Zard

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For the villages in Iran, see Zard, Isfahan; Zard, Kermanshah; and Zard, North Khorasan.

Zard

Origin Japan

Genres Rock, pop rock

Years active 19912007

Labels B-Gram Records

Website Wezard.net

Past members Izumi Sakai

Fumihito Machida

Hiroyasu Hoshi

Ksuke Michikura

Kimitaka Ikezawa

External video

ZARD ALBUM COLLECTION MEDOLEYZARD Official YouTube Channel

Zard ( Zdo) was a Japanese pop rock group. Originally a group of five members, with lead
vocalist Izumi Sakai as group leader. However, Sakai was the only member who stayed on in the
group while others joined and left regularly. As such, Zard and Sakai may be referred to
interchangeably. Zard's work was sold under the record label B-Gram Records, Inc. Their most
popular and successful songs are "Makenaide" (1993) (), "Yureru Omoi" (1993) (
), and "My Friend" (1996). As of 2014, Zard has sold over 37 million records, making them one
of the best-selling music artists in Japan.

Contents [hide]

1 Career

1.1 Post-Izumi Sakai Zard

2 Sakai's death

3 Discography

3.1 Studio albums

4 Live

4.1 What a Beautiful Moment Concert Tour 2004

4.2 What a Beautiful Memory Concert Tour 2007-2009

4.3 What a Beautiful Memory ~Forever You~

4.4 What a Beautiful Memory ~25th Anniversary~

5 See also

6 References

7 External links

Career[edit]

Zard began when Being Corporation former CEO Daik Nagato (retired in 2007) recruited a 24-year-
old model named Sachiko Kamachi. Changing her name to Izumi Sakai in an attempt to cut off her
past, she created a group called Zard. While whether the supporting members were firmly decided
on is not clear, Zard made a breakthrough with the release of their debut single February 10, 1991
Good-bye My Loneliness, which was a theme song for the Fuji TV drama "Ideals and Reality of
Marriage" featuring Misako Tanaka. The song was very successful, reaching No. 9 in the Oricon
rankings.

Zard's next two singles did not sell as well. The fourth, "Nemurenai Yoru wo Daite" (
) took a slightly different approach. The group's rock style had morphed to popular while the
seemingly dark music videos turned to a relatively brighter image. In fact, half of Zard's official
appearances on TV were related to performing this song, which sold 440,000 copies. At that time,
Music Station host Kazuyoshi Morita (aka Tamori) asked Sakai what took Zard so long to be on stage.
Sakai's reply was that they wanted to make sure Zard would be an economically viable project and
hence did not want to go public prematurely.

The major breakthrough for Zard came with the sixth single in 1993, "Makenaide", which became
No. 1 in the Oricon charts and went on to sell over 1.8 million copies. She went on to release two
more songs that reached No. 1, "Yureru Omoi" and "Kitto Wasurenai" in the same year. An album
titled "Yureru Omoi" featuring both "Makenaide" and "Yureru Omoi" sold two million copies, the
first million milestone for Zard in album sales. In fact, Being was so successful in the early 1990s that
it was called Being Boom. No one sold more CDs than Zard in this year.

In 1995, Zard sold one more million hit, "My Friend". Although her sales fluctuated among six digits
in sales for the remainder of the twentieth century, nine of twenty-one singles reached No. 1 and six
reached No. 2. Only two could not break the top four mark. Since "Yureru Omoi" () she
also sold three hits of one million and one other of two million copies. On August 31, 1999, Zard held
their first concert aboard cruise ship Pacific Venus, where six hundred people were randomly
selected out of a million applicants. The DVD for this concert, released on January 26, 2000, had a
limited production of 300,000 copies.

Sakai was also a very prolific lyricist. She wrote 150 songs during her 17-year career (numerous
songs for other artists as well as all of the Zard songs except for two, Koionna no Yutsu (
) and Onna de Itai () from their first album, Good-bye My Loneliness, which was
written by Daria Kawashima,[1]) and released several books of poetry as well. An editorial in Asahi
Shimbun writes that the secret to Zard's success was that while the trend in Japan showed a
decrease in the number of music programs on television, Zard used late night commercials that aired
her voice to advertise her works.

She also wrote songs for other artists, most notably for the J-pop groups that shared her
management company: Field of View, Wands and Deen, and the late mainland Taiwanese singer
Teresa Teng. She also wrote the lyrics for and participated in the collaboration for the single
"Hateshinai Yume o" () featuring J-pop groups Zard, Zyyg, Rev & Wands. The single
also featured famed Japanese baseball hero Shigeo Nagashima. Some of her singles were used in
anime, such as Slam Dunk, Dragon Ball GT and Detective Conan. The lyrics of "Dan Dan Kokoro
Hikareteku" ( ) by Field of View, the opening theme song of Dragon
Ball GT, is by Izumi Sakai. Afterward, Zard covered this song in Today Is Another Day album.

Zard's most successful single, Makenaide () has been used as a theme song for Nippon
Television program 24-hour TV, an annual Japanese television programming in which a celebrity host
is on screen continually for a whole day. Sakai said that she was honored and looked forward to
watching 24-hour TV. She also said that since Makenaide was widely appreciated by the public, she
often felt as if that song was not hers to keep.

Zard was also known for being mysterious. This is partially because her record label did not release
too much personal information on their artists, and also because she did not make that many
personal appearances. She rarely appeared on any live TV music programs (e.g. TV Asahi's Music
Station), which the main public relations tool for the record industry in Japan, since 1993 or do any
public appearances. Her first concert was in 1999, this being held on a cruise ship for a mere 600
people in her fan club (300 entries x2 among 2 million concert ticket requests). Her first real concert
tour, "What A Beautiful Moment Tour", was held in 2004, 13 years after her debut. Almost every
single concert was sold out at the time. The tour ended up having 10 concerts spanning 4 months
from March to July 2004, with a final concert held in the famed Nippon Budokan.

Although originally Zard is a group, Zard was frequently regarded as a solo female singer in Japan.[2]
She used to hold a female record in Japan for most single sales until Ayumi Hamasaki released "No
Way to Say".[3] According to Yomiuri Shimbun, as of August 2007, Zard was No. 8 for overall total in
Japan.[4] She has had 11 singles reach the No. 1 spot on the Oricon Singles Charts, and 9 albums
reach the No. 1 spot on the Oricon Album Charts. 40 of her singles reached top 10 in Oricon ranking.
Zard has released a total of 42 singles and 17 albums.

Zard was also featured in Tak Matsumoto's Ihoujin (August 27, 2003).
On a trivial note, Zard's album "Oh My Love" released in 1994 reached No. 1 for the 500th edition of
the Oricon Rankings since it began in 1970.[5] She has had 11 singles reach the No. 1 spot on the
Oricon

Post-Izumi Sakai Zard[edit]

An album based on fan request was released on January 23, 2008, titled Zard Request Best: Beautiful
Memory. NTV Morning News program, Zoom In Super's December 28, 2007 reports that over
500,000 entries were mailed to Being. Surprisingly, Makenaide and Yureru Omoi were not in the top
3, though they made the top 10. The three most voted songs were 1) Ano Hohoemi o Wasurenaide,
2) Shoujo no Koro ni Modotta Mitai ni, 3) Kakegae no Naimono.

When this album hit number one in the Oricon charts, it marked the eleventh time she had done so,
matching the record held by Dreams Come True for the most number ones by female vocal
groups.[6]

Sakai's death[edit]

Fans of Izumi Sakai writing messages for her to the signature notebooks in Zard's agency on May 31,
2007.

Founding member Izumi Sakai died on May 27, 2007 at the age of 40 in Keio University Hospital. She
entered the hospital in June 2006 after discovering she had cervical cancer and had the tumor
removed. In April 2007, however, the cancer had spread to her lungs, resulting in her re-admittance
to hospital. According to the hospital, she took daily walks every morning. During her walk on May
26, she accidentally fell from the stairs and was discovered at around 5:00 a.m. JST. She was sent to
the emergency room, but she died upon arrival.[7] An agency spokesman said:

We hope that Izumi Sakai, along with her hit songs, will remain in the memory of her fans.[8]

She had planned to release a new album in the fall, as well as her first live tour in three years to
show her fans that she was fighting strongly against her illnesses.

A memorial service for fans was held on June 27 in a funeral hall in Aoyama, Tokyo. On the previous
day, a memorial service for the people concerned was held and Maki Ohguro and Tetsuro Oda etc.
attended at this. At the same time, Tak Matsumoto and Koshi Inaba of B'z, Mai Kuraki and Shigeo
Nagashima announced memorial comments for her.[9]

Two compilation albums were planned for release on August 15, one that includes a selection of
Sakai's personal favorite songs, the other that includes favorites from her staff. A fan-selected
compilation album is also planned for the fall. Two tribute concerts were heldone on September 7
at Osaka Festival Hall, and the other on September 14 at Tokyo Nippon Budokan. The two places
were chosen because they were the first and last stops respectively of the What a beautiful moment
Tour in 2004the only tour that band has gone on. The tour was called "What a Beautiful Memory".

In September 2007, an audience of 13,000 participated in a memorial Budokan concert. There were
nine screens set up where many showed previously unseen footage of Izumi Sakai. A first single after
she died called Glorious Mind was played. This was a song which Sakai recorded before her
hospitalization. This song was used for the opening theme song of the anime series Case Closed.[10]
It was not complete at the time of Sakai's death, but the chorus footage was complete. Extra
minutes where she was singing in English were incorporated from a previously unrelated and
unreleased song as well.

Discography[edit]

Main article: Zard discography

Studio albums[edit]

Good-Bye My Loneliness (1991)

M Sagasanai (1991)

Hold Me (1992)

Yureru Omoi (1993)

Oh My Love (1994)

Forever You (1995)

Today Is Another Day (1996)

Eien (1999)

Toki no Tsubasa (2001)

Tomatteita Tokei ga Ima Ugokidashita (2004)

Kimi to no Distance (2005)

Live[edit]

What a Beautiful Moment Concert Tour 2004[edit]

03/02/2004 Festival Hall, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture

03/06/2004 Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

03/09/2004 Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

04/05/2004 Kobe International House, Hyogo Prefecture

04/08/2004 Pacifico Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture

04/30/2004 Festival Hall, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture

05/08/2004 Aomori City Cultural Hall, Aomori Prefecture

05/10/2004 Sendai Sunplaza Hall, Sendai Prefecture

06/02/2004 Nagoya Century Hall, Aichi Prefecture

06/11/2004 Fukuoka Sun Palace, Fukuoka Prefecture

07/23/2004 Nippon Budokan, Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

What a Beautiful Memory Concert Tour 2007-2009[edit]

09/06/2007 Osaka Festival Hall, Osaka Prefecture

09/07/2007 Osaka Festival Hall, Osaka Prefecture

09/14/2007 Nippon Budokan, Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

01/19/2008 Kobe International Forum (International Hall), Hyogo Prefecture

02/02/2008 Pacifico Yokohama (Prefectural University Hall), Kanagawa Prefecture

02/10/2008 Izumi City, Prefecture

02/24/2008 Sapporo City Education & Cultural Forum, Hokkaido Prefecture

03/08/2008 Ishikawa Health & Pension Forum, Ishikawa Prefecture

03/15/2008 Aichi Health & Pension Forum, Aichi Prefecture

03/22/2008 Niigata Prefecture People's Forum, Niigata Prefecture

04/05/2008 Sunport Hall Takamatsu (Large Hall), Kagawa Prefecture

04/28/2008 Fukuoka Citizens' Forum, Fukuoka Prefecture

05/03/2008 Hiroshima Estelle Plaza, Hiroshima Prefecture

05/04/2008 Ehime Prefecture Citizen Cultural Forum (Subhall), Ehime Prefecture

05/23/2008 Doshima River Forum, Osaka Prefecture

05/24/2008 Doshima River Forum, Osaka Prefecture

05/25/2008 Doshima River Forum, Osaka Prefecture

05/27/2008 National Yoyogi Athletic Field (First Gymnasium), Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

05/15/2009 Doshima River Forum, Osaka Prefecture

05/16/2009 Doshima River Forum, Osaka Prefecture

05/27/2009 Nippon Budokan, Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

What a Beautiful Memory ~Forever You~[edit]

05/27/2011 Nippon Budokan, Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

05/29/2011 Grand Cube Osaka, Osaka Prefecture

What a Beautiful Memory ~25th Anniversary~[edit]

05/21/2016 Orix_Theater, Osaka Prefecture

05/26/2016 Tokyo Dome City Hall, Tokyo Metropolitan Pr