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Two New Albums from Orange Range | June 05, 2007 |
 Five years after they debuted, popular Okinawan rock band Orange Range are to release their first greatest hits collection. They will put out two albums, the singles collection "Orange" and an album of fan favorites "Range", on July 27. They will also release a new single, "Ikenai Taiyo", a week earlier on July 18. A former indie band, Orange Range made the major label debut with Sony Music in 2003. It was their second single, "Shanghai Honey", that made the breakthrough, selling over 350,000 copies. Within two and a half years, they had broken the 10-million-copy barrier. To date their 15 singles have sold some 6.5 million and their four albums over 5.5 million. Even in a market that has seen big declines in CD slaes, a Sony spokesman said they hope to sell a combined six million copies of the new albums.
• Actress Okamoto Aya (24) announced yesterday that she is taking an extended break from showbiz. She has quit her management agency, Ten Carat, and says that since the beginning of this year she has has nothing to express as an actress. She made her debut as a child actress in 1991 and starred in NHK's morning drama series "Audrey" in 2000-01. Perhaps a bigger claim to fame is that she was the actress who was in the car with kabuki actor Nakamura Shido (34) when he was stopped for running a red light last July. He was found to be over the alcohol limit and the whole thing led to his divorce from actress Takeuchi Yoko (27). Okamoto is said to be dating a 33-year-old Australian whom she met while filming a commercial last year and they may be considering marriage Down Under.
• Meanwhile, Shido's father, kabuki actor Nakamura Kanzaburo (54) gave a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo. He spoke about his recent run in with the tax authorities, in which he was found to have failed to declare some ¥70 million in income. He also talked about his upcoming performances of the kabuki play "Hokkaibou" in New York from July 17. "Do I have a surprise in store? Yes, I do. I have a lot of solo parts and I'm going to do them all in English. That's probably a first for kabuki."
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