Seiko Matsuda

Noriko Kamachi (蒲池 法子, Kamachi Noriko, born 10 March 1962), known professionally as Seiko Matsuda (松田 聖子, Matsuda Seiko), is a Japanese singer-songwriter, known for being one of the most popular Japanese idols of the 1980s. Since then, she has continued to release new singles and albums, go on annual summer concert tours, perform at winter dinner shows, in high-profile TV commercials and movies, and make frequent appearances on TV and radio.^[2][3] Her alma matter is Chuo University.^[4]

Due to her popularity in the 1980s and her long career, she has been dubbed the "Eternal Idol" by the Japanese media. In January 2011, the Japanese music television program Music Station listed her the 2nd best-selling idol of all time in Japan, with 29,510,000 records sold. She placed right behind pop group SMAP and ahead of Akina Nakamori, her biggest rival of the 1980s, who was listed in third place. In 2016, however, Ian Martin of The Japan Times compared her output unfavorably with that of Hikaru Utada, describing Matsuda as "first and foremost an idol rather than an artist. Her legacy is best expressed in singles rather than albums."^[5]

Matsuda once held the record of 25 number-one hits for musicians from 1983 to 2000 (broken by B'z) and for female solo artists (broken by Ayumi Hamasaki in 2010). Matsuda was a performer on the finale of Kouhaku (Red White Music Battle) in 2014 and 2015, the prestigious NHK New Year's Eve Music show on which she has performed 24 times (as of 2020).