is a Japanese singer-songwriter and actor. He has been well known as frontman of the rock band

Anzen Chitai is a Japanese rock band, formed in 1973 by five musicians in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. After debuting in Tokyo in 1982, they became one of Japan's most successful rock bands of the 1980s. History 1970s: Beginnings Formed in 1973 as the high-s ...

that debuted in 1982 and enjoyed a successful career, particularly during the 1980s. In the 1990s, he also began his career as a solo artist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Japanese vocalists. In 2014, he was ranked first by a panel of 200 experts for the best ever singing voice in Japan. Moreover, in 2021 Koji was voted as the greatest active male Japanese singer, with 190 experts agreeing that he is a "living national treasure of music" and that he portrays an "unparalleled mass of expressiveness and emotion which only seems to get better with age".

Biography

As a vocalist and a songwriter of the band, Tamaki spawned multiple successful compositions which were mostly co-written by lyricists including

Gorō Matsui is a Japanese lyricist born 11 December 1957 in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, though he considers Tokyo to be his hometown. Beginning with participation in the Yamaha Popular Song Contests, he made his debut writing the lyrics for the 1981 Chage and ...

and

Yōsui Inoue is a Japanese singer, lyricist, composer, guitarist and record producer, who is an important figure in Japanese music. "Hailed as the Bob Dylan of Japan .. He is renowned for his unique tone, eccentric lyrics, and dark sunglasses which he al ...

, by the time that the group suspended their career in 1993. In 1987, Tamaki released the first solo single "All I Do", and continued his solo career after Anzen Chitai went into hiatus (1993–2001, 2004–2009). Throughout his solo career, he has released 23 singles and over a dozen studio albums. His song "Den-En" released as a single in 1996 became a massive hit, which reached the number-two on the Japanese

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that ...

charts and sold in excess of 900,000 copies. Tamaki has also been known as an actor who has appeared in seven feature films and numerous television dramas. He has started acting career for the first time on "Prussian Blue no Shozo", the 1986 motion picture he starred. Anzen Chitai returned from a recess and released their new single "Aoi Bara/Wine Red no Kokoro (2010 version)" on March 3, 2010. On his 2012 album ''Offer Music Box'', Tamaki — who composed the original song — covered Yuki Saito's song " Kanashimi yo Konnichi wa", which was used as the first theme song for the anime television series ''

Maison Ikkoku is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It was serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine '' Big Comic Spirits'' from November 1980 to April 1987, with the chapters collected into 15 volumes. ''Mais ...

''.

Discography

Albums

Studio albums

Cover albums

Live albums

Compilation albums

Singles

Videography

Filmography

;Television *''

The Last Bullet ''The Last Bullet'' is a 1995 Australian film about a Japanese soldier and Australian soldier who fight in World War Two.Ed. Scott Murray, ''Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995'', Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p99 The film is set in Borneo, towards ...

'' (1995) – Ichiro Yamamura *''

Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innov ...

'' (1996) –

Ashikaga Yoshiaki "Ashikaga Yoshiaki" in '' The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 625. was the 15th and final ''shōgun'' of the Ashikaga shogunate in Japan who reigned from 1568 to 1573 when he ...

*''

Konna Koi no Hanashi is a Japanese television drama starring Hiroyuki Sanada and Nanako Matsushima. It aired during the summer of 1997 in Japan and in 2001 on KONG-TV in the United States. The original 12 episodes were split into 14 for the U.S. showing. ''A Story o ...

'' (1997) – Konosuke Shimodaira *''

Furuhata Ninzaburō is a Japanese television series that ran periodically on Fuji Television from 1994 until its final episodes (specials) in 2006. It was written by Japanese playwright Kōki Mitani and is often referred to as the Japanese version of ''Columbo''. ...

'' (1999) – Shūzō Utena

References

External links

Koji Tamaki's Official Website
(in Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tamaki, Koji 1958 births Living people Japanese male singer-songwriters Sony Music Entertainment Japan artists Musicians from Asahikawa