"Chase the Chance" is the fourth single by Japanese singer

Namie Amuro Namie Amuro ( ; ; born September 20, 1977) is a retired Japanese singer. She rose to prominence as a Japanese idol, teen idol, and transitioned into a leading Pop music, pop artist due to her versatility across music styles and visual presentatio ...

from her second studio album, ''

Sweet 19 Blues ''Sweet 19 Blues'' (stylized in all caps) is the second studio album by Japanese singer Namie Amuro. It was released through Avex Trax on July 22, 1996. It is Amuro's first release with the label since leaving Toshiba-EMI, as well as her first al ...

'' (1996). It was released as the album's second single on December 4, 1995, through

Avex Trax is a record label owned by Japanese entertainment conglomerate Avex Inc. The label was launched in September 1990, and was the first label by the Group. History Two years after Max Matsuura began a career distributing studio albums from othe ...

. It debuted at number one on the ''

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that ...

'' charts, becoming her first of five singles to sell over a million copies. As of August 2012, the single has sold 1.3 million copies in Japan. At the end of the month, she would make her first appearance as a solo artist on

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

performing the single. A pre-release

TV commercial A television advertisement (also called a commercial, spot, break, advert, or ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. ...

for the single features excerpts from the music videos for her four previous singles (including three singles released by

Toshiba-EMI , formerly , was one of Japan's leading music companies. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of British music company EMI Group Ltd. on June 30, 2007, after Toshiba sold off its previous 45% stake. Its CEO and president was Kazuhiko Koike. Wh ...

) in slow motion and in

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

Background and release

"Chase the Chance" was Amuro's second single for the Avex Trax label, following "Body Feels Exit" which was released a month prior. 1995 became Amuro's breakthrough year as she parted ways with her former girl group,

Super Monkey's was a Japanese pop-singing and dancing group that spawned the careers of Namie Amuro and some members of the girl group MAX. The group was active between 1991 until 1996. History Pre-debut The group was originally part of a larger 15-membe ...

, and saw her first run of solo singles reach top five on the ''Oricon'' charts. The rest of Super Monkey's regrouped as

MAX Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

earlier that same year and continued to dance backup for Amuro, with "Chase the Chance" marking the last single they performed with her. The group would go on to achieve success in their own right. "Chase the Chance" was a runaway success and debuted as her first chart-topper. It outsold its predecessor by a third, and became her first of five singles to move more than a million copies.

Commercial tie-in

"Chase the Chance" was used as the theme song to the Nihon TV drama, "The Chef."

Track listing

Personnel

* Namie Amuro – vocals, background vocals

Production

* Producer – Tetsuya Komuro * Arranger – Tetsuya Komuro * Mixing – Gary Thomas Wright

TV performances

* December 31, 1995 – Kōhaku Uta Gassen

Charts

Oricon Sales Chart (Japan) Oricon Sales Chart (Japan)

References

External links

Songwriter, Takahiro Maeda's thoughts on the single
(Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Chase The Chance 1995 singles Namie Amuro songs Oricon Weekly number-one singles Japanese television drama theme songs Songs written by Tetsuya Komuro 1995 songs Avex Trax singles