Aikawa Nanase

Aikawa Nanase

Birth name 佐伯みさ

Born February 16, 1975 (1975-02-16) (age 33)

Origin Osaka, Japan

Genre(s) Japanese rock/pop

Occupation(s) Singer

Years active 1995-present

Label(s) Avex Trax

Nanase Aikawa (相川 七瀬, Aikawa Nanase) is a Japanese musician known for employing a variety of musical styles, most notably rock. She publishes her music under the Motorod label, a division of Avex Group.

Nanase Aikawa was born on February 16, 1975, in Osaka, Japan. Throughout her school years, Nanase had sung and participated in a several singing competitions, which brought her to the attention of a well-known music producer Tetsuro Oda. At the age of 15, she dropped out of school to be trained by Oda. At the age of 20 she released her first single, Yume Miru Shoujo ja Irarenai on 8 November 1995.

After she released her first single on 8 November 1995, she released three more singles, and then her first full album Red in 1996, which sold more than two million copies in its first month. That album won her an invitation to perform on Kōhaku Uta Gassen, a New Year's Eve singing contest between male and female teams of popular singers sponsored by NHK (one of Japan's television networks).

Since then, she has released about one album each year, plus an average of three mini- or maxi-singles. Her second album, Paradox, was released in July of 1997, selling 1.8 million copies, coinciding with her first concert tour Live Emotion '97 (consisting of 20 concert dates, and attracting a total of 65,000 fans, according to Avex).

July of 1998 saw her third album Crimson, and another concert tour with over 40 concert dates. Her 1999 release, I.D. was a compilation album, but it debuted at number one on the rock chart, her fourth consecutive album to be released at the number one slot.

In 2001, she also released a 'mini-album' (sometime between a full album and a single) with only 7 tracks called the Last Quarter of uncharacteristically soft ballad-style music, recorded during her later months of pregnancy.

It wasn't until 2003 that she released another album, another compilation, called ID: 2.

At the 11th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards, Nanase's album Red was voted the Best Album (Japanese Rock and Folk music, female vocalist category). Her album Paradox was also voted Best Album of the Year at the 12th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards.

In February of 2004, three years after her last original album and many singles, she released 7 Seven. An album devoted to feelings relating to music and color, with each song dedicated to a certain color. Since then she has released four more singles.

In July 2004 her song BYE BYE was covered by UK singer Jennifer Ellison.

As of August of 2004, Nanase Aikawa has released six albums, plus two compilation albums and the mini-album, a total of 24 singles, and no less than three separate concerts and two music video collections on video and DVD.

A year later, in February of 2005, she released The First Quarter mini-album. This album focused more on ballads and soft music than her well-known rock edge. In November of that same year she released R.U.O.K?!, a mini-album with seven songs. In July 2007, Nanase Aikawa began work on her new album.