In partnership with Sony Music Entertainment Germany & Japan, we‘re excited to bring you the hit albums The Book 1-3 by Japan’s biggest pop stars YOASOBI on vinyl for the very first time. The band’s debut EP THE BOOK 1 features the viral singles "Into The Night" (夜に駆ける), Blue (群青) and Haven't (たぶん) and comes on beautiful translucent clear w/ red vinyl, pressed by Pallas Group in Germany. Additional vinyl design and layout by Jasmin Dämmrich and Kevin Schulz (Black Screen Records). The vinyl also includes a 4-page 12" booklet with lyrics in Japanese & English.
Made up of composer Ayase and vocal ikura, YOASOBI are the “Unit that turns novels into music.” Their first song “Into The Night (Yoru ni Kakeru)” released in November 2019, immediately attracted attention achieving #1 on numerous streaming charts in Japan and appearing on viral charts in several countries. It was #1 on the 2020 Billboard JAPAN Combined Song Chart and Streaming Song Chart and in January 2023 total plays to surpassed 900 million streams – a first in Japan.
Their highly anticipated first CD - THE BOOK was released on January 6, 2021. The elaborate packaging captivated the fans and charted #2 on the Oricon Daily Ranking along with the brilliant achievement of all songs on the CD charting within the top 15 on the Apple Music streaming chart.
The same year in July a collaboration live with Uniqlo “UT” took place as a free live stream show called “SING YOUR WORLD” and recorded 280,000 viewers connecting to watch at the same time. The second EP - THE BOOK 2 was released in December 2021, which included all the songs released that year and YOASOBI successfully completed a live show for the first in front of an audience, at the Nippon Budokan. They were #1 on the Spotify chart for The Japanese Artist Most Played Internationally in 2021. The duo started gaining international attention and to prove it, the song “Monster (Kaibutsu)” was selected as The 10 Best Songs of 2021 by U.S. news magazine TIME.
Since February 2022, songs were written based on novels by Naoki Prize winners Rio Shimamoto, Mizuki Tsujimura, Miyuki Miyabe and Eto Mori and were announced one by one to kick off the series “The First Time” and these four novels were also published as part of the project. August that same year, YOASOBI performed at “ROCK IN JAPAN FESTIVAL 2022”, their first summer festival performance.
The opening theme song for TV animation Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, “The Blessing (Shukufuku),” was based on the novel Cradle Star (Yurikago no Hoshi) by Ichiro Ohkouchi and received massive reaction resulting to 200 million streams.
In the same year in December, they performed in their first music festival overseas in Jakarta and Manila at the “Head In The Clouds Festival” hosted by the U.S. based music company 88rising.
On April 24, 2023 the TikTok LIVE performance that was streamed worldwide had a total viewership of 630,000 and the number of simultaneous viewers surpassed 120,000, which is the highest viewership for a Japanese artist to achieve on TikTok LIVE. Their first arena tour “YOASOBI ARENA TOUR 2023 ‘Denkosekka’” consisted of fourteen shows in seven cities, including added show dates with a total of 130,000 attendees and the duo continues to attract attention in all directions of their career.
During this time, the music video for “Idol,” the opening theme song to the TV animation “Oshinoko” surpassed 200 million plays in just seventy-eight days on YouTube, on April 13, 2023.
The song was on top of the Billboard JAPAN Combined Song Chart JAPAN Hot 100 for eleven consecutive weeks which exceeded their longest charting record and also became the fastest in the history of Japan to surpass 100 million streams in five weeks and 200 million in nine weeks. They took over the charts in all the main DSPs such as on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer, KKBOX, AWA, LINE MUSIC, etc. and received more than eighty-five achievement titles. Internationally, it became the first song to be #1 on the Billboard The Global Excl. U.S. top 10 and also topped the chart on Apple Music’s Top 100: Global chart. It charted #18 on Spotify’s Viral Top 50 – Global chart and was in the viral top 50 in all 55 countries becoming a hit worldwide at full speed.
The song also was in the top 10 on the Billboard Global 200 for eight consecutive weeks and as of July 1st, became the highest charted J-pop artist, at #7.
YOASOBI performed at the “Head In The Clouds Los Angeles,” a show hosted by 88rising which they performed in the Jakarta, Indonesia and Manila, Philippine shows.
In addition, the duo performed as the supporting act for Coldplay’s first show in Japan in six years – “Music of the Spheres World Tour” at Tokyo Dome on November 6th and 7th, 2023.
