest doubt, it shows in the work. Isn’t it a matter of course with anything, that some people have likes and dislikes? So it is fine for me to continue making what I enjoy with confidence, and not at the mercy of people’s dislikes. For that reason I want to move forward all the time. I want to challenge and to be adventurous. I don’t go for defense.” And just as sh says, Namie plans to have seventy-three live concerts this year. We have a feeling she will be increasingly active on the front lines. “I think it may be all right for me to do anything, as long as the people who come enjoy. Indeed, only a live concert gives us a sensation of everybody enjoying the same way, the same music in the same space, with the same tension. Right after the live concerts I don’t sing a tall. Because the explosion of everything that had built up inside, my passion for what I wanted to do and sing, feels so good. That’s when I feel that singing is really fun.”

Namie began to think seriously that she wanted to sing from now on only two or three years ago. “Until then some things were insecure even when the results were good. I could not get rid of my anxiety over whether this was right or not. But by doing that, I realized it wasn’t the way to go. Then I understood that I like to sing more than to listen to music. Each person enjoys music differently, but I am a person who enjoys only when I sing. I want to continue to express my own music while having fun singing and dancing. Lately I believe in this straight from the bottom of my heart.” There is no deception nor ostentation. Her sincere words without haughtiness even while having reached the top makes us look forward to Namie Amuro adding to her legend.