THE BLUE HEARTS

In 1985, Komoto Hiroto on vocals, Mashima Masatoshi on guitar, Kawaguchi Junnosuke on bass, and Kajiwara Tetsuya on drums, started The Blue Hearts. Thanks to their active live schedule in clubs throughout Tokyo, they gained attention in the Japanese punk scene very quickly. By 1987 they released their first self-titled album.

Just two months later, they released the single Linda Linda which soared in popularity, and is arguably the song that made The Blue Hearts famous. Today, the song is still extremely popular and known world wide. In 2005, director Yamashita Nobuhiro brought the song to life in his film, "Linda Linda Linda."

By the band's third album, they stumbled into problems with their label Meldac, which was part of an union between several companies, amongst them Mitsubishi. The latter company was active in the nuclear power industry at that time. The band had created Chernobyl, and wanted to put it on the album, but were presented two choices from their management: either they took the song off the album, or they would leave the label. While risky, they chose the second option. The band's decision proved to be the best, and when the song hit the radiowaves, it created a frenzy which resulted in very good sale numbers for the album, exceeding the first two albums by far.

From that point onwards The Blue Hearts no longer performed in small clubs and were instead able to fill large concert halls. By 1990 the band decided to attempt to go global and began to promote themselves in the USA. Despite their attention on the radio and exclusive USA releases, the band did not draw interest. Back at home however, the band's popularity continued to grow when they released their fourth album Bust waste hip, which became a big success.

After another four successful years, in which Shirai Mikio supported the band on keyboards, The Blue Hearts held their final live on June 19, 1994 and disbanded four days later. Junnosuke promised that the remaining three members were going to compose solo songs, which would be released on a compilation album later, however the promise was never fulfilled.

Of course, talented musicians don't stay still, and Komoto, Mashima, and Shirai started The High Lows. Kajiwara became the drummer of The 3Peace which is still successful nowadays. Kawaguchi changed direction and moved into the managing and producing.

To this day, The Blue Hearts have never been forgotten, as tribute albums to the band were created and released and their songs still are heard on the radio today.