is the second studio album by
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Asian Kung-Fu Generation, released on October 20, 2004.
Release
Upon its debut, the album topped 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 for two weeks straight and produced four singles, with sales reaching over 600,000 copies by its third week.
[ ] Its success can be partially traced to two tracks that the band produced, "
Rewrite" and "
Haruka Kanata," were featured in the opening themes of the highly popular anime series ''
Fullmetal Alchemist'' and ''
Naruto'' respectively. In 2016, the 2016 version of "
Re:Re:" was used as the opening for the anime adaptation of ''
Erased''. With the LP, AKG also finally succeeded in outreaching to international audiences, a goal they had attempted in earlier
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
indie releases but were met by little response .
The album peaked at number three on the World Chart while "Rewrite" went on to win Best Anime Theme Song at the 2007
American Anime Awards
The American Anime Awards were a series of awards designed to recognize excellence in the release of anime and manga in North America.
The first annual American Anime Awards balloting was supervised by Milton Griepp of industry website ICv2. The ...
. Following its domestic release, fans from around the world petitioned for ''Sol-fa'' to be distributed outside Japan. The support for Ajikan eventually resulted in
Tofu Records
was a US record label of Sony Music Entertainment Japan that was launched in 2003 to distribute Japanese Sony artists in the United States, and that closed in 2007. Their first signed artist was T.M.Revolution, and they used the anime fandom c ...
striking a contract to release ''Sol-fa'' in the United States on October 18, 2005.
Reception
With the LP, AKG fully realized and honed the upbeat tempo but hard-edged and emotionally charged sound first expressed within ''
Hōkai Amplifier
is the major-label debut EP by Japanese rock band Asian Kung-Fu Generation, released on November 25, 2002 on Under Flower Records.
Background
After six years since its inception and three independent releases, Asian Kung-Fu Generation contribu ...
''. The urgency of the songs were complemented by the balanced nature of the overall album, creating their most mature release as of late.
Gotō credited this outcome as the result of sharing his songwriting duties more evenly with bandmates than ever before.
The album was equally praised for its high production quality, which thoroughly nullified the language barrier that frequently impeded non–
Japanese speaking audiences.
In 2020, Jonathan McNamara of ''
The Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' listed ''Sol-fa'' as one of the 10 Japanese albums worthy of inclusion on ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
s 2020 list of the
500 greatest albums of all time, billing it as "an album full of tracks as well produced as they are sonically complex."
Track listing
B-sides
Sol-fa 2016
In 2016,
Asian Kung-fu Generation re-recorded ''Sol-fa'' and released it on November 30, 2016. "Re:Re:" was released as the lead single on March 16, 2016. The tracklist changed with "Loop & Loop" as the third track and made "Kaigan Dōri" the closer for the album. This was the original track order that the band wanted for the original album, but they decided not to as they thought it would be bad to have all the singles in the first half of the album.
[ ]
Track listing
Personnel
*
Masafumi Gotoh
(December 2, 1976) is the lead vocalist, main songwriter and rhythm guitarist of the Japanese rock band Asian Kung-Fu Generation. Masafumi met fellow band members Kensuke Kita and Takahiro Yamada while attending a music club of Kanto Gakuin Uni ...
– lead vocals, guitar
*
Kensuke Kita – lead guitar, background vocals
*
Takahiro Yamada – bass, background vocals
*
Kiyoshi Ijichi – drums
*
Asian Kung-Fu Generation – producer
*Michihiko Nakayama – executive producer
*Rieko Ohkura – production coordination
*Fumihito Yokono – drum technician
*Kenichi Nakamura – engineering
*Toru Takayama – engineering, mixing
*Stephen Marcussen – mastering
*Stewart Whitmore – editing
*Yusuke Nakamura – art direction
Chart positions
Sol-fa
Album
Singles
Sol-fa 2016
Album
Singles
References
External links
*
CDJapan'
*
' at
MusicBrainz
*
Sol-fa' at
Last.fm
{{Authority control
Asian Kung-Fu Generation albums
2004 albums
Japanese-language albums
Sony Music albums