Ami Suzuki - Dolce 6 February 2008
Uploaded by request for Abunja. Sorry about the wait man.Dolce is Ami Suzuki’s album celebrating what was then her ten-year anniversary since her debut with Sony Music. It is a notable achievement for her because Suzuki is one of the rare few musicians to find success after being black-listed, basically thrown-out. Suzuki debuted with the label AG Communication, under the auspices of Sony Music. In 2000, two years after her debut, AG Communication found itself in legal trouble when its president, Eiji Yamada, was convicted for tax evasion. AG Communication was under-paying their artists and then lying about the taxes involved, effectively pocketing royalties that would have otherwise gone to Suzuki. AG Communication terminated her contract in the middle of their shit-storm so Suzuki fired back by suing them. Here is the stupid part of this story: Ami Suzuki was black-listed from the J-Pop industry for bringing this lawsuit against her manager. Personally I think that is beyond dumb, but the industry turned its back on Suzuki because she sued Eiji Yamada for the money that should have been hers, treating her like a villain in all of this. She committed a taboo act of business in Japanese society, although she was completely justified in my opinion.The fallout was severe. No other studio would sign Ami Suzuki and she immediately lost all of her endorsements. Technically she was still signed to Sony Music because the courts had to decide whether AG Communication had the right to end her contract in that situation or not. This lawsuit went on for three years and it was not until 2003 that Sony Music decided to pay Suzuki some amount out-of-court, also agreeing to release her from the label in December of 2004. In the mean time she made small releases as an independent artist, some singles that were bonuses attached to books, a tactic to get around the fact that her contract with Sony Music was still legally in-effect. A year after that ended Avex Trax, to the surprise of many myself included, signed Ami Suzuki to their label. That made her return to the industry official and brought an end to her five years of being black-listed.Dolce is the third album Suzuki released after joining Avex. It is her second so-called ‘Joins’ album where she collaborates with a lot of other artists. And so Dolce has a long list of notable producers and other Japanese musicians associated with it, e.g. Yasutaka Nakata, Studio Apartment, Suguirumn, Ram Rider, Yo-king, Tatsuya Oe, et al. The album also has a cover of then-popular American pop song ‘Potential Breakup Song’ originally by Aly and Aj Michalka; at this time of writing it remains Suzuki’s last cover song. Overall Dolce has a nice amount of variety, reflecting all of the influences behind the scenes, and I think it’s a fun album to listen through.As always I hope you enjoy the music!