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![Axium [David Cook] - AC (with lyrics)](http://web.archive.org./web/20110531102839im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ydmv_bY6k6Q/0.jpg "Axium [David Cook] - AC (with lyrics)")
The current #1 song on the Adult Contemporary chart (as of the issue dated December 11, 2010) is "Oh Santa!" by Mariah Carey.
Through 2006, Celine Dion has logged 87 weeks atop the AC chart, which is the most for any artist; tied for second place with 47 weeks apiece are Elton John and Lionel Richie. John and the Carpenters are tied with the most number of chart-toppers on this survey with 15 apiece.
In 2009, Miley Cyrus became the second youngest artist to peak at #1 with "The Climb."
Crossover from the country charts has also been common on the AC chart since the chart began. Among the country stars who had a number of singles cross over to the AC chart (and the pop chart as well) from the 1960s through the 1980s included Brenda Lee, Ray Price, Patsy Cline, Ronnie Milsap, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, Willie Nelson, and Juice Newton. The huge growth of country music as a radio format in the 1990s brought a number of new country crossovers onto the AC airwaves, including Martina McBride, LeAnn Rimes, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Lonestar, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Garth Brooks. More recently, a new wave of country performers has been crossing over to AC, including Tim McGraw, the Dixie Chicks (who topped the AC chart with their cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide"), Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Swift.
The Contemporary Christian music market has also been relatively successful in crossing over to mainstream radio. In the mid-1980s, the most successful CCM artist at the time, Amy Grant, crossed over into secular music with the 1985 single "Find a Way," which became a Top Ten AC hit and a #1 Christian single simultaneously. In the 1990s and into the 2000s decade, other artists such as MercyMe, Natalie Grant, Kathy Troccoli, Sixpence None the Richer, and Michael W. Smith have crossed in between the Christian and secular worlds with little disapproval from their fan bases.
Exceptions are sometimes made, usually on a case-by-case basis. Occasionally an older song is re-released (for example, featured on a current movie soundtrack and given a renewed promotional push from a record label) or a song can take an extended amount of time to climb to position fifteen. Billboard chart managers ultimately make the decision about which songs can remain on the current chart in such cases.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Miyuki Nakajima |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | 中島 美雪 (Miyuki Nakajima) |
| Born | February 23, 1952 |
| Origin | Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan |
| Genre | Folk, folk rock, rock, kayokyoku, enka | |
| Occupation | Singer, composer, lyricist, radio-DJ, author, actress |
| Years active | 1975 - present |
| Instrument | VocalsGuitars |
| Label | AARD-VARK/Pony CanyonYamaha Music Communications |
| Url | www.miyuki.jp |
In the mid 1970s, Nakajima signed to the Canyon Records and launched her recording career with her debut single "Azami Jo no Lullaby". After rising to fame thanks to the hit "The Parting Song (Wakareuta)" released in 1977, she has enjoyed a successful career as a singer-songwriter, most strikingly in the early 1980s. She has produced four singles that sold more than a million copies in the last two decades, including "Earthly Stars (Unsung Heroes)". She is also well-known for her experimental theatre performances called "Yakai", performed every year-end from 1989 through to 1998. The idiosyncratic acts featured scenarios and songs she wrote but have continued irregularly in recent years.
In addition to her work as a solo artist, Nakajima has written over 90 compositions for numerous other singers, and has produced several chart-toppers. She is also one of the Japanese songwriters who has had the greatest number of cover versions of her songs performed by non-Japanese East Asian singers, especially Taiwanese and Hong Kong ones.
Nakajima is one of the literarily acclaimed Japanese songwriter of modern times, winning a couple of the country's Record Awards for her contributions as a lyricist. She is known as the sole musician whom was a participants of the National Language Council of Japan, took part in the late 1990s.
When she was a third grade student in high school, she gave her first live performance, playing the self-penned song "Tsugumi no Uta" on stage at the cultural festival. Since then, Nakajima launched participation to be a musician gradually.
In 1972, Nakajima participated in a folk contest held at the Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall in Tokyo, and then she played a song called "Atashi Tokidoki Omouno". Her songwriting won the prize, and her performance was released as a part of an album which recorded the contest. This became her first recorded material.
After graduating the university, Nakajima continued striving to be a professional musician for nearly a year. Reportedly, she had already written more than a hundred songs before she debuted.
In May 1976, she released the first studio album entitled Watashi no Koe ga Kikoemasuka. Since then, she has been worked as a prolific recording artist vigorously, producing one album a year. In the same year, Nakajima produced the number-one hit single as a composer for the first time, through "Abayo" which was recorded by Naoko Ken and sold over 700,000 copies. Throughout her over 30-year career, she has been contributing some 90 compositions as a songwriter for other artists, and making some of them huge hits such as "Shiawase Shibai"(recorded by Junko Sakurada), "Kamome wa Kamome"(a comeback single for Ken, released in 1978), and "If I Could Take to the Sky (Kono Sora wo Tobetara)" (performed by Tokiko Kato, released in 1978). Nakajima occasionally released retrospective albums which comprised songs written for other artists. The first one, Okaerinasai came out in 1979 has sold more than 500,000 units, and it became one of the best-selling albums for her.
Like the other than popular folk-rock singers in Japan such as Takuro Yoshida and Yosui Inoue, she has refused to appear on any kind of television program after she gained popularity, except handful of specials. Still Nakajima promoted her materials on TV in early career, particularly through the Cocky Pop which was sponsored by her management office Yamaha.
Miyuki Nakajima's fifth single "Wakareuta (The Parting Song)" released in September 1977, became her commercial breakthrough song as a singer. The song reached number-one on the Oricon for only a week in December 1977, knocking "Wanted (Shimei Tehai)" by Pink Lady from the top of the hit parade. "The Parting Song" has finally sold more than 700,000 copies and became one of the following year's biggest hits on the Japanese record chart.
Her 4th studio album entitled Aishiteiru to Ittekure built up her long-lasting popularity as a performer. The album that featured "The Parting Song" also includes the other highlight; a protest song entitled "Sejou (World's Context)", which became popular after used in the well-known TV drama Kimpachi Sensei in 1981.
In addition to the career as a recording artist, Nakajima has been known for the working as a personality of radio programs. Most eminent is All Night Nippon which has been one of the longest lasting programs aired by the Nippon Broadcasting System, which she participated as a host from April 1979 through March 1987. Instead of TV appearances, she fostered her popularity through the witty and somewhat manic talking on the program.
Most of her compositions came out in the 1970s and 1980s are featuring lyrics which exposed grief or hatred explicitly. Sometimes such her works gained mixed reputations. Particularly, her 1980 album Ikiteitemo Iidesuka (it stands for "May I Live?" in Japanese), and its lead-off track "Urami Masu" (it features haunting lyric which means "I'll continue having a grudge against you 'til I die", and vocals like sobbing) brought about controversy because of their extreme titles.
As a composer and lyricist, Nakajima continued to write for other artists and gained success. "Suzume (Sparrow)", the first solo single for ex-Pink Lady Keiko Masuda whom was not successful at that time, led the performer to the top-10 spot again. In 1983, Nakajima won the 25th Japan Record Award for her songwriting on "Haru Nanoni", a song sung by then teenage pop icon Yoshie Kashiwabara. She continued career as a recording artist regularly during the mid 1980s, though subsequent releases were commercially less successful compared with previous materials. A string of her efforts that came out at that era has featured harder-edged sounds, because she came to introduce digital recording radically.
"Cold Farewell (Tsumetai Wakare)" released as a single in 1985 was the first song she produced in countries outside Japan. A top-ten charting song features lengthy harmonica solo performed by Stevie Wonder. He also played the synthesizer on Nakajima's subsequent single "Atai no Natsuyasumi", released in the following year.
In 1987, Nakajima contributed lyrics for the composition by Tsugutoshi Goto, a bassist and a record producer who had been one of long-term collaborators for her. The song entitled "Fu-Ji-Tsu" was released as a second single for a teen idol Shizuka Kudo who has also well-known as ex-member of Onyanko Club. During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, Nakajima and Goto wrote 17 songs for Kudo and some of them topped the chart, including "Dokoku (I Cried All Night)" released in 1993 and certified quadruple platinum by the RIAJ for shipments of in excess of a million copies. Songwriting partnership with Goto was ended in 1993, but Nakajima has been continuing to write several songs for Kudo in later years.
Enlisting a new collaborator, Nakajima launched the experimental musical Yakai at the Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon, Shibuya, Tokyo. Yakai has composed of intricate story lines she newly wrote, and it was initially started as a sort of jukebox musical mainly comprising her songs that were previously issued. Her idiosyncratic efforts gradually became the famous stage performances which were held in every December for 10 years. Since the 7th act which was entitled 2/2 in 1995, Yakai came to be composed of new songs she specially composed. Most of those performances have been released on DVDs.
"Asai Nemuri (Shallow Sleep)", a theme song Nakajima wrote for the drama Shin'ai Naru Mono e was released as a single and gained massive success, selling more than a million copies and peaked at the number-two on the chart. It was included on her studio album East Asia released in October 1992. The album also features "Ito (Tapestry)", which is one of her songs that many artists covered, especially famous for the interpretation by Kazutoshi Sakurai and Takeshi Kobayashi's charity supergroup Bank Band.
In the middle of the decade, she wrote a couple of theme songs for Ienakiko, the TV drama series starring Yumi Adachi and which was aired on the NTV. The first one, a song entitled "Sora to Kimi no Aida ni (Between the Sky and You)" was released as a single in May 1994, and debuted at the number-one on the Japanese Singles Chart. The song became her most commercially successful record to date, selling in excess of 1.4 million copies. The other her composition "Wanderers Song" was featured on the sequel of the drama series aired in the following year, and it also gained similar success, reaching the number-one on the chart and selling over a million units.
Daiginjo, her compilation which was brought out in March 1996 provided her with last number-one spot on the albums chart, making her the oldest female artist who has produced number-one album on the Japanese music chart at that time (the record was overtaken by Yumi Matsutoya and Mariya Takeuchi in later years).
However, each of her studio albums released in the 1990s were commercially lackluster, and some of them failed to reach the top-10 on the chart. Tsuki; Wings and Hi; Wings released in 1999 are the worst selling albums for her, both of them has sold less than 50,000 copies.
In 2006, Nakajima wrote the song called "Sorafune (Ship in the Air)" for the boy band Tokio. The song was used as the closing theme for My Boss, My Hero, the TV drama starring the group's frontman Tomoya Nagase. It became the second most commercially successful materials for them which followed their debut single, remaining on the Oricon chart for more than a year and selling approximately 480,000 copies. "Ship in the Air" was also the first chart-topper that Nakajima contributed both lyric and melody for other artist in 30 years, since "Abayo" recorded by Naoko Ken in 1976. After a month from the release of her studio album Lullaby Singer that features her own interpretation of "Ship in the Air", her contribution for the Tokio won the "best lyrics" of the 48th Japan Record Award.
Her latest studio album entitled I Love You, Do You Hear Me? was released on October 3, 2007. The album debuted at the number-four on the Oricon with in excess of 39,000 copies sold in its first week of release, and its provided Nakajima with the 34th top-ten hits on the Japanese albums charts.
Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:People from Sapporo Category:Japanese female singers Category:Japanese singer-songwriters
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
