Ringo Shiina (椎名 林檎 Shiina Ringo?)[2], born Yumiko Shiina (椎名 裕美子 Shiina Yumiko?), is a Japanese singer-songwriter born on November 25, 1978. She works both as a solo musician and singer as well as a member of the bandTokyo Jihen.On the Nekoyanagi Line website, she described herself as "Shinjuku-kei Jisaku-Jien-ya (新宿系自作自演屋 a person who performs in her own Shinjuku-style play?)".
She was ranked number 36 in a list of Japan's top 100 musicians provided by HMV in 2003.[3]
Biography
[edit]Early life
Yumiko was born in Urawa (now part of Saitama), Saitama Prefecture, to Kōtarō and Akiko Shiina, an oil company executive and full-time homemaker. She was born with an esophageal atresia in which the esophagus narrows as it approaches the stomach. Treatment of this involved several operations, at least one of which requiring her right shoulder blade to be cut open. These surgeries left Shiina with large scars on her shoulder blades, said to give the impression that an angel's wings had been removed.[4]
Her first exposure to music came from her father's interest in jazz and classical music; additionally, her mother had majored in dance in college and practiced ballet. Her parents owned a large collection of music, a piano, and a guitar, and her father also was a devoted reader of music magazines. She began to take piano lessons at the age of 4 and studied classical ballet starting at the age of 5.
While very outgoing as a young child, Shiina became shy and quiet after her family moved to Shimizu (Present: Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka), Shizuoka Prefecture on account of her father's job. Her parents remember her as a mostly trouble-free child, except that she could not stand being alone and would throw tantrums if she could not have a friend to play with. Otherwise she was generally retiring and spent her early school days without attracting attention.
Following that, the family moved (again because of her father's job) to Sawara-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture and Shiina entered junior high school there. Fukuoka became an important city for her, though she lived there for only six years. While there she once again became an outgoing person. Her official biography originally announced that she came from Fukuoka, and she often answered interviews in Fukuoka dialect "Hakata-ben" at the time of her debut.
Entering junior high, she realized that it was impossible to become a ballet dancer. Her body had become less symmetrical, owing to the results of the operations in her infancy. The new piano and ballet teachers who didn't know her circumstances pointed out in succession that she couldn't give power equally to the right and left parts of her body, and she noticed that. She stopped taking ballet lessons, and stopped studying piano soon afterwards. On the other hand, she started listening to a wider range of music other than classical music or the records of her parents. She got absorbed in drama and longed to be a dramatist or to be involved in stage design. She was asked by her drama teacher to add music to the lines of a play, and taking advantage of this opportunity, she began her musical activities. She formed a band with her classmates and performed in the school festival. She played drums at the beginning, but finally sang as the lead singer. Although the band broke up, she began to makedemos and began to aim to be a professional musician.
A man her parents knew recommended that she have an audition for "The 19th Horipro Talent Scout Caravan" (1994). The total number of applicants is about 40,000-50,000 on average at the ordinary year. She was chosen as the representative of the Kyushu area, but lost the final.
After entering high school, she worked in about 10 different bands and improved her musical skills by performing live. She was a guitarist and a lead singer in the main band, but, in the other bands, she played keyboards, a bass, or drums.
At the same time, she also busked near Nishitetsu Fukuoka station in Tenjin.
In 1995, she participated in the national convention of "The 9th TEENS' MUSIC FESTIVAL" which Yamaha Corporation sponsored as a member of the all-girl band,Marvelous Marbles in which she performed vocals, and won a prize to encourage youth.
She became a fan of the indie rock group Number Girl at that time. Hisako Tabuchi, the guitarist of the rival band with which she had often played with live was a member of Number Girl. She began to play the guitar emulating Hisako Tabuchi. She attended various shows when possible. A few years later, she asked Hisako Tabuchi to play guitar in recording some her songs, and formed the Indie rock band called Hatsuiku Status with Tabuchi. Ahito Inazawa, the drummer of Number Girl participated in recording of her third album Karuki Zaamen Kuri-no-Hana. In addition, she participated in the album of the new band Zazen Boys which Shutoku Mukai, the vocalist ofNumber Girl and Inazawa also sang backing vocals.
In 1996, she quit senior high school, and participated in "The 5th Music Quest 1996" which Yamaha Corporation sponsored similarly as a solo artist while working part-time in a pizzeria and in a security firm. She had already been requested to sign the contract from 2 or 3 record labels at the preliminary contest stage of Fukuoka Prefecture, but she participated in the finals stage just in case and won an Award of Excellence, (the winning tune was "Kokode Kiss shite"). However, she insisted that Yamaha could not use her talent to the fullest, and refused a contract with Yamaha. She ended up agreeing to a contract with Toshiba EMI. She said that the ratio of the factor that she contracted with EMI was the Blankey Jet City 80%, ORIGINAL LOVE 10%, The Beatles and the rest 10%.
Since she had already finished writing/composing most of the tunes for two albums, she submitted them at a planning meeting for her debut. However, she was harshly criticized by directors of EMI about her lyrics, and her opinions clashed with theirs many times. Since she was disgusted with the situation, she left for the U.K. counting on her friend's help in January, 1997. The lyrics of "Tadashii Machi" and "Identity" expressed her mind at that time. She was determined to make her debut as a singer after much worry, and went back to Japan three months later.
[edit]Initial solo career
Ringo Shiina's first official single was released in May 1998, when she was 19 years old. It was entitled "Kōfukuron" ("Happiness Theory"). In the video for this single, Shiina alluded to her surgery scars by wearing a pair of wings on her back. Although it was the title track, she didn't like the arrangement of this song as she felt it was too similar to her demo version and she initially wanted to make"Suberidai" the title song, but this was rejected by EMI as they felt the song would not be a big seller. She also wanted to release "Keikoku" or "Gibs" as the first single, but the then EMI director rejected it. However, thanks to the relative failure of the single, EMI stopped giving her such high priority and she was able to have more input into the promotion of her music.
She chose "Kabukicho no Joou" as the second single. She intervened in direction of the music video and chose the location of the video shoot. Although the song was not a big seller, the lyrics and melody of the song, which was reminiscent of older Japanese pop music, gave her valuable exposure. Shiina dedicated the song to Ryoko Hirosue who had openly declared that she was a fan of Shiina's. Going so far as to attend theSenkou Ecstasy tour in the front row, mingling with regular fans.
Her third single and first hit was "Koko de Kiss Shite" which had a catchy tune and was a radical change from her prior singles. In the music video, she chose to replace a scene in which she appeared by herself and used a scene that had all the band members playing together instead. Encouraged by this success, she re-released "Koufukuron", resulting in it being a hit. She dedicated the song to Rie Tomosaka who was her close friend.
This was followed by the release of her first album, Muzai Moratorium (Innocence Moratorium), in February 1999. The album was a major hit. "Gibs" was due to be the next single, however, due to Shiina being hospitalized for aggravated influenza she had to cancel recording. Instead, "Honnou" was released as the 4th single. The music video for "Honnou" was set in a hospital based on Shiina's desire to use it as a motif. It stemmed from her frequent hospital visits as child and her hospitalization just prior to releasing the single. Although Shiina intended the video to have a cyberpunk feel or an to portray the image of a spacecraft's interior, many people interpreted it ascosplay, which disappointed her.
The 5th and 6th single, "Gibs" and "Tsumi to Batsu" were released at the same time to prevent clashing with the release of her second album, Shōso Strip (Lawsuit Winning Strip), in March 2000. This album was also a major success and is her best selling album to date. Prior to this release, Shiina had indicated that she would retire "Shiina Ringo" when she released three original albums. Although she wanted to be successful, she didn't want to be perceived as "mainstream". Her popularity had exceeded her expectations. At the time, she was among the top 3 Japanese female artists with Hikaru Utada and Ayumi Hamasaki in terms of popularity and sales. She was uncomfortable with being regarded as an "icon" even by people who were close to her, and that her fans said, "We love her since she surprises us each time". She wanted to stop being viewed as a commercial icon.[5] Her planned retirement soon became common knowledge and she even appeared on the front page of a tabloid with the headline "Shiina Ringo will change her name to Shiina Mikan(orange)." When she began to produce her third album "Fushigi, Waizatsu, Ekisentorikku (不思議・猥雑・エキセントリック Wonder, Vulgar, Eccentric?)" (tentative title) she intended to make it her last solo album.
She released the 7th single, Mayonaka wa Jyunketsu in March 2001, with the intention of recording it on her third album, but it is the only single to date that was not recorded on an album.[6] The music video was created in a retro-anime style because of her pregnancy, depicting Ringo as a sort of mid-'60s spy movie heroine. After recording the single, Shiina married Junji Yayoshi, a guitarist in her band, at the age of 24, and had a son. The two divorced 14 months later. Following her divorce, she intended to take an indefinte hiatus, but was unable to, and released a two-disc cover album which consisted of a compilation of multi-lingual covers entitled Utaite Myōri(Singer's Luck). Since she felt that a cover album didn't count as a bona fidealbum, she began to produce an original third album that she decided to record previously.
Although people around her suggested that she expand internationally, Shiina refused and rejected a proposal to sell her third album in countries outside of Japan.
In 2003, she released her third album, titled Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana (Lime, Semen, Chestnut Blossoms).[7] She was pleased to choose the members of the tour for the 3rd album. She felt that she would focus on composing music for other artists rather than performing herself.
Towards the conclusion of her solo career, she had her trademark beauty mark removed, and released her final solo single, "Ringo no Uta" ("Apple's Song"), which was adopted in the national children's song TV program "Minna no Uta." This song can be described as a vivid summation of her career, including a music video with references to all of her previous videos.
Shiina undertook the role of music director for the stage play "KKP (Kentaro Kobayashi Produce) #004 Lens" [8] which is based on the story of her short film "Tanpen Kinema Hyaku-Iro Megane" in July 2004.
