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Miki Matsubara
松原 みき
Matsubara in February 1980
Born	(1959-11-28)28 November 1959 Kishiwada, Osaka, Japan
Died	7 October 2004(2004-10-07) (aged 44) Sakai, Osaka, Japan
Other names	Suzie Matsubara (スージー・松原)
Occupations	Singer composer lyricist television personality
Spouse	Masaki Honjo
Musical career
Genres	J-pop city pop jazz
Instruments	Vocals piano keyboards
Years active	1977–2000
Labels	Pony Canyon
Musical artist

Miki Matsubara (松原 みき, Matsubara Miki) (28 November 1959 – 7 October 2004) was a Japanese composer, lyricist, and singer from Kishiwada, Osaka, Japan. She participated in the opening and ending theme songs of the TV anime Gu-Gu Ganmo under the name "Suzie Matsubara".

Her 1979 debut song "Mayonaka no Door (Stay With Me)" became a hit, reaching number 28 on the Oricon chart, selling 104,000 copies according to Oricon survey, and selling 300,000 copies announced by Canyon Records. In addition, since around 2020, the song has become widely heard not only in Japan but also overseas thanks to the video sharing platform TikTok and the resurgence of city pop.

Early life

Matsubara was born 28 November 1959 in Kishiwada, Osaka in Japan. She spent her childhood in Hiraoka Town, Nishi-ku, Sakai, Osaka.

She grew up in a family of four, including a father, a mother and a younger sister. Her father was a board member of a hospital and her mother was a jazz singer who had sung with the Japanese jazz band and comedy group Crazy Cats. Matsubara started learning the piano at the age of three and later became familiar with jazz. As a child, she went to Sakai city's Hiraoka Elementary School and then in 1972, entered Poole Gakuin Junior High School. Around this time Matsubara became interested in rock music and joined the rock band "Kurei". In 1975 she started in Poole Gakuin High School and became active as a keyboard player of the band "Yoshinoya Band". They would play songs at a live house called Takutaku located in Kyoto. Matsubara was described as an excellent student and was expected by many around her to attend college, but at that time she had already made plans to pursue her dream of becoming a singer. In 1977, when she was still in high school, Matsubara went to Tokyo alone at the age of 17 to make her debut as a singer. The Japanese pianist Yuzuru Sera [ja] found her playing music and singing in various places in Kantō such as in the live music venue Birdland located in Roppongi, Tokyo.

Career

Matsubara started her career in 1979 and is known from hit songs such as her debut and immediate breakthrough "Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)" which has been covered by numerous artists, including Akina Nakamori. The song was ranked 28th on the Oricon Chart, and according to that chart sold 104,000 copies and 300,000 copies announced by Canyon records. Some of her other known songs were "Neat na gogo san-ji (ニートな午後3時)" and "The Winner" among others.

After the release of the song "Neat na Gogo San-ji" Matsubara became a well-known singer during that time. She was offered by many to perform in college festivals, concerts and so on. The song even gained a feature in a commercial of the famous Japanese multinational personal care company Shiseido, only less than two years after her debut.

Miki Matsubara received a number of artist awards. Amidst her career, she formed her own band called Dr. Woo. Matsubara also had some international work with Motown jazz fusion group Dr. Strut in Los Angeles (becoming a backing band in the album recordings for "Cupid" and "Myself"), Tokyo and Osaka (Hall concerts), later releasing a jazz cover album titled Blue Eyes. On that album she covered some famous jazz songs like "Love for Sale" and the soft rock song "You've Got a Friend", originally written and sung by Carole King.

Her vocal range was that of a mezzo-soprano.

During her music career she released 8 singles, and 12 albums. Despite her work being mainly domestic, outside of Japan she was also known for her work as an anime singer and songwriter, singing the opening and ending songs to anime such as Dirty Pair: Project Eden, although recently with the popularization of city pop her other work has gained overseas fans as well. While singing theme songs for the anime Gu Gu Ganmo, she performed under the name Suzie Matsubara (スージー・松原). Matsubara's song "The Winner" was used as the opening for the Gundam OVA-series Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.

From the 1990s forwards she especially worked on anime soundtracks and music for commercials. Matsubara composed songs for a couple of anime, some of her most known musical compositions were for the anime series Gundam. Matsubara composed songs for several singers, like Hitomi Mieno, but her most notable works were likely with the singer and actress Mariko Kouda, whom Matsubara composed multiple songs to. Kouda's song "Ame no Chi Special" (雨のちスペシャル), which Matsubara composed, was featured in the five-minute music television and radio series Minna no Uta as a music video in 1997. It attracted a lot of attention and ranked 28th place on the Oricon chart. The song was repeatedly rebroadcast until 2004.

On 5 December 2024, Miki Matsubara's previously unreleased new song "Sky Restaurant", known as Hi-Fi Set's hit, was released for distribution.

Personal life

Little is known about Miki Matsubara's personal life. She married Masaki Honjo (1953–2007), a support musician (drummer) for her band. Later Masaki became a dentist and died in 2007 at the age of 54.

During Matsubara's years as a student, her eyesight deteriorated due to fatigue from a part-time job. Her eyesight was, however, fixed with surgery.

Health problems and death

At the end of 2000, Matsubara sent an e-mail to her company, the members of Dr. Woo, and others around her, stating, "Actually, I can no longer continue with my music for a certain reason. I am cancelling my phone, cell phone, and email. So please do not reply. Please live your life without regrets." She stopped all music activities and disappeared from the spotlight altogether. She burned all her cherished sheet music and records. In an e-mail sent to her cousin at the time, she wrote, "Please forget all the times in the past when I was singing and composing."

In 2001, it was revealed that Matsubara's actions were prompted by a late-stage cancer diagnosis she had received at the time, after which she began treatment. She associated her career with the time when she became ill, so putting music behind her was in hopes for a new chance at life. She regretted doing music as she wished she got to enjoy life more instead of focusing on her career. Matsubara returned to her parents' home and spent her final years battling her illness.

After being told by her doctor that she only had three months left to live, Matsubara died on 7 October 2004, at age 44 due to complications from uterine cervix cancer. Her death was announced to the public two months later.

Legacy

An increased interest in city pop during the 21st century, particularly the 2010s, contributed to Matsubara gaining global recognition and "Stay with Me" (真夜中のドア, "Mayonaka no door") becoming a resurgent hit in the West and throughout Asia in 2020. Billboard Japan credits Indonesian YouTuber Rainych for the song's initial surge in popularity, after she shared a cover version with her almost 1.3 million subscribers on the platform in October that year. This rediscovery of the song in Indonesia—indicated by an upsurge of streams on digital music platforms Apple Music and Spotify—then spread to other countries worldwide and it continued to gain traction, especially in North America where it became a "'visible hit' on numerous streaming rankings" and "shot to No. 1 on Spotify's viral charts". The song became a well-known sound on the multimedia streaming app TikTok, most notably during December 2020—prior to this, it was already somewhat popular in the platform's anime community—where it sparked a trend among users of Japanese descent, who shared videos of themselves playing the song for their mothers and filming their reactions when they recognized the track. One such video garnered over 23 million views and 6 million likes. As of February 2021, the sound has been used in over 200,000 videos on the platform.

As a result of this resurgence in popularity, Matsubara's debut album, Pocket Park, was repressed on vinyl in late 2020.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilations

Magazines

Singles

Some notable compositions

See also

• Gu Gu Ganmo
• Victor Entertainment
  • Dirty Pair: Project Eden
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory
• Ojamajo Doremi
  • Ojamajo Doremi discography
• Mariko Kouda
• Mayumi Gojo
• J-pop

References

1. ^ "松原みき". tower.jp. Tower. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
2. "新撰 芸能人物事典 明治～平成「松原 みき」の解説". コトバンク (in Japanese). DIGITALIO. Archived from the original on 7 June 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
3. ^ "2009/10/7 おもいっきりDON 今日は何の日 『松原みき』の日 ＃松原みき - YouTube". 8 October 2017. Archived from the original on 4 May 2022. Retrieved 3 January 2021 – via YouTube.
4. "昭和の名曲「真夜中のドア 〜Stay with Me」☆歌手松原みきさん".
5. Pinto, Tom (27 July 2019). "City Pop Is The 40-Year-Old Genre You've Never Heard Of, Until Today". Study Breaks. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
6. Archila, Danny (17 December 2017). "Citypop: A Curious Fool's Primer". Yacht Rock. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
7. "【オメガトライブ生んだ林哲司激白 ヒット曲舞台裏】松原みきさんと竹内まりや 予想とは真逆の仕上がりで高評価". Zakzak. 27 September 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
8. "松原みき【真夜中のドア】歌詞の意味を徹底解釈！季節が巡ると思い出すのは…？意味深な歌詞を紐解いてみた". otokake.com. Otokake. 10 June 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
9. "中森明菜の意外なカバー曲 ＥＸＩＬＥ、ドリカム歌う 新アルバム「歌姫４」". ZAKZAK (in Japanese). Retrieved 15 January 2021.
10. "松原みきを語る～ファンの声Vol.6". castella.chagasi.com. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
11. "Miki Matsubara - Blue Eyes" (in French). Discogs. 20 September 1984. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
12. O, Safiyah (23 August 2017). "Japanese 'City Pop [シティポップ]': A dreamy trip back to Japans capitalist fantasy of the 1980s". Bearded Gentlemen Music. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
13. Konuma, Junichi. "松原みき（1959–2004）". f.waseda.jp/jkonuma. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
14. "松原みき提供曲/マ行". castella.chagasi.com. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
15. "松原みき - 真夜中のドア～Stay With Me". oh my God こりゃ なんだ (in Japanese). 24 November 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
16. "松原みきが生前残した未発表曲を林哲司が再生プロデュースして12月5日に配信！MVも同日公開！". Pony Canyon (in Japanese). 5 December 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
17. 「夜明けまでブルースにひたって 松原みき」. Myojo (in Japanese). No. 2. 1980. p. 122.
18. ^ 今日は何の日　『松原みき』の日 [Today's Highlights in History "Miki Matsubara Day"] (Television broadcast) (in Japanese). Japan: Omoikkri Don!. 7 October 2009. 00:57 minutes in.
19. ＜訃報＞松原みきさん４４歳＝シンガー・ソングライター [<News of death> Miki Matsubara, 44 = Singer-songwriter]. Mainichi Shimbun. 14 December 2004. Archived from the original on 14 December 2004. Retrieved 3 March 2021 – via Yahoo! Japan News.
20. 歌手松原みきさん死去／１０月７日にがんのため [Singer Miki Matsubara dies / due to cancer on October 7]. Shinkoku News. 14 December 2004. Archived from the original on 3 March 2008. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
21. ^ Zhang, Cat (24 February 2021). "The Endless Life Cycle of Japanese City Pop". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
22. Arcand, Rob; Goldner, Sam (24 January 2019). "The Guide to Getting into City Pop, Tokyo's Lush 80s Nightlife Soundtrack". Vice. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
23. ^ Matsunaga, Ryohei (21 December 2020). "Global Popularity of 1979 City Pop Track 'Mayonaka no Door - Stay With Me' Explained". Billboard Japan. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 16 February 2021.
24. Chan, Justin (8 January 2021). "A Japanese Song Has Unpredictably Become A Massive Hit Among TikTokers— And Their Parents". InTheKnow.com. Archived from the original on 16 February 2021. Retrieved 16 February 2021.
25. Nichigai Associates' Dictionary of Popular Musical Names, July 25, 1994, ISBN 4-8169-1223-1, adopts the theory that she returned with the theme song for Dirty Pair after a two-year hiatus.
26. "miki matsubara pas de deux - Bing video". bing.com. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
27. "VIDL-52 | Mou Hitotsu no Sotsugyou / a・chi-a・chi - VGMdb". vgmdb.net. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
28. "もう一つの卒業の歌詞 | a・chi-a・chi". ORICON NEWS. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
29. "VIDL-111 | True Shining / Rumiko Wada - VGMdb". vgmdb.net. Retrieved 14 March 2021.

External links

• Miki Matsubara discography at Discogs
• Miki Matsubara at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Miki Matsubara at VGMdb
• Miki Matsubara at Last.fm

• Culture articles needing translation from Japanese Misplaced Pages
• 1959 births
• 2004 deaths
• 20th-century Japanese women composers
• 20th-century Japanese women singers
• Deaths from cancer in Japan
• Deaths from uterine cancer
• Singers from Sakai, Osaka
• People from Kishiwada, Osaka
• Anime composers