Miki Matsubara

Biography

Miki Matsubara (松原 みき, Matsubara Miki; 28 November 1959 – 7 October 2004) was a Japanese singer and songwriter. She contributed to the opening and ending theme songs of the anime Gu-Gu Ganmo under the name Suzie Matsubara. Her 1979 debut song "Mayonaka no Door (Stay With Me)" became a hit, reaching No. 28 on the Oricon chart.
Believing that her cancer diagnosis was the result of the lifestyle she lived during her career, Matsubara retired and severed all connections to the music world in 2000, dying from cervical cancer four years later at the age of 44. Since 2020, "Mayonaka no Door" has become widely known overseas due to its use on TikTok and the resurgence of the city pop genre.

Early life

Miki Matsubara was born 28 November 1959 in Kishiwada, Osaka. She spent her childhood in Hiraoka Town, an area of Nishi-ku in Sakai, Osaka. She grew up with her mother, father, and younger sister. Her mother was a jazz singer who sang with the jazz band and comedy group Crazy Cats, while her father was a board member of a hospital. Matsubara started learning the piano at the age of three and later became familiar with jazz. As a child, she went to Sakai's Hiraoka Elementary School. In 1972, she entered Poole Gakuin Junior High School. Around this time, she became interested in rock music and joined the rock band Kurei.
In 1975, Matsubara started at Poole Gakuin High School and became active as a keyboard player of the band Yoshinoya Band. They would play songs at a live house called Takutaku in Kyoto. Matsubara was described as an excellent student and was expected by many around her to attend college, but had already made plans to become a singer. In 1977, when she was still in high school, she went to Tokyo alone at the age of 17 to make her debut as a singer. The Japanese pianist Yuzuru Sera found her playing music and singing in various places across the Kantō region, such as in the live music venue Birdland in Roppongi.

Career

Matsubara started her career in 1979 and is known from hit songs such as her debut and immediate breakthrough "Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)" which has been covered by numerous artists, including Akina Nakamori. The song was ranked 28th on the Oricon Chart, and according to that chart sold 104,000 copies and 300,000 copies announced by Canyon records. Some of her other known songs were "Neat na gogo san-ji (ニートな午後3時)" and "The Winner×THE WINNER2 February 2020 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1THE WINNER4:09" among others.
Matsubara became a well-known singer after her song Neat na Gogo San-ji was released, performing at college festivals, concerts and so on. The song gained a feature in a commercial of the Japanese multinational personal care company Shiseido.
Miki Matsubara received a number of artist awards. She formed her own band, Dr. Woo. Matsubara also had some international work with Motown jazz fusion group Dr. Strut in Los Angeles (becoming a backing band in the album recordings for "Cupid" and "Myself×MyselfMarch 1982 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracksA1バレリーナA2三人で踊らないA3微熱が平熱A4SomewhereA5カランドリエB1流星スウィングB2See-Saw LoveB35つ数える間にB4ハレーションB5MyselfB6Three Candles"), Tokyo and Osaka (Hall concerts), later releasing a jazz cover album titled Blue Eyes×BLUE EYES1984 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 9 tracks1Love for sale3:292Misty5:103You’d be so nice to come home to3:384Wave4:395Love letters3:396Cheek to cheek4:357You’ve got a friend4:148Tea for two3:369When you wish upon a star3:07. On that album she covered some famous jazz songs like "Love for Sale" and the soft rock song "You've Got a Friend", originally written and sung by Carole King.
Her vocal range was that of a mezzo-soprano.
During her music career she released 8 singles and 12 albums. While Matsubara was a star in Japan, she was known internationally for her work as an anime singer and songwriter, singing the opening and ending songs to anime such as Dirty Pair: Project Eden. The popularization of city pop has attracted new audiences outside of Japan. While singing theme songs for the anime Gu Gu Ganmo, she performed under the name Suzie Matsubara (スージー・松原). Matsubara's song "The Winner" was used as the opening for the Gundam OVA-series Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.
From the 1990s on she especially worked on anime soundtracks and music for commercials. Matsubara wrote songs for anime and some of her most known musical compositions were for the anime series Gundam. Matsubara wrote songs for several singers, including Hitomi Mieno, but her most notable works were likely with the singer and actress Mariko Kouda. Kouda's song "Ame no Chi Special" (雨のちスペシャル), which Matsubara composed, was featured in the five-minute music television and radio series Minna no Uta as a music video in 1997. It attracted a lot of attention and ranked 28th place on the Oricon chart. The song was repeatedly rebroadcast until 2004.
On 12 November 2024, producer Tetsuji Hayashi re‐arranged Matsubara's debut hit "Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)" and released it digitally as "2024”.
Matsubara's unreleased cover of Hi-Fi Set's song "Sky Restaurant×Sky Restaurant5 December 2024 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1Sky Restaurant3:44" was issued as a digital single on 5 December 2024. The Pony Canyon press release explains that Yumi Arai (Yuming) wrote the lyrics and Kunihiko Murai composed the music (this was a hit for Hi-Fi Set), and Matsubara's vocals from a stored tape were given a new city‑pop arrangement by Tetsuji Hayashi. (The same source also notes a new music video: directed by her nephew Tsuyoshi Matsubara and featuring her grand-niece Moka.)

Personal life

Little is known about Matsubara's private life. Her husband, Masaki Honjo (1953–2007), was the drummer for her backing band. During her years as a student, her eyesight reportedly deteriorated due to fatigue from a part-time job, and was fixed with surgery.

Illness and death

In late 2000, Matsubara sent an email to people including her company and the members of Dr. Woo, which read: "I can no longer continue with my music for a certain reason. I am canceling my phone, cell phone, and email. So please do not reply. Please live your life without regrets." She stopped all music activities and disappeared from the spotlight altogether. She burned all her cherished sheet music and records. In an email sent to her cousin, she wrote: "Please forget all the times in the past when I was singing and composing." In 2001, it was revealed that Matsubara's actions were prompted by a late-stage cancer diagnosis, after which she began treatment.
Matsubara returned to her parents' home and spent her final years battling her illness. According to a Japanese documentary, further emails were sent to various people, including her cousin and husband. The next email sent to her cousin read: "I think my lifestyle in this era brought me this disease. So I reset everything that prevents me from going forward. It reminds me of my weak point." In the same documentary, her father reported that Matsubara told him: "I want to do many things. I'm still thinking of them. So I don't want to die." Despite the fact that she cut off all connections with music, her father said that she mumbled about music while losing consciousness under anesthesia.
Despite being told by her doctor that she only had three months to live, Matsubara died in Sakai nearly four years later on 7 October 2004, at age 44, from complications of cervical cancer. Her death was announced to the public two months later. Her final email, written two months before her death, was read out at her funeral and said: "I realized many things for the first time after I was diagnosed. If possible, I want to be healthy [and] restart my life."

Legacy

An increased interest in city pop during the 2000s particularly the 2010s, contributed to Matsubara gaining global recognition and "Stay with Me" (真夜中のドア, "Mayonaka no door") becoming a resurgent hit in the West and throughout Asia in 2020. Billboard Japan credited Indonesian YouTuber Rainych for the song's initial surge in popularity, after she shared a cover version with her 1.3 million YouTube subscribers in October 2020. To capitalize on her posthumous resurgence, record label Pony Canyon reissued Matsubara's first album Pocket Park×POCKET PARK25 January 1980 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracksA1真夜中のドア / Stay With Me5:12A2It’s So Creamy3:43A3Cryin’3:57A4That’s All4:02A5His Woman4:07B1Manhattan Wind3:30B2愛はエネルギー3:37B3そうして私が4:16B4Trouble Maker4:34B5Mind Game3:59B6偽りのない日々3:50 as a 180g LP on 31 March 2021. "Stay With Me" had just spent 20 consecutive days at No. 1 on Spotify's Global Viral chart.
The song became known on TikTok, most notably during December 2020; prior to this, it was already somewhat popular with TikTok's anime community, where it sparked a trend among users of Japanese descent who in turn shared videos of themselves playing the song for their mothers and filming their reactions when they recognized the track. One such video garnered over 23 million views and 6 million likes. As of February 2021, audio from the song has been used in over 200,000 TikTok videos.
Although Matsubara died in 2004, a new director's cut of the music video for "Mayonaka no Door" was released via her official YouTube channel in November 2022. The updated video was re-edited by the original director Tell Sato.
In October 2024 at the Paris Paralympics, "Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)" was played on the center court at Stade Roland Garros after Japanese wheelchair tennis players won gold. Publishing company Pony Canyon released color‐vinyl editions of the Matsubara albums Cool Cut×Cool Cut21 May 1984 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracksA1真夏のゲーム3:50A2Knock, Knock, My Heart3:10A3チャイナタウンの殺人鬼3:24A4Ice Heart ~その気もないのに~4:10A5マンハッタンのかけら4:01A6Cry For Me4:40B1ウィークエンドは軽い病気4:00B2Caribbean Night3:25B3Riverside Tango5:10B4Cinnamon Tea4:17B5French Cinema5:32, Blue Eyes×BLUE EYES1984 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 9 tracks1Love for sale3:292Misty5:103You’d be so nice to come home to3:384Wave4:395Love letters3:396Cheek to cheek4:357You’ve got a friend4:148Tea for two3:369When you wish upon a star3:07, and Lady Bounce×LADY BOUNCE21 June 1985 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks112月のパリ4:142魔法じゃないの3:203恋にお招ばれ3:314モダンに殺気3:455Bon Voyage2:576恋するセゾン ～色恋来い～4:107逃避行4:108サングラスはもういらない3:179終りゆく夏3:5610恋はふたたび旅立つ4:17 for Japan's Record Day on 3 November 2024.