[Crystal_Ageha]

^ That's what I mean. She was the first to bring Western styled R&B into the J-Pop scene, but her success for that only lasted a few years--she isn't even like that anymore, and she hasn't been since Distance, pretty much. (All albums after Distance were much more regular J-Pop, mainstream stuff, until TITO [which is for obvious reasons, since it's not even technically a Japanese album].) And to this day, Western styled R&B/hip-hop/rap doesn't do very well in Japan, so it's not like she completely changed the Japanese music culture. So I don't think she should be considered the most influential of the DECADE, just for bringing in a different style for a few years, because even then, it was just her that was doing it, pretty much. To this day, the most Western styled stuff in that genre that you'll see is people like Crystal Kay - that poppy, girly type of R&B that's kind of the same worldwide.