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Rainbow (Ayumi Hamasaki album)

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Rainbow

Studio album by Ayumi Hamasaki

Released

December 18, 2002

December 20, 2002

January 1, 2003

Genre

J-Pop

Length

71:42

Professional reviews

HMV link

Ayumi Hamasaki chronology

Singles from Rainbow
I am... (2002)	Rainbow (2002)	A Ballads (2003)
"Free & Easy" Released: April 24, 2002 "H" Released: July 24, 2002 "Voyage" Released: September 26, 2002

Rainbow is the fifth studio album by Ayumi Hamasaki. It was released on December 18, 2002, less than a year after I am....

1 Album History
2 Singles
3 Lyrical Content
4 Track listing
5 Charts
- 5.1 Singles
6 References

This album featured more music producing from DAI (of Do As Infinity) and Crea (Hamasaki's producer pen name). Since Loveppears, this album is the first studio album from her that did not break the two million mark. The single "Free & Easy" lost out the top daily spot to Kuraki Mai's "Feel Fine!", but eventually took the top position for the week. However, the single "H" is the only single that broke the million mark in Japan in 2002. The hidden track "+" begins where the song "independent" abruptly ends.

"H" was released in four different editions. The three colored editions, green, red, and blue, were limited editions, and the white was the normal edition. A digipak edition was released featuring all four covers of the single to commemorate the sale of the millionth copy. Rainbow is the 89th best selling album in Japan of all times^[1].

Initial pressings of the album had an extra track, "Rainbow", listed for track 00 and contained a password to a website. As a promotion for the album, the track was not included on the CD, but part of the instrumental version was released to the password-only website that was open for a limited time where fans could submit their own lyrics.

"Free and Easy", the first single from Rainbow, marked a dramatic change in the format of Hamasaki's singles. Singles after "Free and Easy" (with the exception of "No Way to Say") cut the number of remixes on the CD down to two or three, unlike previous singles with up to six or seven remixes.

"H", the second single from Rainbow, was a multiple-A-side single, and was Hamasaki's last million-selling single.

"Voyage", the final single from the album, was Hamasaki's longest charting single (with a total run of twenty-eight weeks) and was also the longest-charting single ever until Utada Hikaru's single Flavor of Life beat it. "Voyage", written by Hamasaki and Do as Infinity composer DAI, was one of Hamasaki's two singles in which a short film was used in place of a regular PV (the other one being 2007's glitter/fated.)

Rainbow marked the beginning of Hamasaki's writing English lyrics, and is the first album to feature English lyrics.^[2] A previous song, Love ~since 1999~ featured English lyrics, but was not written by Hamasaki and was never featured on an album.

Everlasting dream – 1:33
We Wish – 5:10
Real me – 5:25
Free & Easy – 4:59
Heartplace – 6:06
Over – 5:05
Hanabi (lit. Fireworks, Hanabi^?) – 4:53
Taskinillusion – 1:20
Everywhere nowhere – 4:35
July 1st – 4:20
Dolls – 5:55
Neverending dream – 1:35
Voyage – 5:06
Close to you – 5:47
Independent + – 9:35

Oricon Sales Chart (Japan)

Release	Chart	Peak position	First Week Sales	Sales total	Chart run	Certification
18 December 2002	Oricon Daily Albums Chart	#1
18 December 2002	Oricon Weekly Albums Chart	#1 (3 consecutive weeks at #1)	1,016,482	1,857,870	22 Weeks	2x Million
15 December 2002	Oricon Yearly Albums Chart	#2