Seiko Matsuda

The single was nominated at the 22nd Japan Record Awards in the category New Artist Award and has been rewarded with the special award on the 11th Japan Music Awards along with the Toshihiko Tahara.

Noriko Kamachi was born on 10 March 1962, in Chikuhō, Mizuma, Fukuoka Prefecture (present-day Arakimachi, Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture), as the eldest daughter of her parents.

She was born in a state of suspended animation due to a difficult birth at Kōradai Hospital, where her aunt was the director's wife.

Her father was a government official at the Ministry of Health and Welfare and her mother was from a family of former village heads from Yame.

She is a descendant of Kamachi Akimori of the Kamachi clan, the lords of Yanagawa Castle who were the most powerful feudal lords in Chikugo Province in the service of the Ōtomo clan in the Sengoku period.

In 1978, Seiko attended the Miss Seventeen contest held by a popular teenage magazine, where she won the top prize.

Following this win, she was spotted and scouted by CBS Sony Producer, Muneo Wakamatsu.

The sixteen-year-old Noriko Kamachi from Kurume, Fukuoka had to choose between the stage names Seiko Arata or Seiko Matsuda, Noriko chose Seiko Matsuda.

In 1979, she started to rise popularity as a magazine teen idol and in the same year, debuted as an actresses in the television series Odaijini, which was broadcast by Nippon TV, appearing in the all 26 episodes.

Noriko Kamachi (蒲池 法子), known professionally as Seiko Matsuda (松田 聖子), is a Japanese singer-songwriter, known for being one of the most popular Japanese idols of the 1980s.

Since then, she is still actively releasing new singles and albums, doing annual summer concert tours, winter dinner shows, high-profile TV commercials and movies, and makes frequent TV appearances and radio broadcasts.

Due to her popularity in the 1980s and her long career, she has been dubbed the "Eternal Idol" by the Japanese media.

She placed right behind pop group SMAP and ahead of Akina Nakamori, her biggest rival from the 1980s, who was listed in third place.

In January 1980, Seiko made her debut as an radio personality, who appeared regularly weekly for the entire on the radio program The Punch Punch Punch broadcast by radio station Nippon Radio.

In April 1980, she made her musical debut with the song "Hadashi no Kisetsu" (lit. "Barefoot Season").

The song was featured in a television commercial for Shiseido's Ekubo, which broadcast two months before release, in February.

During the commercial broadcast, it was assumed that the actresses on the commercial was singing the song.

Originally, Seiko was supposed to be commercial actresses, however she had a failed audition and was replaced by Yukiko Yamada.

The single received immediate interest by listeners, debuting at chart 12 on the Oricon Weekly charts and sold over 280k copies.

In July 1980, she released her second single Aoi Sangosho, which served as a television commercial song for the Glicco's ice cream product Yorel.

It became her first single to debut at Top 3 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and has sold over 600k copies.

In September 1980, Seiko has launched her first concert titled First Kiss.

With the popularity of the Aoi Sangosho, the female fans all over the country has been inspired by the Seiko's haircut, which has become massive requests of the hair cuts among the hair-dresses and has received a special social phenomenon called Seiko-chan cut.

The hair-cut has been inspired by the future debuting idols such as Akina Nakamori or Minako Honda.

In August 1980, she released her first studio album Squall, which includes previously 2 released single and 8 newly recorded songs.

The single debuted at No.2 charts on the Oricon Weekly charts.

In October 1980, she released her third single "Kaze wa Akiro" (lit. "Wind Is Autumn Color").

It became her third television commercial song to be associated with the Shideo, this time for the product Ekubo: Milky Fresh.

The song has become her first single to debut at peak 1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and sold over 796k copies.

On the 1980 yearly Oricon rankings, the single ranked at 14th place and in 1981 yearly Oricon rankings, the single remained on 65th place.

The single has become one of the first songs of her 24 consecutive number one hits in Japan.

In December 1980, she released her second studio album North Wind, 4 months after the previous album release.

The album includes single Kaze wa Akira along with its B-side Track Eighteen and 8 newly recorded songs.

The album debuted at No.1 charts on the Oricon Weekly charts.

At the end of the year 1980, she made her first appearance in the 21st new-year program Kohaku.

Matsuda once held the record for 25 number-one hits for general artist from 1983 to 2000 (broken by B'z) and for female solo artist (broken by Ayumi Hamasaki in 2010).

In January 2011, the Japanese music television program Music Station listed her as the 2nd best-selling idol of all time in Japan, with 29,510,000 records sold.

Matsuda was the overall finale performer of Kouhaku (Red White Music Battle) in 2014 and 2015, the prestigious NHK New Year's Eve Music show on which she has performed 24 times (until 2020).

On the yearly Oricon rankings, the singled ranked at 15th place.

In 2016, however, Ian Martin of The Japan Times compared her output unfavorably with that of Hikaru Utada, describing Matsuda as "first and foremost an idol rather than an artist. Her legacy is best expressed in singles rather than albums."