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It was 15 years ago, a 16 years old girl sat on the floor by crossing her leg, played a guitar and sang her 3 original songs instead of two, in an audition hosted by Sony Music Japan. Her performance won the awe of the judges and captured the hearts of everyone present, which finally gotten her the highest score and started her first debut with "It's Happy Line" soon after that.
She's known as YUI, was a soloist in the beginning of her career and a very successful one at that, before she decided to form a band instead and started her career from the scratch. She's now Yui, though people claimed she changed and all, I believe the change was for the better.
Now she's a mother of a twin (I don't want to gossip about her private life), still pursuing her music career in a band called Flower Flower, and though she has changed her music genre and not many people are into this genre, I still find her and her band still rocks. Here's one of my favorite song from the band.
Now she's a mother of a twin (I don't want to gossip about her private life), still pursuing her music career in a band called Flower Flower, and though she has changed her music genre and not many people are into this genre, I still find her and her band still rocks. Here's one of my favorite song from the band.
So, what I'm gonna write again? lol. Got another block. Today I take a day off since I've got cold and all due to the lack of sleeps. And no, I'm not in love or anything. Those 4 little brats (kittens) just keep coming back to me while I was a asleep. It has been for weeks already I have to say so good bye to my peaceful night rest.
Okay, that's enough for grumbling. So let me tell you how I encounter Yui's works.
Have you experienced the feeling of the light breeze blowing while you listening to a song? That's what I felt when I first listened to LIFE, an ending theme of Bleach anime. It was eleven years ago, long before I get in touch with internet. I didn't knew the title of this song, and all could remember were the short part of the chorus which I hummed continuously so I wouldn't forget that light breeze blowing feeling. The next week I kept waiting in front of tv just to listen to this ending theme. Well I also did watch the anime since it's one of my favorite, though I couldn't brace myself to read/watch the ending since I was a die-hard-shipper of IchigoxRukia and couldn't accept the fact that they didn't end up together (It was even worse than Naruto's ending)
Years passed and all I could remember was still the chorus part, the light breeze blowing part. It was two years later I found this song covered by a female who's in a couple-matching, love-finding, blind-dating show (Yup, I did watch something like this in the past). It was strange at first and she's not that good at singing (like I'm one to talk), until I got that light breeze blowing feeling. I found the singer's name and the song's tittle in the bottom of the screen. YUI-LIFE.
That's not the end, and internet was such luxurious stuff for me back then. It was in 2010 I got to know this world. I started collecting YUI's songs and decided to continue learning guitar when I was a freshman. Looking at my friend who made a band and sang in a competition at our college back then also gave me a great punch. I really hoped they would invite me, but I realized my skill was just at the very bottom of the scale. So I started practicing some of YUI's and Taylor Swift's songs (my cousin introduced me to Taylor's early songs which I love so much, and she plays guitar as well, which quality I admired of a female singer at that time). And then I realized, I was only able to play their songs. So I started to play whatever songs I like.
And here I thought I was just going to talk about Yui, but I ended talking about myself. Sometimes I wonder whether I am actually a melancholic-phlegmatic or just simply a sanguine.
YUI's songs inspired me a lot. Like the chorus part of LIFE, "I can change my life", a simple sentence, could be said easily but hard to be done... It echoed in my heart as young and foolish I was back then, so I braved my heart to join the acoustic competition which all I ruined (I've talked about this before so let's just end it already).
I'd talk and promote YUI everywhere, on social media (Facebook mostly), family gathering, even to my friends, to the point I would shamelessly called her Onee-sama (God, I gave up on the old me). I bet they were kinda getting tired of my endless talk of YUI. My cousins though, as we always supports each other idols, gave me a lot of news involved YUI, such as her movie "Taiyou no Uta" (Which I didn't know it actually existed before my cousin told me, and the movie was so sad that I was bawling my eyes out) and introduced me to one of my favorite YUI's song "Tomorrow's way". By the way, she looks so gorgeous in the clip video.
It was around 2012 when the news of YUI's retirement as a soloist just shocked the world especially her fans (YUI Lover). But honestly at that time I was not even aware of the news even until her tribute album released. It was when she finally announced that she's going with a band that I'd finally opened my eyes. And I was utterly beyond speechless.
She cut her hair short, dyed it blonde, and wore a prince like outfit, standing on a stage with her new band. I don't know that whether she did all the changes in order to get rid of her YUI's image or just simply to make a change of pace. I didn't know that she's undergoing a lot of troubles dealing with her mental health illness. Because she was at the peak of her career as a soloist singer and saying she was famous in Japan at that time was just quite an understatement. Just what kind of things happened to her to make her abandon her already successful career and start everything from the scratch?
But I kinda got (or so I thought) where she came from. After all, her image was something created by the company she was under. And you could see how her image changed drastically in her 'Hello' mv. I won't say the song was bad, it's just ... I won't judge. I don't want to force my 'ideal image' on her. It was rude of me. She deserved more than that. And I always respect her choice to make a band of her dream and make her own songs, the type of song which she likes, without dictated by anyone.
So over all Yoshioka Yui has inspired me a lot, whether in playing guitar, writing my own songs, or having more faith in myself. I was used to envy her so much, since she could make such a serious decision to even quit her school and focus on music. A decision which only some rare people are able to take. Yui is still like an Onee-sama I always look up to. She's a fighter who works really hard to make her dreams come true. She's faced her own hell and walked through it. As a fan I couldn't be more proud of her. She may be not the greatest singer ever, but she's the best singer-songwriters for me. And her songs are great; great lyric, great melody, and great composition. And as the end of this 12th note, kindly let me show you one of her greatest hit "Goodbye Days", a theme song for 'Taiyou no Uta' movie.
So over all Yoshioka Yui has inspired me a lot, whether in playing guitar, writing my own songs, or having more faith in myself. I was used to envy her so much, since she could make such a serious decision to even quit her school and focus on music. A decision which only some rare people are able to take. Yui is still like an Onee-sama I always look up to. She's a fighter who works really hard to make her dreams come true. She's faced her own hell and walked through it. As a fan I couldn't be more proud of her. She may be not the greatest singer ever, but she's the best singer-songwriters for me. And her songs are great; great lyric, great melody, and great composition. And as the end of this 12th note, kindly let me show you one of her greatest hit "Goodbye Days", a theme song for 'Taiyou no Uta' movie.
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