Coming from Japan: an anniversary album from the pop male group

Arashi is thankful. For one phenomenal group in Jpop entertainment, it's been a stormy yet fortuitous ride through ten years of maddening boy band existence. Chalking up record sales of more than 700,000 is no small feat in an industry stricken with recession woes. The string of scandals concerning some of the members did little to weaken their staying power. Thus, we come to this: a compilation album spanning a decade of playful and pop-induced music served in Arashi 5x10 All The Best! 1999-2000.

The Sunny Side of Pop
The boys sauntered into the music scene with their somewhat eponymous single, "A.RA.SHI", a funky track that was also used as an anthem during the Volleyball World Cup hosted by Japan in 1999. The funk theme never left the Arashi mix, as we learn from later hits including ‘Kitto Daijoubou’ and ‘Step and Go’. On some occasions, their songs were punctuated by happy punk rock beats, such as the case of ‘Sakura Sake’ and ‘Happiness’.

Popularity Machine
The Japanese pop male group also made it big with sensational theme songs made for television dramas. The hit machine saw a busy streak with ‘Wish’, ‘Love So Sweet’ and ‘One Love’ single releases that were used in the popular live-action version of manga fave, ‘Hana Yori Dango’, which starred the group’s own pretty boy, Jun Matsumoto. Along with ‘One Love’, the release of ‘Truth/Kaze no Mukou E’ earned them the top two spots in Oricon's year-end singles charts for 2008. ‘Truth’ was identified with the series, ‘Maou’, which then featured frontman Satoshi Ohno.

Fandom En Masse
The boys’ fandom extends well beyond the land of the rising sun. Coming from Japan, Arashi reached out to their audiences in the region through sold-out concerts in cities like Taipei, Shanghai, and Seoul during their Asian tours in 2007 and 2008.

With e-commerce music sites like CD-Japan, HMV, and Amazon, Arashi fans outside of Japan can contribute to record sales as their purchase from these sites are credited in the Oricon count. So it comes as no surprise that All The Best has sold more than 750,000 copies since its release on August 19th.