Tetsuya Komuro

Tetsuya Komuro (小室 哲哉) is a Japanese musician, songwriter and record producer.

He is recognized as the most successful producer in Japanese music history and has introduced contemporary electronic dance music to the Japanese mainstream.

He was also a former owner of the disco Velfarre located in Roppongi, Tokyo.

His career started as a keyboardist for Speedway in 1979.

In 1984, he created the TM Network with Takashi Utsunomiya and Naoto Kine.

A year later, in 1985, his first solo work was the soundtrack Vampire Hunter D for the anime movie Vampire Hunter D, and his band, TM Network, did the closing credits song "Your Song".

He subsequently composed other soundtracks such as Heaven and Earth and Seven Days War.

The song received the Golden Award at 28th Japan Record Awards in 1986.

As a solo singer, Komuro released singles "Running to Horizon" and "Gravity of Love" in 1989.

"Running to Horizon" topped the Oricon charts.

"Gravity of Love" also topped the Oricon charts, beating out Seiko Matsuda's "Precious Heart".

In 1989 and 1990, Komuro collaborated with Warren Cuccurullo.

As a composer and producer, Komuro wrote a song "My Revolution" for Misato Watanabe.

TM Network released single "The Point of Lovers' Night" on July 7, 1990.

The single also topped the Oricon weekly charts, beating out Wink's single "Yoru ni Hagurete (Where Were You Last Night)".

TM Network changed its name to TMN in 1990.

By the early 1990s, Komuro was spending much of his time writing songs for and producing many other musicians and bands.

He was also an early pioneer of dance music in Japan, and came to stardom in the 1990s as producer with a long string of hits with artists such as TRF (TK Rave Factory), Tomomi Kahala, Namie Amuro, Ami Suzuki, hitomi, Ryoko Shinohara and H Jungle with t. In 1994, he composed the musical score to the Japanese anime film Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, based on the Capcom video game.

Ryōko Shinohara recorded the theme song of the anime film, "Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to", with Tetsuya Komuro.

In 1991, he collaborated with X Japan drummer and pianist Yoshiki as V2.

TMN disbanded in 1994.

The single of the theme song was released on July 21, 1994, and sold over two million copies on Oricon charts.

This score was removed from the US release of the film.

He was mainly helped in this task by the mix engineers Pete Hammond and Dave Ford.

Both were working for PWL, which was the home of the British producing team Stock Aitken Waterman.

Not only that, "TK" is also credited for the rise to fame of Daisuke Asakura, a popular Japanese composer, keyboardist and music producer who began his major musical career as a backup keyboardist for TM Network.

Asakura is reported to view Komuro as his "Sensei" or "Teacher".

In 1995, he monopolized all top 3 positions of the copyright distribution rankings for the JASRAC Award, a record in Japan's music history.

At his peak as a record producer the artists he predominantly produced for came to be known as TK Family and at one time included Namie Amuro, hitomi, TRF, Tomomi Kahara and Ami Suzuki amongst others.

In the Oricon singles chart of April 1996, he monopolized all the top 5 positions as the songwriter and producer, a world record.

In 1997, he started his overseas career with the remix of the theme music for the soundtrack to the 1997 American film Speed 2: Cruise Control, which Japanese MMA fighter Kazushi Sakuraba and English pro wrestler Johnny Smith later adopted as their entrance music.

Komuro also released albums as a solo singer or musician and was involved in the bands Globe, Kiss Destination and Gaball.

On December 31, 1998, his band Globe's song "Wanna Be A Dreammaker" received the grand prix award at the 40th edition of Japan Record Award.

Komuro worked in collaboration with French keyboardist Jean Michel Jarre from 1998 to 2001.

The duet wrote the theme song for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, "Together Now", as well as several other tracks and remixes.

In 1999, Komuro, Utsunomiya and Kine reunited under their old name of TM Network, and remain active to this day.

He and Jarre also performed a concert on beaches in Okinawa on January 1, 2001.

As of 2008, records produced by him had sold more than 170 million copies, primarily in Japan.

Total sales of the singles he has written exceed 42 million copies, making him the fourth best-selling lyricist in Japan.

On November 4, 2008, Komuro was arrested and charged with fraud, for taking ¥500,000,000 in exchange for a promise to sell to a Hyōgo-based investor the copyright to his songs, which he had already sold to somebody else (which was Avex Group Holdings according to reports).