Yui (born March 26, 1987 in Fukuoka, Japan) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and actress. She is currently signed to Sony Music Records Japan and attached to the talent agency Stardust Promotion.
Yui grew up in a fatherless home and so she doesn't have any memory of her father. She does remember always being close to music, be it from her mother's car stereo or the radio, she would remember the tunes and sing along. By the time she was in elementary school she thought she'd like to become a singer.
During her third year in middle school, following the influence of her mother, Yui began keeping a journal of everyday feelings and poetry. Because of this, by the time she was in high school, she began writing songs. While in high school she worked a part-time job to help pay for tuition. Always busy, with her time steadily disappearing, she thought there was no longer a road to music. Eventually her body would breakdown and she found her self under hospitalization. While in the hospital, with the time to consider her life, she was overwhelmed with the desire to make music. She decided that school and music couldn't coexist. Upon leaving the hospital she encountered a live street performance and expressed her desire to pursue a musical career to the band, Bianco Nero (ビアンコネロ), at the end of the concert. Bianco Nero recommended Yui that she should join a private music school and soon, she dropped out of high school and seriously began studying songwriting and guitar at a juku in her hometown of Fukuoka.
Aspiring to become a professional, she carried her guitar around and sang at local places at the entrance of Tenjin station in Fukuoka. Even though she was shy, she still enjoyed doing street performances.She met with two travellers who said one word that reminded her about her past
Her professional career began in March 2004 when at the recommendation of her juku instructors she applied for an audition hosted by Sony Music Japan.Despite the audition rule that a participant could only sing two songs, Yui sang three, with all of the judges gave her the highest score possible and causing a fierce scramble among record labels to sign her. She first sang "Why Me" (a song later included in her major label debut single), followed by "It's Happy Line" and "I Know". Because "I Know" was incomplete at the time, the judges were able to get a glimpse of what would later be dubbed "Yui-go", or Yui-talk (Yui語 in Japanese), nonsensical English hummed to a tune during her songwriting process — an example of Yui-go can be found in the film Midnight Sun when Yui is working on the song "Goodbye Days".
On Christmas Eve of that year, she released her debut single "It's Happy Line" under the indie label Leaflet Records, coupled with the track "I Know". The pressing was limited to only 2000 copies in her home area.
Upon leaving her hometown in Fukuoka for Tokyo, Yui wrote the song "Feel My Soul". She was planning its release on an indie label as a tribute to her hometown. However, when the song caught the ears of Fuji TV producer Mr. Yamaguchi, who just happened to see the demo video clip, he claimed that Yui's voice haunted him so much that he went out of his way to visit the recording studio all by himself. He even made his channel's prime time drama Fukigen na Gene use Yui's debut track.
On February 23, Yui released her first major debut single, "Feel My Soul". The music in Fukigen na Gene was mainly based on her songs such as "Feel My Soul" and "It's Happy Line". With the drama tie-in Feel My Soul managed to sell over 100,000 copies and her single managed to chart at #8 on Oricon Weekly Charts in its first week. Her next three singles, "Tomorrow's Way" (theme song for the Japanese movie, "Hinokio"), "Life" (fifth ending song for a popular anime, Bleach), and "Tokyo" did not chart as high as Feel My Soul did and were only moderately successful in comparison. After the release of four singles, Yui released her debut album From Me to You, which was another moderate success with sales of more than 200,000 copies.
Yui made her acting debut in the full-length Japanese feature film Midnight Sun, released on June 17, 2006. The film was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Yui attended Japan Academy Prize and received Best Newcomer Award for Midnight Sun. Prior to the release of the movie, however, Yui had released her 5th single "Good-bye Days" which is by far her highest selling single at 200,000 copies sold. "Good-bye Days" was written specifically for the film as are all three tracks featured on this single are featured in the movie. The single also has the track "It's Happy Line" as the third track, which was originally released on her debut single of the same title.
Her next single, "I Remember You", did fairly well in terms of sales boosted by "Good-bye Days"' popularity. Soon after, Yui's 7th single "Rolling Star" was chosen as the 5th opening theme song for the anime series Bleach and "Che.r.ry", her 8th single, was used as a song for the KDDI au Listen Mobile Service commercial. She released her second album Can't Buy My Love on April 4, 2007, which fared well on the Oricon charts, staying for two weeks at #1 and shattering her entire previous album's record sales in one week. So far, Can't Buy My Love has managed to sell over 680,000 copies. Due to the success of Can't Buy My Love, Yui's previous album, From Me to You charted once again to add another 9,000 copies to the Oricon counting.
Yui released her 9th single "My Generation / Understand" on June 13, 2007. It was her first double A-side single. "My Generation" was used as the theme song for the drama Seito Shokun!, and "Understand" was chosen as the theme song for the movie Dog in a Sidecar, which starred her senpai at Stardust Promotion, Yūko Takeuchi. It charted at #1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts for the first week of its release. Her 10th single, "Love & Truth" was released on September 26 and the title track is the theme song to the Japanese film, Closed Note, starring Erika Sawajiri (also of Stardust) who played the lead role in the film who also played the same role as Yui in Midnight Sun (Taiyou no uta), in television-drama version.
During this time, her first two albums were re-released as Winter Sleeve Edition in alternate covers presumably from her "Love & Truth" photoshoot. Her first live DVD "Thank You My Teens" was released on November 14, 2007, which contained footage of one of Yui's concert during her second live tour. On November 19, 2007, Yui opened her first Live show at Nippon Budokan. The tickets for the concert sold out.
Her first single of 2008, Namidairo, was released for sale on February 27, 2008. It is the theme song for the Japanese drama 4 Shimai Tantei Dan. Yui was asked to make a "mysterious and sad sounding" song for the drama tie-in, and she composed the song "Namidairo" as such. Incidentally, the chorus of the song was created by Yui during the time she made her singing debut. A week following the release of her 11th single, the promotional video of a new song "Laugh Away", was released. The song was used as the theme song for the Glico "Watering KissMint" commercial. "Laugh Away" was released as a digital single on March 10, 2008 and also included on her third album which would later be released.
Her third studio album was released on April 9, 2008 titled I Loved Yesterday. It charted at #1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts, with more than 400,000 copies sold, selling only a little behind her sophomore album. The 10th track on the album, titled "Oh Yeah" was used as the opening theme song to the morning Japanese show Mezamashi TV. The limited edition version of the album came with a DVD which included music videos of her previous singles and live footage of her Nippon Budokan show. Yui's third tour, named '"Oui" ~I Loved Yesterday~' was started in May and ended in July.
Yui released a single, entitled "Summer Song" on July 2, 2008. This single charted at #1 on Oricon Weekly Chart. Summer Song is Yui's 1st #1 hit single since "I Remember You" that wasn't tied to a drama (My Generation / Understand, Namidairo), commercial (Laugh Away, Che.r.ry) or anime (Rolling Star). Summer Song sold 83,440 copies in a week, making Summer Song 2nd highest in 1st week sales after Love & Truth single.
Yui's latest compilation album, My Short Stories, released 12 November 2008, again charted #1 on Oricon, featuring the B-Sides from all her past singles (Feel My Soul to Summer Song), along with new song "I'll Be".
Yui is only the second female artiste whose B-side compilation album topped the charts, after Seiko Matsuda's "Touch Me" in 1984. The last compilation album that reached #1 was Mr. Children's B-Side, on 21 May 2007. Due to the success of "My Short Stories", sales of her first album From Me to You rose again. In her 29 August 2008 "Yui Diary" blog entry, Yui mentioned that she will take a break for a while from all public appearances after this new album to re-energize herself. With this break, she will be able to fully concentrate on next year's song production
