It has been announced that Yamashita Tomohisa will be starting his post-NEWS solo career by singing the theme song for his upcoming drama, Saiko no Jinsei no Owarikata ~Ending Planner~. The title of the song will be Ai Texas and will be released by his new music label, Warner Music Japan.
Oricon Style article (Japanese)
Honestly when I skimmed the news I thought the song would be for the program he has that has him doing a road trip in the U.S., so it surprised me to see it was instead for his drama. I really do not get how a song with a title like that makes any sense for a drama series like that, but I guess it would not be the first time a drama had an odd choice in theme songs.
Since there is no release date yet it's anyone's guess when the single with it will be released. It is interesting that Yamapi switched labels, and to the same one as Akanishi Jin to boot. There had been a rumor about Yamapi being seen in the company of the president of Warner Music to discuss a possible U.S. debut before the announcement of him leaving NEWS, but honestly I think it was probably more just to discuss about the label switch as I see Yamapi being much better off staying in Asia than trying to break in to the U.S. when Jin has made so little progress with that.
Though in the end I just hope NEWS fans are not made to wait much longer to get news about a new release or group activities from them seeing how Yamapi has so quickly moved on to be a solo artist.
I like your post title LOL
ReplyDeleteThe song title threw me off too and I completely agree about it sounding more appropriate for his US road trip show. Article on TokyoHive mentioned late spring release which i found really puzzling as that would be after the drama ended. Is that typical? Or maybe it will be released earlier.
Oh I want to hear the song !
ReplyDeleteNot much of a Pi fan but I´m looking forward to see his new single and how successful it will become.
I hope NEWS will follow quickly after that.
@ Jpopwanderer
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder if they had originally had this song for his US road trip show but decided to use it for this for whatever reason. If it's getting released that late I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up as a double A-side then and we have to wait to see what the other song will be. Because songs with drama tie-ins tend to get released as the drama airs so they can get a boost in sales every time an episode airs.
@ Chris
There's a snippet going around from the news piece about it. I'm not too impressed from the sample myself.
Well NEWS may still be able to release a new single before him as it's being reported that the release date for his single will be late spring.
I just don't see why Yamapi leeave Johnny's. His Supergood Superbad CDs are already great, what more can he expect from Warner Music?
ReplyDelete