Noriko Kamachi, known professionally as Seiko Matsuda, is a Japanese singer-songwriter, known for being one of the most popular Japanese idols of the 1980s.
56 Facts About Seiko Matsuda
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Seiko Matsuda placed right behind pop group SMAP and ahead of Akina Nakamori, her biggest rival of the 1980s, who was listed in third place.
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Seiko Matsuda's legacy is best expressed in singles rather than albums.
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Seiko Matsuda once held the record of 25 number-one hits for musicians from 1983 to 2000 and for female solo artists.
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Seiko Matsuda was a performer on the finale of Kouhaku in 2014 and 2015, the prestigious NHK New Year's Eve Music show on which she has performed 24 times.
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Seiko Matsuda was born in a state of suspended animation due to a difficult birth at Koradai Hospital, where her aunt was the director's wife.
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Seiko Matsuda's 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.
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Seiko Matsuda 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 Otomo clan in the Sengoku period.
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In 1978 Seiko Matsuda attended the Miss Seventeen contest held by a popular teenage magazine, where she won the top prize.
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In January 1980 Seiko Matsuda made her debut as a radio personality, appearing weekly for the entire run of the radio program "The Punch Punch Punch", broadcast by radio station Nippon Radio.
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Originally, Seiko Matsuda was supposed to be a commercial actresses, however she had a poor audition and was replaced by Yukiko Yamada.
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In September 1980, Seiko Matsuda launched her first concert, entitled "First Kiss".
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In December 1982, Seiko Matsuda held her first concert in Nippon Budoukan entitled "Christmas Queen" and appeared at the New Year television program Kohaku for the third time.
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On 28 March 1983 Seiko Matsuda was physically attacked by a mentally ill person with a piece of metal in front of 6,000 horrified fans during a performance of a concert held in Okinawa.
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Seiko Matsuda collapsed after the assault, and was rushed to the hospital with her head bleeding.
16.
In December 1983 Seiko Matsuda released her 8th studio album Canary, in which she wrote the lyrics for the mononymous track.
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From this album, Seiko Matsuda has completely distanced from her idol image and switcher her focus to be a pro singer.
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In September 1988 Seiko Matsuda released her twenty-fifth single Tabitachi wa Freesia.
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In June 1989 Seiko Matsuda has ended contract with the Sun Music Production, in which she was under custody since her pre-debut times, and in August established her own private affiliated office Fantic with her brother, Mitsushisa Kamachi being the representative director and president.
20.
In June 1990, Seiko Matsuda released her second English album under the same name as stage name-Seiko Matsuda.
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The album contains ballads songs which Seiko Matsuda personally wanted to sing.
22.
In February 1992 Seiko Matsuda had released her thirty-second single Kitto, Mata Aeru.
23.
In June 1992, Seiko Matsuda released her ninth home-video release Seiko Matsuda Clips2 1992 Nouvelle Vague, which contains some of the videoclips from the album Nouvelle Vague.
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Between June and August 1995, Seiko Matsuda held concert tour Glorious Revolution.
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In December 1995, Seiko Matsuda made appearance at the New Year television program Kohaku for the 11th time.
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In 2020, Seiko Matsuda speaks out for the first time about the production process of the single on the television program Kanjam Kanzennen Show.
27.
In December 1996, Seiko Matsuda has numbers of the releases: her twenty-eight studio album Guardian Angel which includes 1 single, 2 re-recorded previously released songs and 3 newly recorded tracks.
28.
In June 1998, Seiko Matsuda released her forty-second single Koisuru Omoi: Fall in Love.
29.
In 1999, after making some discussion over with her previous management agency's producer, Mueno Wakamatsu, Seiko Matsuda has transferred her staff from private agency Fantastic to Wakamatu's agency Green Mark Music.
30.
From this single, Seiko Matsuda started to collaborate with the new musician collaborator and later sound producer, Shinji Harada.
31.
In 2002 Seiko Matsuda has transferred back to her former music label, Sony for the first time since 1995.
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In July 2006, Sony has released compilation album Seiko Matsuda, which consisted of 74 CDs, debuted at number 96, becoming the highest-priced album in the Oricon history at the price of 100,000 yen.
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In July 2008, was premiered live-action version of the Ghibli movie Hotaru no Haka, in which Seiko Matsuda starred the role of Seita's mother, it became her first movie role for the first time in 7 years.
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In June 2009 Seiko Matsuda has announced her transfer from the Sony to the Universal Music Japan, belonging to the record label for the first time since 2002.
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In May 2012 Seiko Matsuda released her seventy-seventh single Namida no Shizuku, written and produced by herself.
36.
In September 2012, Seiko Matsuda has performed as a guest vocalist on the album "Esprit De Four" by the contemporary Jazz super-group Fourplay.
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In October 2012, Seiko Matsuda made special guest appearance on the live event Tokyo Jazz 2012 along with Bob James.
38.
In June 2013, Seiko Matsuda was credited as a writer and producer to the Takashi Fujii's single "She is my new town".
39.
From this year until year 2020, Seiko Matsuda made yearly annual appearances on the program.
40.
In March 2017 Seiko Matsuda has challenged herself with the new music genre-jazz by releasing her first jazz album and in overall third English-cover album Seiko Matsuda Jazz, produced by Shigeyuki Kawashima and arranged by David Matthews.
41.
In November 2017, Seiko Matsuda held her first jazz themed live concert "SEIKO JAZZ 2017" at Orchard Hall.
42.
In June 2020, Seiko Matsuda has released digital single "Ruriiro no Chikyuu 2020", self covering her song from the album Supreme released in 1986.
43.
Seiko Matsuda has been cited by many musicians and idols as their main influence, mainly in the 1980s decade.
44.
Seiko Matsuda has been a secret idol for subsequent female celebrities such as Shoko Nakagawa who called Matsuda "my God and my universe".
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Seiko Matsuda is on the Top 3 list of Most No 1 albums, Most Top 10 singles and Most Top 10 albums for a solo artist.
46.
Seiko Matsuda is listed as second only behind Eikichi Yazawa as an artist to have performed many concerts at the Nippon Budokan.
47.
Seiko Matsuda's long staying power is mainly due to her continuous re-invention of herself.
48.
Between December 2022 and January 2023, on the survey of The best 100 80s Showa Idol held by Remindetop, Seiko Matsuda topped on number 2.
49.
In 1983 Seiko Matsuda was romantically linked with singer Hiromi Go.
50.
Momoe Yamaguchi, Japan's top female idol of the 1970s, had followed such a course, but Seiko Matsuda ended her relationship with Go instead.
51.
Seiko Matsuda married actor Masaki Kanda in 1985 but they divorced in 1997.
52.
Seiko Matsuda's second husband, Hiroyuki Hatano, was a dentist whom she married in 1998 but divorced in 2000.
53.
In 2013 Seiko Matsuda was spotted with her daughter Sayaka at the funeral of Seiko Matsuda's Sun Music director, Hideyoshi Aizawa.
54.
In 2016 and 2017 Seiko Matsuda caused a stir in the Japanese entertainment industry when she modeled for the lingerie company, Triumph International.
55.
On 16 October 2023 news websites reported that Seiko Matsuda donated over 10 million yen to her hometown Fukuoka, which was affected by heavy rains in July of the same year.
56.
On 26 March 2024 Seiko Matsuda graduated from the Faculty of Law at Chuo University.