Showboy

## Singles from *Showboy*

1. Why Not
Released: January 1, 2011
2. TRICK/TREAT
Released: March 7, 2011
3. Low (Kygo Remix)
Released: July 20, 2011

**Showboy** (stylized as **SHOWBOY**) is the ninth studio album of Japanese pop singer Nakashima Yuu, released worldwide on January 7, 2011 through DSCOVRY Music. It’s also the singer’s second trilingual album, five years after The New Yuu, featuring songs sung in Japanese, Korean and English.

Yuu worked with renowned Western producers such as Zedd, Stargate, Kygo and David Guetta to create an uptempo electronic dance record. *Showboy* is focused on themes such as love, dancing and having fun, though it occasionally goes into topics like sexuality. It also features a series of popular artists, such as Taeyang, Rain and Jay-Z.

*Showboy* revived the public’s interest for Nakashima Yuu’s music, after the consecutive commercial failures Synopsis, Motion and Personal. It was also well received by Japanese music critics, though comments about the superficiality and genericness of the lyrics were still strong.

On its first day, *Showboy* sold 568,000 copies. By the end of the tracking week, the album had sold 1,261,000 copies, thus entering the Oricon Album Charts at number one, where it stayed for further two weeks. It was the best selling album Japanese album of the year, and Yuu’s best selling album since 2001’s SPIRIT.

Three singles were released physically and digitally to promote the album: “*Why Not*”, featuring the Korean singer Taeyang, “*TRICK/TREAT*” and “*Low*”, featuring Kygo. All of them topped the Oricon Singles Chart, and managed to sell over 1 million copies in Japan. “*Why Not*” was one of the best-selling singles in South Korea that year, with over 4 million units sold.

## Background & Composition

After the release of *Personal*, Nakashima Yuu experienced a series of commercial, personal and professional struggles. The singer faced the loss of his parents and brother in a tragic flight accident, the end of a 2-year engagement and the rapid decline of his sales throughout 2009 and 2010, while his “rival” Haruto was at the best moment of his career. In addition, Yuu was in an “open-fire war” with the Japanese media since 2007. He was constantly attacked by tabloids and frequently commented about the alienation, conservatism and hypocrisy of the Japaneses in his personal blog. By the end of 2009, the singer moved from Japan to Norway, but kept making heavy remarks about the nation and its population.

During that time, Nakashima Yuu also faced a serious alcohol addiction, and was hospitalized multiple times due to overdoses and domestic accidents. Every time this would happen, Nakashima Yuu would become the headlines in Japan for the next day. An article made in 2010 analyzed the impact of having Yuu on the cover of a magazine, and concluded that “*when a Nakashima Yuu picture is featured on the first page of a magazine or newspaper, its sales are increased by at least one-hundred percent*”. According to Yuu, in his 2015’s documentary “*Abstracted*”, it was a “*dark time*”, when he felt nobody was by his side. The singer stated that he had “*no family and no friends*”, and even his own record label threatened to drop him.

Things started to change on July 2010, when the singer autonomously checked into a rehabilitation center after an almost-death experience. After a four-week hospitalization, the singer flew to the United States to begin recording his eight studio album. From August 2010 to January 2011, Nakashima Yuu and the producers of the album isolated themselves to create *Showboy*. While over 30 songs were recorded for the album during this time, only eight were selected for the final cut.

## Release & Packaging

*Showboy* had a physical and digital release in all Asian countries on January 22th, 2011 through DSCOVRY Music. The album contains six original tracks, a solo version of the track "*Why Not*" and a remix version of the track "*Low*" featuring the DJ Kygo. A limited special version of the album, distributed by some retailers, contained gifts such as stickers, exclusive posters and bottons.

The official cover art for the album features a colorful picture of Nakashima Yuu sit in a throne, with his face hidden by a hat. The album is packaged with pictures of the singer that follow a similar pattern. Some of those pictures were later used to promote the tour "**SHOWBOY Dome Tour**", which was held in the following year.

## Singles

Three singles were released officially to promote the album. "*Why Not*", featuring the singer Taeyang from BIGBANG, was released on January 1st, and saw immediate success, entering the Japanese's Oricon Singles Chart and the South Korean's Gaon Digital Chart at number one. The song spent further ten weeks at number one in Japan, selling over 2.3 million copies throughout its run and becoming the seventh best-selling physical single of the year. In South Korea, the song sold over 4 million copies, becoming Yuu's best selling single in the country.

The second single "*TRICK/TREAT*" saw similar success, also debuting at number one in Japan and South Korea, and selling over 2.3 million copies in Japan and 1.8 million copies in South Korea (digital sales from the songs "*TRICK*" and "*TREAT*" combined). Finally, "*Low (Kygo Remix)*" was released on July 20, 2011 and became Yuu's third consecutive number one hit from the era in both Japan and South Korea. The song sold, respectively, 1.5 million copies in Japan and 600,000 copies in South Korea.

## Commercial Performance

*Showboy* sold over 568,000 copies in Japan only on its first day. By the end of the week it had sold 1,261,000 copies in the country, reaching number one with the highest first week sales since 2006. The album stayed two more weeks at the top spot, and sold over 3.1 million copies throughout its run, the best-selling album of 2011 in Japan. In South Korea, the album debuted at the top of the Gaon Album Chart, and by the end of January had crossed the million copies sold in the country, becoming the best-selling album of the country that year as well.

*Showboy* sold over 5 million units worldwide, and is, to this day, Nakashima Yuu's second most successful album, only behind Spirit.

## Charts

### Weekly Charts

**Weekly chart performance for *Showboy***

 **US Billboard 200** | 107

### Yearly Charts

**Yearly chart performance for *Showboy***

 **South Korean Albums (Gaon)** | 1

## Sales and Certifications

 **Taiwan (RIT)** | 10x Platinum
 **Worldwide** | 5,000,000