Namie Amuro -- How to be a Girl

 

Fans panic as huge pop star Namie Amuro completely disappears

A pop star “as big as Madonna” is being wiped from the internet and streaming services after her retirement from public life aged just 40.

The above heading and first sentence for this article came from the entertainment section of news.com.au and it's dated November 20th 2023. Never let it be said that J-Canuck has his pulse on every aspect of J-Pop at all times. And I don't...I really do live up to my reputation as a late bloomer and latecomer. I didn't even hear about this Thanos Snap of huge swathes of Namie Amuro's（安室奈美恵）discography online and even her own website until commenter and fellow writer Fireminer (who has contributed an article today) keyed me in on the development yesterday.

However, I can imagine fans going into a major tizzy at the time especially after Amuro had retired years ago in 2018 and staying very much off the pop culture grid as promised. After all, it's bad enough that a J-Pop legend had left the building years earlier than expected, but now her collection of songs and albums have been mysteriously repossessed by an existential truck. And Amuro hasn't left any message explaining why.

It's been the better part of a year since this has all happened and I'm not sure why it did. Speculation is the only thing I can do here. Is this some sort of grand plan? Was Namie getting really fed up that her post-retirement was still overly filled with fans and media going nuts about her and her discography? In a way, I can compare this with the retirement of 70s superstar Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）from entertainment in that by the end of her time in 1980, she was very ready to leave the spotlight after gradually developing a sour taste in her mouth with the industry. But when she left, the fans still had all of her music and other forms of her entertainment legacy to savor for decades. Perhaps that's not as easy to say about the current state of affairs with Amuro at this time.

On the other hand, is this an Amuro-geddon? I really don't think so. Even though the Namie Amuro section of sites like Spotify has tumbleweeds rolling about, I've seen that SoundCloud still has at least the live performances of her hits. YouTube has much the same; true, her music videos are not to be found unless they're excerpts from commercials but as someone who has written about her on the blog, the dearth of full music videos was the usual case for Amuro from long before. 

It was suggested that I should put up a Top 10 list of her best singles on behalf of any new fans in the future, but I opted not to go with that because again we're not looking at an Amuro-geddon here. There was something that sounded rather funereal about that (plus, I couldn't find an easy Top 10 list of her most successful singles online); after all, she hasn't left this mortal coil...she's just insistently retired. I even thought about putting up my favourite Top 3 Amuro songs but instead, I'm going to go with something business as usual.

As I mentioned to Fireminer, my favourite songs by Amuro were in her early years in the 1990s when she was not only hitting the top of the charts with her Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）-penned hits but making the hits on style and fashion. This particular single here, "How to be a girl", was one of the last ones I remember along with her "Never End" from 2000.

"How to be a girl" was Amuro's 10th single from May 1997. Written and composed by Komuro with further lyrical help from Marc Panther, his bandmate from globe, there is very much of a "don't mess with me" attitude from the singer although the lyrics have a young lady in a whirlwind of confusion thanks to an act of affection from the night before that perhaps she hadn't experienced. Those lyrics might show vulnerability but the music shows the funky and tough exterior. I remember "How to be a girl" as well from the music video of her doing the catwalk strut in a subway, but again, the best I can do here is the commercial.

The single was another No. 1 hit for Amuro and it eventually became the 23rd-ranked single of 1997 and a million-seller. It is also available as a track on her July 1997 album "Concentration 20" which was a No. 1 hit as well and the No. 7 album of the year.

Heck of a thing for an article like this to show up several months after Amuro's discographic disappearing act, but here's hoping that the singer herself is doing well and is being successful in whatever she's up to now. As for the fans, I'm hoping that they have moved on as well and are able to purchase any of her albums and singles.