Olivia Lufkin, often known simply as OLIVIA, born December 9, 1979, in Okinawa, a bilingual Japanese singer (her first language is english). The daughter of an American father and a Japanese mother, she sometimes writes about being mixed-race in songs such as "solarhalfbreed." Her sister Caroline Lufkin is also a singer (under the name Caroline).
Biography
Olivia was born in 1979 in Okinawa, because her father was a US Marine in that time, she moved around a lot. In 1982, Olivia moved to San Diego, California then back to Okinawa. Later on Olivia moved back to the North Carolina and after two years Olivia moved back to Okinawa.
Olivia attended the Okinawa Actors' School and was there discovered by the director of "Rising Productions" (Vision Factory) and signed to Avex Trax as part of the Japanese idol group D&D. Then, the famous producer Komuro Tetsuya heard of Olivia one day and decided that she would be perfect for a project in which he was planning along with Jean Michel Jarre. The project was to make the theme song for the France 1998 FIFA World Cup entitled Together Now. The single was released a month after D&D's 1st and one album. After it was decided that D&D would disband and separated into two different groups; 'OLIVIA' as Olivia's solo-project and Aya & Chika as Aya & Chika from D&D.
In contrast to her work with D&D, her first single in 1999 I.L.Y.~Yokubou~ had a driving pop/rock sound. Her first two singles were written by others and produced by Komuro Tetsuya, but she wrote her third single "Dear Angel" and the most of her singles since then. In 1999 and 2000, she released six singles altogether, all with a pop-rock or alternative sound, and at the end of the year released her first album synchronicity, containing all her singles to date peaked at #20.
After a hiatus for over a year, Olivia take the control over her own career and released her seventh single Sea me. From here onward, she would release under the alternative Cutting Edge record label, whereas before she released under avex trax.
Olivia's releases became increasingly rare and sporadic from then on, with a Video Clips Collection being released four months later. After this Olivia's next single Into The Stars, was planned to be released in July with an album released at the end of the year. However, plans were changed as the single was postponed two months to September due to market forces, and an album release also similarly delayed.
In this point, in the 2003 OLIVIA decided on colaboration with her brother JEFF a complete style change with her music became both darker and cuter and all of her releases to be written and sung in English. Releasing 4 mini-albums instead of singles such as Internal Bleeding Strawberry, Merry&Hell Go Round, Comatose Bunny Butcher and The Return of the Chlorophyll Bunny and were realesed only at Tower Records Japanin Shibuya, Tokyo.
Along side this, in 2003 Olivia decided to launch a rare-items fashion label called Black Daisy Ville with her friend Rin Kozue(Friedia Niimura). This fashion line would continue on until 2004 in which a summer line of clothes/items were released. Then Kozue Rin moved in USA and the line would be discontinued.
In 2004 she released her second album The Lost Lolli. The primarily featured the best material from her four mini-albums except for two new tracks "Alone in Our Castle" and "Fake Flowers" (as well as two re-arrangements). This album was released nation-wide (though with a limited first press version available at Tower Records Japan), this album used "SpidERSpins (Lost Lolli Mix)" as a radio single for the release. The song also had a music video to go along with it. This album peaked at #111 on the Oricon. However, Avex Trax released an overseas version of this album, reflecting Olivia's increasing success outside of Japan; typically, only chart-topping artists release overseas versions of their albums.
After releasing The Lost Lolli, Olivia went on an unofficial and long hiatus (except for a performance at the "Halloween of the Living Dead" hosted by Hyde on October 30, 2005) and worked as a fashion model and designer. But,in March 2006 was was announced Olivia would once again be releasing music in the Japanese music industry. She would play the role of the rival band Trapnest's lead vocalist Reira Serizawa, for the anime adaptation of the manga NANA As her first release for this role, Olivia sings the first ending theme song entitled a little pain. This was alongside fellow avex rock artist Tsuchiya Anna, who plays the role of Nana Osaki, the vocalist for Trapnest's rival band Black Stones. Similarly, Tsuchiya sung the opening theme song. The manga's author, Yazawa Ai, asked Olivia to sing for the anime when a staff member at avex gave her a copy of Olivia's Sea me and Into The Stars singles. It is reported that she exclaimed, "It can only be her!" when she first heard the music. For a little pain, Olivia first made the general theme to the lyrics, then wrote the song in English. Later on she would change the lyrics into Japanese. The single is about "Reira's loneliness, pain and strength," as Olivia found that she could relate well to the character.
Olivia has said that her musical expression has now changed, that the hiatus was because at the time of The Lost Lolli's release, she was "feeling pretty depressed", and "started to notice and realize a lot of her faults"and her style "has gotten a lot more detailed", it's "pleasing to the ear" and "a lot cooler". She had to do a lot of research into Reira's character, as she "never really read manga". She specifically wrote the song tailored to the point of view of Reira. She states, "It was fun to sing as another person. Like an actress". She said that she "wrote many different songs", but they sounded too "western and dark", whereas a little pain had more of a feeling of a top Japanese band".[1].
When a little pain first was released, it reached a position of #8 (her first top 10 position), and two positions below Anna's single (the opening theme song), which had been released on the same day. After the second week, this single had outsold the total sales for her debut single, I.L.Y.~Yokubou~ (which was her highest selling single to date at the time).
Olivia would continue to release NANA-related music. The next opening and ending theme songs used after Tsuchiya Anna's rose and Olivia's a little pain were both Olivia songs. The single Wish / Starless Night, was released in October and peaked #7.
Then, OLIVIA's first US appearance was at the animation convention PMX held in Los Angeles, California in October 2006.
In early 2007, Olivia released The Cloudy Dreamer on January 17, 2007. The album debuted #15 at on the Oricon Weekly Charts; her highest ranking album to date. In addition to the several songs she recorded for the NANA anime, the mini-album also featured a new song called "Dream Catcher", which was used as the ending theme for the live action television drama series of Jigoku Shōjo.
OLIVIA will release an album called OLIVIA inspi' REIRA (TRAPNEST) which contain the some former singles from the show. It added some news songs, as well. There will be a NANA BEST ALBUM which will include her and Anna Tsuchiya's more popular songs from the TV series. They are scheduled to do a concert together on March 30 at SHIBUYA AX.
Discography:
Albums
- [2000-12-06] synchronicity
- [2004-02-18] The Lost Lolli
- [2007-02-28] OLIVIA inspi' REIRA(TRAPNEST)
- [2007-03-21] NANA BEST (with ANNA TSUCHIYA inspi' NANA(BLACK STONES))
Mini-Albums
- [2003-02-21] Internal Bleeding Strawberry
- [2003-06-27] Merry & Hell Go Round
- [2003-09-12] Comatose Bunny Butcher
- [2003-12-03] The Return of the Chlorophyll Bunny
- [2007-01-17] The Cloudy Dreamer
Singles
- [1999-02-03] I.L.Y.~Yokubou~ (I.L.Y.~Desire~) (I.L.Y.~欲望~)
- [1999-05-12] re-ACT
- [1999-10-06] Dear Angel
- [2000-04-19] Dress me Up
- [2000-07-26] Dekinai (Cannot) (できない)
- [2000-10-04] Color of your Spoon
- [2001-12-05] Sea me
- [2002-09-04] Into The Stars
- [2006-06-28] a little pain
- [2006-10-11] Wish / Starless Night
Music Video Collections
- [2002-03-13] Video Clips
Info From: Answers.com
