I have been enjoying music by Zard for over 10 years now and I am amazed that she is still making music and that it’s always really good! Izumi Sakai’s music is not the most innovative or catchy, but it’s rarely disappointing. She’s got one of the best voices of all the Japanese pop/rock singers, in my opinion. So many of the popular Jpop singers have kind of high-pitched cutesy voices, and that makes Izumi Sakai’s smooth and delicate voice really stand out. I find it intriguing that she has never been promoted as heavily as other pop stars, and rarely makes live appearances. There was a small tour in 2004, and a special show in ’99, but that is it. I really want to get the new DVD of the 2004 tour.

When I first saw a Zard CD in the store back in ’94, I was interested by the strange name. It sounded kind of French, but I wasn’t sure what the deal was. I bought a CD single called [url=/media/audio/zard-just_believe_in_love.mp3″>”Just Believe In Love”, since it was *only* $12 and really liked it. The tunes were very formulaic and the orchestration was not overly sophisticated, but her voice was amazing! After listening for several years, the combination of her voice, the straightforward songs, and the simple drum/guitar/bass/synth orchestration is just very natural. I guess the songs lend themselves to karaoke very well too, which can only help sell records in Japan.