[article] Namie's all whipped up

[nmskalmn]

IN the mid '90s, they were J-pop icons.

These days, however, they have vastly different fates.

While Namie Amuro is enjoying a new lease of popularity, her old pop rival, Tomomi Kahala, has hit rock bottom.

Namie, 30, whipped up a storm recently with the release of her highly-anticipated new album, Play, which went on to become her first chart-topping album in seven years.

Besides creating a buzz with her sexy, whip-wielding image, the former J-pop queen who was dethroned by the reigning star Ayumi Hamasaki, also lightened up and showed her irreverent side in a welcome change.

For instance, Namie was asked by the Japanese media if she wanted to be a man or woman in her next life.

'I'm happy being a woman now, but I once thought of becoming a man because I've always been curious, and I'd like to know how it feels to pick up girls,' she said, reported United Daily News.

The Okinawa-born singer also spoke about her fascination with Nintendo's new Momotaro Dentetsu game and how she threw a fit when someone else played with her hand-held console while she was recording.

How childish, even though Namie is a divorcee and mother of 9-year-old son from her short-lived marriage to a dancer.

But it is precisely her girl-woman appeal that has sparked renewed interest in fans.

Industry observers in Japan has predicted a new round of 'Amuro Effect', as she has steadily reinvented herself as a credible R&B and hip-hop artiste over the past two years while continuing to relate to her fans of yesteryear.

Play is her seventh studio album, and true enough, it entered the Oricon charts at No 1 late last month. It has sold more than 400,000 copies in Japan.

Elsewhere, Play also hit the top spot on Taiwan's G-Music J-pop chart and Singapore HMV's J-pop/K-pop chart - both signs of her revived popularity.

Back in Japan, some 20,000 letters were reportedly received in response to Namie's closed-door mini concert for 600 fans held early this month.

Also generating a talking point is Namie's new whip-wielding image, which screams of Madonna.

Namie posed as a policewoman and air stewardess in two sets of visuals for her new album cover.

When asked by reporters if she was copying Madonna, she said the covers were only designed to bring out the Play-ful theme of her R&B/hip-hop music and to give fans a refreshing feeling.

TOMOMI SACKED

Meanwhile, Namie's former pop rival Tomomi, 33, was sacked by her management agency late last month.

She dug her own grave by cancelling rehearsals and performances without notice and allegedly getting addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, said Mainichi Daily News, quoting Shukan Josei magazine.

The head of her agency told Shukan Josei that he had known about Tomomi's 'problems with medicine' and tried to help her.

Firing her was the last resort and he hoped it would 'serve as a kind of shock therapy for her to get her life back in order again'.

Tomomi was groomed to fame in the mid '90s by her music producer-turned-lover Tetsuya Komuro, and her fairytale rise got her labelled the 'Cinderella' of J-pop.

Now what she needs is a prince to come to her rescue.

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/show/st...137494,00.html