"Carols" is the thirty-fourth single released by

Ayumi Hamasaki is a Japanese singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, model, spokesperson, and entrepreneur. By 2002, Hamasaki had earned the nickname "Empress of J-pop" due to her popularity in Japan and throughout Asia. Due to her success and relevanc ...

. It was released on September 29, 2004. It became her 21st single to claim the No. 1 spot on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

charts and has sold over 380,000 copies to date. ''Carols'' is to date Hamasaki's only single to be released on the

DVD-Audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The sta ...

and

SACD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips, Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows mul ...

formats. It was the last single to be released from the album '' My Story''.

Music video

The music video premiered a few days before the release and was directed by Masashi Muto. The video, filmed in black and white, features Hamasaki singing in an empty theatre.

Track listing

# Carols – 5:30 # Carols "Criminal Tribal Mix" – 6:45 # Carols "Hammond B-3 Whisper" – 5:47 # Carols "Original Mix ~instrumental~" – 5:30 ;DVD # Carols ( PV)

Live performances

*September 24, 2004 – PopJam *September 24, 2004 – Music Station *September 26, 2004 – CDTV *September 30, 2004 – AX Music *October 8, 2004 – Music Station *October 18, 2004 – Hey! Hey! Hey! *December 15, 2004 – Best Artist *December 24, 2004 – Music Station

Charts

;Oricon Sales Chart (Japan) * Total Sales : 375,000 (Japan) * Total Sales : 380,000 (Avex) *

RIAJ The is an industry trade group composed of Japanese corporations involved in the music industry. It was founded in 1942 as the Japan Phonogram Record Cultural Association, and adopted its current name in 1969. The RIAJ's activities include p ...

certification: Platinum

References

External links

"Carols"
information at Avex Network.
"Carols"
CD+DVD information at Avex Network.
"Carols"
information at

. Ayumi Hamasaki songs 2004 singles Oricon Weekly number-one singles Songs written by Ayumi Hamasaki Song recordings produced by Max Matsuura 2004 songs Avex Trax singles {{2000s-Japan-single-stub