is the lead singer of

Japanese pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

group Every Little Thing.

Biography

Mochida began her career as a child actress, appearing in magazines and TV commercials. She then became a member of the second generation of idol group The Kuro Buta All-Stars, and entered the entertainment world as (Kaori Mochida, with ''Kaori'' written in ''

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

''). Shortly after, she released her first single as a solo artist, titled "Mō Ichido" in November 1993. She didn't decide to become a singer professionally until she was in high school. In 1995, she met Mitsuru Igarashi, and signed to the Avex label. At first she was meant to debut as a solo artist, but as Max Matsuura suggested, she then formed a duo with Igarashi, and then a trio when Ichiro Ito was incorporated as a guitarist. They debuted in 1996 with "Feel My Heart". Following her debut with Every Little Thing, Mochida became a popular fashion icon in Japan, and started to appear in TV commercials for a wide variety of beauty products. The spots that she starred in usually used the songs of her band as background music. After the departure of Mitsuru Igarashi from Every Little Thing in 2000, Mochida started to take more control in the music making process, and soon started to write her own songs. The first song for Every Little Thing that she wrote lyrics for was "All along" included in the ''

Time to Destination ''Time to Destination'' is the second full album of the Japanese pop rock group Every Little Thing, released on April 15, 1998. It is the best-selling album from the band, with 3,520,330 copies sold, also becoming the 10th best-selling album of ...

'' album, and the first song she composed was "Jump", released as a single in 2001. She did not release any solo music until 2002, when she participated in the Avex charity project ''Song+Nation'', where she recorded the song "In Case of Me", produced by

Tetsuya Komuro is a Japanese musician, songwriter and record producer. He is recognized as the most successful producer in Japanese music history and introduced contemporary electronic dance music to the Japanese mainstream. He was also a former owner of the ...

. In 2004, she released "Itsunomanika Shōjo wa", a cover single of Yosui Inoue which was produced by the musician himself. In 2006, she wrote

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's debut single "Period" along with

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, and in 2007, she wrote "Sarai no Kaze" for

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and " Going Back Home" for

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. This year she also provided vocals for

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's song "Wipe Your Eyes", song that also had a promotional video despite not being released as a single. In 2009, Kaori Mochida's solo career officially started, and she started to work on her first solo album. She released her first official solo single, "Ame no Walts", on January 28, 2009. The song was credited as a collaboration between Mochida and Sakerock, a Japanese instrumental band. In March she and Takao Tajima from

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formed a special group called Caocao, and recorded a cover of "Kojin Jugyo" by

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. The song was used as theme song for the movie ''Oppai Volleyball''. In July she released a double A-side single entitled "Shizuka na Yoru/Weather", and a month later, on August 12, she released her first solo album, ''Moka''. The album featured collaborations with several artists, such as

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, Ikuko Harada, Yuichi Ohata,

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, ohashiTrio, and

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. It debuted at number 9 in the

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charts and enjoyed moderated success. On August 25, 2009, her second album, ''Niu'', was released. The album had no commercial singles, except for a CD single of "Green", that was included in a special edition of fashion magazine ''Journal Standard''. For this album she made her first domestic solo tour between September and October. On August 1, 2012, her third solo album ''Manu a Manu'' was released. The song "Utsukushiki Uruwashiki Hibi", which was released as single from the album in June 2012, was used as theme song for TV Tokyo drama ''Cleopatra na Onna-tachi'', which started airing in April of the same year.

Solo discography

Albums

* ''

Moka Moka () is a village in Mauritius located in the Moka District, the western part of the village also lies in the Plaines Wilhems District. Since 1967 it forms part of Constituency No. 8 Quartier Militaire and Moka. The village is administered by ...

'' (2009) * ''Niu'' (2010) * ''Manu a Manu'' (2012) * 10 to 10 (2019)

Singles

Other appearances

Other works

* Mochida provided vocals for the song "In Case of Me" on the 2002 charity album '' Song Nation''. "In Case of Me" was written by

and produced by Komuro and

Max Matsuura , better known by his stage name , is a Japanese record producer and businessman. He is the founder of Avex Group, one of the largest music labels. He is known mainly for discovering and developing new artists into stars (most notably Ayumi Hamas ...

. * In 2006, Mochida along with Takeshi Kobayashi wrote the lyrics for the single by

References

External links

* *
Nippop Profile, Every Little Thing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mochida, Kaori 1978 births 20th-century Japanese composers 21st-century Japanese composers Anime composers Anime musicians Avex Group artists Every Little Thing (band) members Japanese women composers Japanese women musicians Japanese women pop singers Japanese women singer-songwriters Japanese idols Japanese child actresses Living people Singers from Tokyo 20th-century Japanese women singers 20th-century Japanese singers 21st-century Japanese women singers 21st-century Japanese singers 20th-century women composers 21st-century women composers