YUI with glasses @meganeyui - Tumblr Blog

FLOWER FLOWER - 素晴らしい世界 Subarashi Sekai (Amazing World).

Sony Music Japan’s Youtube Channel has region locked this performance clip from the DVD but thankfully Sony Music Taiwan is nice enough to share it with the rest of the world (they’ve also added Chinese subtitles…which I can’t read xD).

Yui’s new band has officially released an album:

FLOWER FLOWER -「実」

————————————————————————————-

I’ve been a fan of this Japanese singer-songwriter named YUI since her debut back in 2005. She was only 15-16 years old and I was the same age so I felt like I could relate. As a fan, I’ve travelled to Japan to see her concert and have met a lot of new friends around the world. I have the best memories as a #yui fan, especially when I won a contest to go on stage with YUI at her first overseas concert in Hong Kong. It was awesome!

On top of all that, she’s received our fangroup’s (YUI-Lover.com) international collaborative CD gift which I handmade and shipped. She’s even answered my Twitter questions for a Japanese music magazine! What more could I ask for?

As YUI, she has accomplished a steady fan base (including overseas in other Asian countries) with Sony Music Japan but I had a hunch that writing songs for others (mainly songs for commercial purposes) over such a long period of time wasn’t going to bode well with an artist like herself. She loves music too much to break away from it but to be stuck in that cycle of the singer-songwriter acoustic guitar Japanese pop ‘girl next door’ pattern all the time…it must be “suffocating.” Hence, she decided to go on a hiatus. The image or plan that Sony Japan had for her wasn’t what she wanted as an artist. She wanted growth and experimentation. I’ve always loved her music as “YUI” but you could tell near the end of her last YUI studio album “How Crazy Your Love,” something was missing. Overall, it was always her melodies and ability to express the emotions in her music that reached to me (even the more commercial/mainstream work as she always uses vague yet poetic lyrics) . I don’t even speak Japanese and I liked her music!

Back in 2012, I was one of the lucky few who had the chance to witness yui’s transformation. Rumours of yui performing in underground/secret live houses emerged and I had managed to witness 6 of these lives during another trip to Japan. All the songs were new and a lot more experimental than her works as YUI yet it was still very “yui” of her (again from her melodies + ability to express). I felt super excited inside like almost anxious because I wanted this to be real and that this music would be released officially as FLOWER FLOWER. I knew at that moment that she had met the right bandmates to work creatively with in order to innovate herself.

This new FLOWER FLOWER album is essentially an electronic pop rock album. It’s different from all her YUI works but this type of music is pretty rare to find in the Japanese music world (I’m disregarding the j-indie scene here cos they have some awesome stuffs). It is such a refreshing album in the mainstream Japanese music industry. Some older YUI fans might not like this new album but I think it’s important to be open-minded. I am super elated about the risks yui has taken with this album. This yui has been reborn. Change is good and I’m hoping I can channel that drive to do something different in my life like she has.

That 2012 Japan trip was a spontaneous one but I am never going to forget it. I am super thankful - but this wouldn’t have happened without fellow Kikino , our friends in Japan and just pure luck. Thanks to the YUI-Lover community I got to meet my favorite Japanese artist and speak with her with random words of Japanese and English. I was beyond happy! I cried at the airport not wanting to leave Japan.