An accompanist of an era
At home, everyone likes to call Leslie Cheung "elder brother" because he has a high face value, strong strength and good character, and has nothing to hide in his life. He is always caring for everyone around him with love, just like an elder brother.
In fact, in Japan, there is also a sister who exists like a brother, and that is Izumi Sakai.
Maybe some people after are not familiar with her, but people who like watching anime must have heard her singing.
She wrote and sang the OP and ED of Japanese national anime, including Slam Dunk, Dragon Ball GT, Little Master of China, Detective Conan, etc. Each song is a classic and an indispensable good memory of many people in their youth.
Source: Detective Conan
Among them, the "Akagi Haruko" prototype of Slam Dunk Master is herself.
It can be said that Izumi Sakai, as a singer and creator of the national animation hit, made many people in our country like japanese pop through animation.
In fact, Izumi Sakai's most well-known identity is that she is the lead singer of ZARD, a famous Japanese rock band. Since its official launch in 1991, ZARD with Izumi Sakai as the core has created a lot of records in the Japanese music industry: < P > six consecutive singles have won the Japanese public trust list; Nine consecutive albums have gained millions of sales; The cumulative sales of all works exceeded 37.63 million; The total sales volume is nearly more than 7 billion yen ...
This achievement is beyond the reach of later singers. In today's words, Izumi Sakai and ZARD are the top flows. For 3 years, even now, their popularity in Japan is very high.
(Source: OK MUSIC)
In many people's cognition, public figures, including singers and musicians, regard public appearances as a routine. What's more, no matter whether the works are published or not, they all like to report them for news or nomination.
but Izumi Sakai is the opposite.
as the top stream, she and ZARD are very low-key and mysterious, and even once became "Tokyo City", which was rumored as "ghost singer", "ghost band" and "this band doesn't really exist".
Until Izumi Sakai died of illness in 27, she only appeared in public seven times in her life.
Because of such low-key and mystery, a Japanese company once conducted a survey called "People I Most Want to See", and Izumi Sakai and ZARD ranked second with more than 5 million votes, second only to Akihito at that time.
"Why don't you want to show up?" Izumi Sakai responded positively before his death:
"I'm not good at facing the camera and the public, and I can't talk to people directly in a short time."
So it is not difficult for us to understand why Izumi Sakai is a little uncomfortable and dodges the camera. Now we see her natural, bright and beautiful photos, all around us.
She doesn't want to show her face, she doesn't like heavy makeup, and she always shows her face without makeup, which is also related to a "dark history" on her growing road.
From real estate animal to water model
Izumi Sakai, whose original name was "Sachiko Kamachi", was born in Hiratsuka City, Naichuan County in 1967 and has loved music since childhood.
Music is her favorite friend. She likes singing since she was a child. Every time she sings, her mother will accompany her with the accordion. Later, my mother saw that she was very interested in music and asked her to learn piano.
Izumi Sakai's youth coincided with the rapid development of Japanese economy. At that time, young people loved The Beatles and regarded John Lennon as a spiritual leader. She was also one of the little fans.
Because of her love for John Lennon, she joined the Guitar Club in junior high school. Among the six strings, the seed of "love and peace" was rooted in her heart, which later became one of the richest characteristics in her music.
At the same time, she is also a sports girl, who is quite talented in sports. In junior high school, her track and field sprint event created a county-level record; In high school, he joined the ball department and became a man of the hour on campus.
In his delicate youth, Izumi Sakai also developed a strong interest in poetry, and he liked the chorus poet Ishikawa. From then on, she always carried it with her to record her feelings and feelings. Later, this habit brought her a lot of creative inspiration.
After graduating from college, Izumi Sakai hoped to make a big impact in the music industry, but he ran into a wall everywhere and realized the hardships of life for the first time.
No one wants her to join the band or the chorus. Under the pressure of survival, she had to find a job first and worked in a real estate company for two years.
Izumi Sakai's social career happened before and after Japan, and she personally witnessed the joys and sorrows of life, all of which were later reflected in her works.
In 1988, after work, she was discovered by the scouts of Stardust, and she took her real name "Sachiko Kamachi" as a model.
At that time, she thought it would be closer to her music dream, but unexpectedly it became a "black history" that she was later criticized.
During this modeling experience, she was asked to take all kinds of large-scale underwater photos, and she was also asked to participate in all kinds of selections, including the Queen of Karaoke, and she was also asked to become a racing queen in cool clothes.
Because she was young and not sensible, she signed a contract and had to unconditionally obey the photographer's mercy in front of the camera, including the gaze from a male perspective, so it is not difficult to understand why she later resisted appearing in front of the camera.
Even though he resisted the camera, Izumi Sakai still loved music and singing very much.
Life like a string-pulling doll without spirit did not erase Izumi Sakai's musical dream. In 199, B.B.QUEEN publicly selected the harmony.
Izumi Sakai saw a glimmer of hope and took the initiative to sign up for the competition. Even though she still lost the election as always, this time she met a Bole who changed her life and was important in her life-Nagato, a man from B'Z and TUBE, who was quite influential in the music industry.
Changhu appreciates her singing and talent very much:
"The first time I saw her, I asked her what kind of music she wanted to make. She immediately replied,' Rock music! Like Hamada Mari or Ann Lewis, make catchy rock music that can be sung in karaoke.
So Changhu decided to take her as the center to form a rock band ZARD. From then on, Izumi Sakai replaced Sachiko Kamachi and started Chan Sheng as a rock female lead singer.
From a rock hostess to a national singer
In 1991, ZARD, a fledgling singer, was officially released with a single "GOOD BYE MY LONELINESS", and soon created a record that the new song broke into the top ten of the public trust list, with a single sales volume of 25,.
(Photograph: Kenji Kikuji)
Good Bye My Loneliness is a very tough and light pop rock genre, slightly green but full of enthusiasm, and the lead singer Izumi Sakai himself looks quiet and gentle, which forms a strong contrast with the rock genre. ZARD soon gained a large group of die-hard fans.
In 1992, ZARD won the "Best Newcomer Singer of the Year Award" in the Japanese Golden Record Awards, and the sales of his debut album "HOLD ME" exceeded one million.
Different from the exquisite singing clothes and makeup at that time, Izumi Sakai has always been dressed in a neutral manner. Jeans suit, an Armani men's shirt, and long black hair made her a rock lead singer. Her image was very simple, and even lipstick was rarely applied.
As a matter of fact, the long-term residence is deliberately downplaying Izumi Sakai's appearance.
He thought that male fans would stay away because they were shy, and female fans would stay away from them, so after consulting with Izumi Sakai, she was always dressed in such a "more conservative" way than middle school teachers.
"I hope she can become a showa woman living in the Heisei era.". No fashion, no make-up, no jewelry, no eyebrows, hair style from beginning to end. All this has not changed in the end, and I think this is the reason why she can continue to create best-selling songs. "
Izumi Sakai also devoted all his energy originally put on clothes to music creation.
"Everyone has his own language system, and there will be no great changes in his life. I think everyone is like this, either spreading it out or deep inside.
A talkative person will express himself in words, while a less talkative person should always get along with himself and talk to himself. Put emotions in the works and express yourself through the works. "
Music and lyrics are her language and the way she conveys her feelings. Like a jigsaw puzzle, she used language on the melody.
Izumi Sakai showed his extraordinary talent in lyrics at the beginning of ZARD. ZARD's words are basically her own. Her lyrics are the spirit of ZARD, and they are also important spirits in ZARD's music.
She will listen to the DEMO first, and then choose the most emotional songs as lyrics to ensure the art of music and language.
(Izumi Sakai Manuscript)
She attaches great importance to lyrics, and the lyrics she writes are delicate, warm and straightforward, without any ornate rhetoric. Rich in artistic conception and story, it can give people courage and strength in a short time.
"ZARD is not so much describing the world outlook in the later Showa period as Sakamoto Jing Quan is writing his true side."
most of Izumi Sakai's early ci poems express her love view from the perspective of women, telling the course of women's growth, full of life philosophy and poetry. Later, the lyrics were extended to the dream of life, reflecting the phenomenon, and the first capital was full of positive energy.
In her lyrics, she also embodies her own feminine characteristics.
Japanese generally shows personal characteristics at the end of sentences. For example, "そぅだぜ" is for men and "そぅじゃ" is for the elderly. Many of Izumi Sakai's lyrics are expressed by women, for example, in the famous work "Negative".
Izumi Sakai's feminine lyrics and ZARD's masculine style make the band supported by a wide range of classes beyond gender.
In addition to her own band, she has written lyrics for many singers, with more than 15 songs, including "Spend My Life with You" written for Teresa Teng.
Izumi Sakai's singing method also matches the lyrics, so that the music can be better conveyed to people's hearts.
Her voice is as clear and bright as the name, like a clear spring. Her interval is very stable, and she can play a perfect voice under harmony. In singing, she has a sense of style like a song, telling her emotions and keeping her voice from fading.
It is revealed that Izumi Sakai likes to use the vacuum tube microphone made in Germany or Austria in 195 when recording, so that the sound will spread slowly and softly.
Even though he won fans' love by virtue of his talent and strength, Izumi Sakai's music path was not as smooth as the outside world imagined. Internal troubles and foreign invasion once caused her physical and mental exhaustion.
after the establishment of ZARD with her as the core, members have been changing except her. The fragmented group didn't douse her enthusiasm for music. She chose to shoulder the whole band alone, working day and night, and creating one masterpiece after another.
(Source: Being)
At that time, it was the darkest period in Japan: under the shadow of the Japanese people, the "land myth" was shattered, the stock market and economy were depressed, small and medium-sized banks went bankrupt, the unemployment rate increased, and the rate rose, and successive blows completely lost confidence in life.
In 1993, ZARD released a song "Negative けなぃで" (Don't give up), which gave people greater encouragement and hurt their hearts. Izumi Sakai's lively and passionate singing gave them the strongest strength.
Negative "けなぃで" became one of Japan's inspirational songs, the second in Japan, and was later selected as a high school music textbook. Izumi Sakai's singing can always bring hope to people in trouble, whether it is Hanshin University or East Japan University.
the so-called "times make heroes", ZARD is popular all over Japan with "Negative けなぃで", but there are many people. At the same time, Izumi Sakai, who has always been low-key and introverted, was also dug up by the media as the only "black history" in her life-photos taken during her modeling period.
She has such a sexy side, and a celebrity even boasted on TV that "it's unfortunate that swimsuit models can be singers."
She was devastated after hearing this, so she shelved the originally planned concert.
it was not until 1995 that she responded to this series. In the album FOREVER YOU released this year, she sang "I was more curious than others when I was young/I didn't regret the past/because my youth is gone forever"
After experiencing internal and external troubles, she led ZARD to create her own music era.
In 1996, the single MY FRIEND was released. As the ending song of Slam Dunk Master, it became an eternal classic in the hearts of animation lovers from generation to generation.
Due to the popularity of MY FRIEND, many cartoons invited her to create it. Since then, ZARD has frequently launched anime songs.
In 1997, DON'T YOU SEE! "became the ending song of" Dragon Ball GT ".
In 1998, "Can't Breathe" became the opening song of "China's Little Master".
In 1998, Turning the Wheel of Destiny became the theme song of Detective Conan. ZARD thus became Conan's "royal band", and ZARD created nine works for Conan, including OP and ED.
Among them, "