Scandal

CriminaL Baby. Пет 29 Май 2009, 18:17

Scandal (stylized SCANDAL) is a Japanese pop group. Proclaiming themselves as "The Most Powerful Japanese Girlie Pop Rock", they are composed of four high school girls from Osaka, Japan: Haruna Ono, Tomomi Ogawa, Mami Sasazaki, and Rina Suzuki. Scandal is very energetic, mostly due to the fact that Ono, the eldest and leader of the band, shares lead vocals with the other three members, in order to not have a focus on one girl in particular and to give each time in the limelight.

The four girls came together as music-loving high school friends to form Scandal, and decided to write and play their own songs while juggling their regular school lives. As time went on, the group started to get offers from clubs and music halls around Osaka and Kyoto.

Eventually, more than one hundred fans began to consistently attend every single live performance Scandal performed on Tokyo's streets, and the band began to take widespread public notice throughout Japan. In August 2007, Scandal seized the opportunity to participate in a special event at Shibuya Club Asia, a highly recognized and respected club in Shibuya. It was during this time that record label Tower Records first asked the four girls if they would like to have their music recorded with them. Several months later, the girls had worked out a flexible independent agreement with Tower, and SCANDAL started to become more mainstream.

Their first indie single was released on March 3, 2008 in celebration of Girl's Day, which sold out throughout Japan and has a hard time being kept in stock due to high demand. In in order to alleviate the fan's troubles in getting this album, the single was released on both the US and Japanese iTunes Music Store on April 9, 2008. Two more singles (in CD form) have been released in the months following.

Right after their first release, Scandal left Japan to go on their first international tour, "Japan Nite US Tour 2008", followed by two concerts at the Japanese cultural and anime convention, "Sakura-Con 2008" from March 16 to March 30.

Scandal's music has been featured in a range of popular media: their first single, "Space Ranger", is the opening to Kyoto Sports Weekly, and their second single, "Koi Moyo" is the main theme of the movie Corazon de Melon. Their song, "Start", is the theme song for Star Ocean: Second Evolution and is available on the game's soundtrack. More recently, "Daydream" was featured on a tribute album to the classic multi-genre Japanese band, Judy and Mary, and their song "Shōjo S" is the tenth opening of the anime series "Bleach".

An interesting note about the group is the unique way in which they chose to promote themselves. Since they are fans of Japanese animation and manga, they wanted to be represented in animated form, turning each member into an animated character. The animated SCANDAL is featured on Japanese Television, on a series of promotional videos on the band's website and on Anime News Network.

In early September 2008, Scandal began talks with the head of Sony Music Japan due to the fact that with Tower Records, their CDs were made in very limited quantities which caused them to sell out quickly. They soon worked out a contract with Sony and moved away from the indie music scene. However, due to Sony's ongoing disagreements with Apple Inc. over their iTunes Music Store and Sony's own Mora, the band's music which was formerly available on iTunes, was quickly removed from both the US and Japanese iTunes stores.

Sakura Goodbye