日本文が後ろに続きます。
It’s fun to see successful people going to the dogs, all the more for people who have been haughty in wealth. This morning, one of the most charismatic musical producers in the 1990s music scene, Tetsuya Komuro, was arrested by Osaka local prosecution office, accused of being involved in fraud copyright business. The swindler deceived a company owner in Ashiya, Hyogo out of 500 million Yen of his money.
Komuro has been one of Japan’s leading musicians and one of Japan’s renowned song producers since the end of 1980s. He was a leader of the musical band TM Network, and played key roles in various projects like “globe.” In 1990s, he sold more than 4 million copies of CDs for only 50 days. He became Japan’s fourth richest man in 1996 and 1997.
In addition to producing songs, he played an important role to find and train young (female) singers including Tomomi Kahala, Ami Suzuki, Namie Amuro and TRF. He produced his songs to these singers and let them sing on stage. He sold millions of there CDs every time they released songs.
However, not all these singers had enough musical talent. Some of them were just young and good-looking, not adequately trained for vocal music, and received his songs in exchange for sex. He sometimes became intimate with those girls. He married one of them, divorced her, married another, divorced her, repeatedly.
His daily life got extraordinarily luxurious. He purchased a number of residences in Hawaii and LA. When he traveled abroad by airplane, he reserved all of first-class seats. When he stayed in a hotel, he reserved all rooms in a floor including suite rooms.
I usually listen to American pop music instead of J-POPs, because Komuro’s songs are so dominant in Japanese music scene that most J-POP songs are sung by Komuro-related singers. All those songs sound similarly to me, and are boring.
Komuro’s luxurious life didn’t last long. He divorced a woman who gave birth to a daughter from him and he had to pay 2 million Yen for them every month. At the same time, he failed his business in Hong Kong. He lost as much money as he had earned, and was deeply in debt. Eventually, the superstar ended in being a criminal.
The lesson we must learn from him would be “Pride will have a fall.”
今朝、小室哲哉が大阪地検特捜部に逮捕されちゃいました。容疑は芦屋市内の会社社長に自分の楽曲の著作権を売ると偽って5億円を騙し取った詐欺容疑とのことです。90年代のミュージックシーンを彩った時代の寵児が、思いもよらぬ転落ぶりです。
まあ邦楽はほとんど小室系の曲ばっかで、どれもこれも同じようなのばっかしだし、歌うほうも大して歌唱力もないのに顔だけで小室のお手つきになって歌ってるだけなので、つまんないので私は邦楽は聴かず洋楽しか聴かないのですが、まあ小室も華原朋美を自殺未遂に追いやったり女に手を出しまくったり飛行機のファーストクラスを全席借り切ったりと調子に乗って成金みたいな真似を繰り返し、とうとうヤキが回ったといったところでしょうか。
ホリエモンといい小室といい、「驕れる者は久しからず」ということか。