Sweetheart Shore/ Background Information
From Clumsy Media
Sweetheart Shore (originally Sweetheart on the Shore) are an Japanese indie rock band under Clumsy Media, consisting of lead singer Florence Welch, Isabella Summers, and a collaboration of other artists who provide backing music. The band's music received praise across the music media, especially from the underground scence and teenagers in Japan, before they gained mainstream success.
The band's debut unofficial mini album, Sweethearts, was released in 2009, and held the number-two position for its first five weeks on the Japan Albums Chart. The band's independant success earned them a major label contract the very next year. Their official major debut album, Lovers on the Shore was released February 22, 2013. It was able to debut at number one on the Oricorn Weekly Music Chart, becoming the band's second consecutive number-one album in Japan. It also debuted at number one on the iTunes Japan Albums Chart and peaked at number six on the 2012 Oricorn Yearly Albums chart.
On 17 January 2010, the album reached the top position, after being on the chart for twenty-eight consecutive weeks.[3] As of October 2010, the album had been in the top forty in the United Kingdom for sixty-five consecutive weeks, making it one of the best-selling albums of 2009 and 2010. The group's second studio album, Ceremonials, released in October 2011, debuted at number one in the UK and number six in the US.
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History
2008-2009: Formation and Sweethearts
Sweetheart Shore released their debut album Sweethearts November 14, 2009. Much of the material on the album was written as reaction to what turned out to be a break-up between Tim and Bou, the band's former vocal. Tim said, "[Our relationship was] a mistake, and because I didn't want to talk about it I wanted others to know our story by singing of it." Despite being released with a small underground label and with no professional promotion it peaked at number two across all music charts in Japan. By December, the album had sold over 100,000 copies in the Japan and by December 30 it had been at number two for five consecutive weeks.
2010-2012: Major label contract and training
2013-current: Debut album
Main article: Lovers on the Shore
Initially, Tim considered offers from the company record label to record their official debut album with writers under the same company, who are some of the most respected producers in the industry (such as Moving Ghost) but ultimately decided to record and produce the album within the band in order to 'preserve the original taste'. The first demo session occurred in January 2011 with Tim and Flora at a small studio. Numerous producers expressed an interest in working on the album but the band rejected the offers because they wanted the second work to be a better version of Sweethearts, with a "more dark, more heavy, bigger drum sounds, bigger bass, but with more of a whole sound". For the rest of the year work on the album continued only intermittently as the band concentrated on their training within the company, where they refined their skills as a group and around this time, member Khui was added in. The majority of the writing for the album was done between April and August 2011, with recording taking place in May at the Clumsy Studio. The final recording session took place in March 2012 at labelmate singer songwriter Ophelia's personal studio in Japan. Ophelia co-wrote five tracks. Several other writers share credits on the album, including Summers, James Kevers and composer Skin Piece.
The band's second also official major label debut album, Lovers on the Shore, was released on January 11, 2013. It debuted at number one on the iTunes Japan Albums Chart and number one on the Oricorn Daily Music Chart, selling more than 500,000 copies in its first week. It easily topped the Oricon Weekly Albums Chart and, with just one week of sales, it was placed 2nd in the list of best selling albums of the first half of 2013 in Japan.
On January 29, Sweetheart Shore were nominated for two Music Station Awards, with the awards ceremony taking place on February 20, 2013 at the recording station of Fuji TV located in central Tokyo, winning the Best Debuting Band and Best Debut Album of 2012.
In late August 2013, Flora told Popteen magazine that she plans to take a twelve-month hiatus before starting work on the band's next studio album, stating, "There's a big 'take a year off' plan. The record company have put no pressure on me for the next album. They've said I can have as long as I want. I can promise the fans we will be putting an album out as soon as our holiday ends. We have spent two years in training, polishing our skills, we won't be holding back. As a band we decided we want to publish consecutive albums."
