Tetsuya Komuro (小室 哲哉, Komuro Tetsuya, born November 27, 1958) is a Japanese musician, songwriter and record producer. He is recognized as the most successful producer in Japanese music history and has introduced contemporary electronic dance music to the Japanese mainstream. He was also a former owner of the disco Velfarre located in Roppongi, Tokyo.
In the Oricon singles chart of April 1996, he monopolized all the top 5 positions as the songwriter and producer, a world record. In 1995, he monopolized all top 3 positions of the copyright distribution rankings for the JASRAC Award, a record in Japan's music history. At his peak as a record producer the artists he predominantly produced for came to be known as TK Family and at one time included Namie Amuro, hitomi, TRF, Tomomi Kahara and Ami Suzuki amongst others. As of 2008, records produced by him had sold more than 170 million copies, primarily in Japan.[1] Total sales of the singles he has written exceed 42 million copies, making him the fourth best-selling lyricist in Japan.[2]
His career started as a keyboardist for Speedway in 1979. In 1984, he created the TM Network with Takashi Utsunomiya and Naoto Kine. A year later, in 1985, his first solo work was the soundtrack Vampire Hunter D for the anime movie Vampire Hunter D, and his band, TM Network, did the closing credits song "Your Song". He subsequently composed other soundtracks such as Heaven and Earth and Seven Days War.
As a solo singer, Komuro released singles "Running to Horizon" and "Gravity of Love" in 1989. "Running to Horizon" topped the Oricon charts. "Gravity of Love" also topped the Oricon charts, beating out Seiko Matsuda's "Precious Heart".[3] In 1989 and 1990, Komuro collaborated with Warren Cuccurullo.
As a composer and producer, Komuro wrote a song "My Revolution" for Misato Watanabe. The song received the Golden Award at 28th Japan Record Awards in 1986.
By the early 1990s, Komuro was spending much of his time writing songs for and producing many other musicians and bands. He was also an early pioneer of dance music in Japan, and came to stardom in the 1990s as producer with a long string of hits with artists such as TRF (TK Rave Factory), Tomomi Kahala, Namie Amuro, Ami Suzuki, hitomi, Ryoko Shinohara and H Jungle with t. In 1994, he composed the musical score to the Japanese anime film Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, based on the Capcom video game. Ryōko Shinohara recorded the theme song of the anime film, "Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to", with Tetsuya Komuro. The single of the theme song was released on July 21, 1994, and sold over two million copies on Oricon charts.[5] This score was removed from the US release of the film.
He was mainly helped in this task by the mix engineers Pete Hammond and Dave Ford. Both were working for PWL, which was the home of the British producing team Stock Aitken Waterman. Not only that, "TK" is also credited for the rise to fame of Daisuke Asakura, a popular Japanese composer, keyboardist and music producer who began his major musical career as a backup keyboardist for TM Network. Asakura is reported to view Komuro as his "Sensei" or "Teacher".
Komuro also released albums as a solo singer or musician and was involved in the bands Globe, Kiss Destination and Gaball. On December 31, 1998, his band Globe's song "Wanna Be A Dreammaker" received the grand prix award at the 40th editionofJapan Record Award. In 1999, Komuro, Utsunomiya and Kine reunited under their old name of TM Network, and remain active to this day.
Komuro worked in collaboration with French keyboardist Jean Michel Jarre from 1998 to 2001. The duet wrote the theme song for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, "Together Now", as well as several other tracks and remixes. He and Jarre also performed a concert on beaches in Okinawa on January 1, 2001.
On November 4, 2008, Komuro was arrested and charged with fraud, for taking ¥500,000,000 in exchange for a promise to sell to a Hyōgo-based investor the copyright to his songs, which he had already sold to somebody else (which was Avex Group Holdings according to reports).[6][7][8] Reportedly, he planned to use the money to pay a portion of his ex-wife's alimony.[9][10] He admitted the fraud at his trial in January 2009.[11]
In March 2009, Masato Matsuura, president of the Avex Group Holdings, recovered the losses for the plaintiff, paid him extra ¥100 million in compensation and a further ¥48 million in delay damages. Matsuura also stated that Komuro will work at Avex in a company position directly under his control.[12]
On May 11, 2009, Komuro received a suspended three-year prison sentence. According to the sentencing judge, Komuro's acceptance of responsibility and the fact that restitution had been made greatly influenced the final sentence, and further went on to state that no good to society would come from Komuro's imprisonment.[13]
At the Avex Group Holdings' concert tour a-nation 2009, Komuro made a surprise appearance on August 22, 2009. He played a medley of his hit songs at the piano and later reunited on stage with his fellow members of the J-pop group globe, Marc Panther and his wife Keiko Yamada.
He composed almost all the songs on Love Songs, the 2010 album of Japanese pop-star Ayumi Hamasaki. He also composed the 2013 single "Feel The Love" by Ayumi Hamasaki.[14]
In January 2018, Komuro announced his retirement from the music industry, following revelations of an affair he had with a nurse who had been taking care of his wife Keiko after her brain surgery.[15][16]
