page_title: Ayumi Hamasaki
section_title: 2014–2015: Colours, A One, Sixxxxxx
hierarchical_section_title: Ayumi Hamasaki / Life and music career / 2014–2015: Colours, A One, Sixxxxxx
caption_attribution_description: English: Ayumi Hamasaki in Taipei Songshan Airport 中文: 濱崎步抵達台北松山機場
context_page_description: Ayumi Hamasaki is a Japanese singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, model, spokesperson and entrepreneur. Through her entire career, she has written all her lyrical content, and has sometimes composed her music.
  Born and raised in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, Hamasaki moved to Tokyo at fourteen in 1993 to pursue a career in singing and acting. In 1998, under the tutelage of Avex CEO Max Matsuura, Hamasaki released her debut single "Poker Face" and debut major-label album A Song for XX. The album debuted at the top of the Oricon charts and remained there for five weeks, selling over a million copies. Her next ten albums shipped over a million copies in Japan, with her third, Duty, selling nearly three million. A Best, her first compilation album, is her best-selling album, with more than four million copies sold in Japan. Since 2006, after her album understood was released, album and single sales have declined.
  Hamasaki has sold over 50 million records, making her the best-selling Japanese solo artist of all time.
context_section_description: In January 2014, it was announced that a new song entitled "Pray" was chosen to be the theme song for the anime film Osamu Tezuka's Budda 2—Owarinaki Tabi, which premiered on February 8, 2014 in Japan. The song was released digitally on January 27, 2014. Another new song, entitled "Hello New Me", was presented as theme song for a new season of Fuji TV drama Zoku—Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi. which started broadcasting in April, 2014. The song was released digitally on May 14, 2014. From May 30 to July 6, 2014, Hamasaki held her Premium Showcase: Feel the Love tour, on which she offered 11 concerts at 3 locations: Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo. On this tour Hamasaki abandoned for the first time the traditional format of her previous concerts and presented a uninterrupted, shorter show, on which she also debuted as an aerial acrobat. Hamasaki's fifteenth studio album, entitled Colours, was released on July 2, 2014. The album featured internationally renowned producers, such as RedOne, Rodney Jerkins, Armin van Buuren and Fedde le Grand, making the first time in Hamasaki's career in which primarily Western producers were appointed to produce one of her studio albums. Colours peaked at number five on its first week on the Oricon charts, becoming Hamasaki's first studio album to debut out of the Top 3. However, it also marked a new record for her, as with this achievement she became the second artist in Japan's history—after Yumi Matsutoya—to have 47 of her albums within the Top 10 of the charts. In September 2014, Hamasaki released two recut singles from Colours: "Terminal" and "XOXO" on the PlugAir platform. The single was released under Linkin Park's Machine Shop Records for the American release.
  On October 18, 2014, Hamasaki performed as the closing act in the A-Nation premium concert held at the Marina Bay Sands’ MasterCard Theatres in Singapore. This was the second time performing in Singapore after her MTV Asia Awards performance 12 years ago. On November 2, 2014, Hamasaki announced through her official Facebook page that she had started recording new material composed by Tetsuya Komuro, Kunio Tago and Tetsuya Yukumi for a "winter ballad trilogy" single. On November 6, 2014, the title of the single was revealed to be "Zutto.../Last Minute/Walk", and its release date was set for December 24, 2014. On November 10, 2014, it was announced that Hamasaki would be collaborating in a tribute cover album for Hikaru Utada, entitled Utada Hikaru no Uta, to be released on December 9, 2014. For the album she contributed with a cover of Utada's 1998 single "Movin' on Without You", which was arranged by the RedOne production team. The winter ballad trilogy single, "Zutto.../Last Minute/Walk", was released on December 24, 2014, and peaked at number five on the Oricon charts. With this achievement, Hamasaki became the first solo artist in Japan's history to have 50 singles within the Top 10 of the Oricon charts. As for artists in general, Hamasaki became the third artist with more Top ten singles since Oricon's foundation in 1968—being surpassed by groups Morning Musume and SMAP, with 57 and 53 Top ten singles respectively In December 2014 Hamasaki announced that she would be not attending the New Year show Kōhaku Uta Gassen for the first time in 15 years. She explained her decision stating that she wanted to lower her responsibilities and things she felt pressured to do, in order to focus on the projects she had for her career, mainly regarding her plans to expand her influence throughout Asia.
  On February 15, 2015, Hamasaki made a surprise guest appearance during Singaporean singer JJ Lin's concert in Taipei, Taiwan. They performed a duet version of Hamasaki's 2000 single "Seasons", and announced that JJ Lin would be producing a song for Hamasaki's next studio album, A One. The album was released on April 8, 2015, including singles "Zutto...", "Last Minute", "Walk", Utada's cover "Movin' on Without You", and JJ Lin-produced song "The Gift", for which a promotional music video was also made. Between April and July 2015, Hamasaki embarked on he
caption: Ayumi Hamasaki in Taipei 2015
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