[Mr. Goto]

MAKI GOTO'S 4TH THREAD


Name: Maki Goto (後藤真希)
Birth date: 1985/09/23
Birthplace: Edogawa, Tokyo, Japan
Blood type: O
Height: 160 cm (5'2")

Maki Goto is a J-pop singer-songwriter currently under the avex sublabel Rhythm Zone. Before joining Avex, she was a soloist under Hello! Project and a member of the all girl idol group, Morning Musume.

In 1999, Maki Goto was selected as the only member for the 3rd generation of Morning Musume. Their first single after Goto joined, "Love Machine" sold over a million copies, over nine times the amount of copies they had sold for their previous single. During her time in Morning Musume she was one of the founding members of Petitmoni and she started a solo singing career in 2001 with the single "Ai no Bakayarō". Until her graduation from Morning Musume she was one of the leading vocalists in most of the songs released. Post-graduation she has mostly concentrated on her solo career and occasionally on limited time Hello! Project units such as Gomattou, Nochiura Natsumi, and DEF.DIVA. As time has passed, she has increasingly concentrated on acting in addition to singing. She has also performed at the Asia song festival 2005 in Pusan, Korea to represent Japan.

On October 28, 2007, during the last concert of her G-Emotion II ~How to Use Sexy~ tour, Goto suddenly announced to fans that she would be graduating from Hello! Project, though she was also leaving UpFront Agency completely. Her graduation was said to be that she was overworked and overly stressed, causing her health problems. She also had different ideas of the direction of her career than what her agency had planned. Because of her graduation, she would not be able to participate in the Hello! Project 2008 Winter concert tour, previously said to be because of "scheduling conflicts".

On June 19, 2008 (after many rumors had circulated), it was released to the press that Goto had signed with the record label Rhythm Zone under avex. Maki debuted with Avex when she participated in the company's shareholders' meeting on June 22, 2008, singing a cover of Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love for You." She also participated in a-nation'08 (Osaka on August 24 and Tokyo on August 31) alongside with Kumi Koda, Ai Otsuka, EXILE, Ami Suzuki, AAA, TVXQ, Namie Amuro, and Ayumi Hamasaki, among others. On a-nation, she performed the self-written song "Hear me", a song unreleased to the date, and a cover of Diana King's "Shy Guy", drawing media attention for the first time since her graduation.

On January 5, 2009, J-WAVE premiered “SWEET BLACK Girls”, a 15 minutes segment hosted by Maki Goto and Ryu as part of the popular radio show “PLATOn”. The show airs Mon-Fri and focuses on the life of women on their twenties. Reception was extremely good, as 30,000 messages were received during the first week only. This launched the SWEET BLACK Project, a cross-media collaboration between J-WAVE, Avex and Mixi. Goto herself chose the logo and the name, which is meant to reflect the “positive and negative” side of the life of today’s women.

To complete the project, Mixi, the most used networking community in Japan, opened a special space for Sweet Black, and Avex launched a web-documentary on YouTube based on Goto’s daily routine as a singer. Immediate success was acquainted, admittedly beyond expectations. Maki released several digital singles under the SWEET BLACK name and is soon to release a mini album of the compiled songs and music videos.

Latest release.

2009.09.16 - SWEET BLACK feat. MAKI GOTO Mini Album

【CD】
01. Queen Bee with BIGGA RAIJI
02. Lady-Rise
03. Candy
04. TEAR DROPS with KG
05. Mine with KEN THE 390
06. Fly away
07. Plastic Lover
08. with…

【DVD】
01. “Fly away” MUSIC VIDEO
02. “Lady-Rise” MUSIC VIDEO
03. “with…” MUSIC VIDEO
04. mixiドラマ完全版

yay

2010 can't come soon enough, a real debut