BONNIE PINK

Overview

Bonnie Pink (stylized BONNIE PINK; real name Kaori Asada, born 16 April 1973 in Kyoto) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and musician. She writes and composes all of her songs and plays guitar and piano. She is signed to Warner Music Japan and managed by Taisuke, and her official fan club is called Bonnie Link. Her mostly English-language single "Heaven's Kitchen" sold more than 300,000 copies, defying the music industry's belief that English lyrics do not sell in Japan and helping establish a new image of the female singer-songwriter. Her biggest hit, "A Perfect Sky", reached No. 5 on the Oricon chart.

Career

Early life and debut

She began piano at six and started singing in a school choir. She was introduced to English through her older brother's English classes and, through his influence, grew up on The Beatles, Prince, Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz, with Prince her favorite. A band she formed for a university festival led to her joining a compilation of female vocalists, and she was soon encouraged to debut as a solo artist.

She debuted on 21 September 1995 with the self-written album Blue Jam on Pony Canyon. Its first single, "Orenji", got heavy rotation on 38 FM stations nationwide. The album introduced an off-beat mix of jazz, blues and pop rock. She went on to work with Tore Johansson, the Swedish producer of The Cardigans, and Mitchell Froom, whose credits include Elvis Costello. "It's Gonna Rain!" became the fifth ending theme of the anime Rurouni Kenshin, and the 1997 single "Heaven's Kitchen" sold about 300,000 copies. She wrote her third album, Evil and Flowers (1998), in isolation in the Swedish countryside, channeling her frustration into the songs.

New York and return

After the 1998 album she travelled to New York alone, feeling a gap between herself and the "BONNIE PINK" persona. A planned three-month stay turned into two years. In 1999 she moved to Warner Music Japan. On her fourth album, Let Go (2000), Mitchell Froom was so impressed that he received a co-production credit. In 2001 she changed the spelling of her stage name to all capitals and released Just a Girl; Re-Pink, a remix album, followed in 2002.

The 2003 song "Tonight, the Night" raised her profile, and the album Present followed. Even So, fully produced by Tore Johansson for the first time in about six years, came out in May 2004 and became a long seller. Golden Tears, her eighth original album, was released on 21 September 2005, her tenth debut anniversary, with producers Tore Johansson, Burning Chicken and Hod David; she also performed at SXSW as part of Japan Nite that year. "Cotton Candy" was the ending theme of the anime Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor in 2005.

2006 breakthrough

In 2006 she made her acting debut in the film Memories of Matsuko and released its theme song "Love Is Bubble" in May. Her first book, My life's in the bag, was published by Kodansha the same month. In June she released "A Perfect Sky", an Anessa (Shiseido) commercial song featuring model Yuri Ebihara; it reached No. 5 on Oricon and sold over 200,000 copies. Her first best-of album, Every Single Day -Complete BONNIE PINK (1995-2006)-, debuted at No. 2 and sold over 700,000 copies. In November she featured on m-flo's "Love Song", which reached No. 9 weekly. She appeared on the 57th NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen at the end of the year for the first time. "Last Kiss", the ending theme of the anime Gantz, also dates from this period.

2007-2010

In 2007 "Water Me", the theme of the drama Watashitachi no Kyōkasho, reached No. 6 on Oricon, and she performed at Live Earth in Kyoto on 7 July. Thinking Out Loud was released on 25 July 2007, her first album issued in both CD and CD+DVD formats, and the tour finale was her first show at Nippon Budokan. In April 2008 the album was released by Warner Music Sweden, marking her CD debut in Sweden, where the bonus track "A Perfect Sky (Björn Remix)" got heavy radio rotation. Her song "Ring a Bell" became the theme of the overseas release of the Xbox 360 game Tales of Vesperia and was distributed worldwide via iTunes; its Japanese version, "Kane o Narashite", followed on 6 August 2008. That April she also appeared on "Say Anything" from Domoto Tsuyoshi's 244 Endli-x album I and Ai. Her thirtieth single, "Joy / Happy Ending", came out on 8 April 2009, followed by her tenth studio album, One, on 13 May 2009. For her 15th anniversary in 2010, a relay-style short film series, Furarera, was produced and screened in theaters, and the album Dear Diary was released.

2011 onward

On 25 March 2011 she released the charity song "The Sun Will Rise Again" for victims of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. In 2012 she released singles including "Tsumetai Ame" and "Machi no Namae" and the album Chasing Hope. On 21 September 2015, her 20th debut anniversary, she held the special concert "Glorious Kitchen" at Shibuya Public Hall, where she announced her marriage in April of that year. In May 2017 she announced the birth of her first child, a daughter, in April. She has continued releasing music, including "Wonderland" (2021), "Takara Sagashi" and "Elegy" (2022), and "Like a Tattoo" and "HANABI Delight" (2023). The album Infinity arrived on 6 September 2023, and the single "Like Gravity" followed in September 2025.

Musical style

Her music spans J-pop and Shibuya-kei influences, and has been described as an off-beat mix of jazz, blues and pop rock. Raised on Western music, she writes lyrics in both Japanese and English. From age ten until her debut she wrote a poem every day as a diary, and although she had no composing experience, she began writing her own songs at her management's suggestion. She usually works at home, creating melody and lyrics simultaneously and drawing words and melodies from images that come to her while playing chords on guitar. She prioritizes preserving the natural accent of words and the rhythm of language to keep a song's groove flowing. Her lyrics are largely imagined, and she initially used deliberately oblique expressions such as "kimi" and "boku" before becoming comfortable writing with "watashi" and "anata" as well. In recent years she has used multiple musical collaborators song by song, including Sweden's Burning Chicken and tour bandmaster Masato Suzuki, to deepen her varied sound.