Zard
1967-2007
On this 27th day of May, 2007, Japan lost a true voice of angel. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the news. Miss Sakai Izumi passed away after falling down from the stairs of a local hospital in Tokyo. Leaving behind the collection of her great works that cheered up millions of hearts.
Zard was originally a band of 5 people in Japan while Izumi San was the leading vocal. After several years, the band was broken apart and Izumi started using the name Zard to represent herself. Her songs were so unique that they actually generated this kind of "warm" feeling. She was one of the fewest singers in the world who actually sang for cheering up people and the earth. You wil rarely find her songs have anything about cheap breaking-up stories.
Izumi was also a great lyrics writer, most of her songs’ lyrics were written by herself. Her voice was simply soft and appealing comparing to others. Please forgive my limited vocabularies and I firmly believe there are no human languages that could express this sorrow.
Izumi started her professional career 16 years ago at the age of 24. Since then, she was almost never seen in public with make-ups on her face. She was simply a beautiful creature of sunlight. She released 11 albums and 41 singles in those 16 years. After 1993, Zard almost disappeared from TV and all kinds of visual media.
After Hide’s death, X-Japan became a history. Now, god just took Zard away. I say, there is really not that many gifted singers in those four islands now…..
The angel, should always belong to heaven. God sent her to this world for 40 years to cheer us up. Now, he took his angel back…..
———–Tani Ame, 5/28/2007
It was my pleasure to collect two of her albums, both Japanese Original Version
