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Ayumi Hamasaki's A BEST compilation album. (Image © by 'avex network')Ayumi Hamasaki (浜崎 あゆみ Hamasaki Ayumi, born October 2, 1978) is a Japanese singer originally from Fukuoka. In her homeland she is commonly called by her nickname Ayu.

Since 2001, she has been arguably the single most successful JPop singer in terms of sales and popularity. She has an aversion to singing in the English language, and writes her own lyrics. She is one of Japan's most prolific recording artists, having released 26 albums and 54 singles as of January 2005. One reason for this is that her record company releases most of her albums in multiple versions, such as trance remix, eurobeat remix and orchestral versions. Recently she started to write some of her own music with the pen name CREA named after one of her beloved dogs; her single 'M' was the first time she ever wrote music and lyrics altogether.

At one point, four of Hamasaki's albums were among Japan's top ten bestsellers. She is also the only individual to win the Japan Recording Award (日本レコード大賞) three years in a row, in 2001 (for "Dearest"), 2002 (for "Voyage"), and 2003 (for "No way to say").

Before her musical debut in 1998 with the single "Poker Face," Hamasaki was a tarento, a kind of Japanese idol who appears in photobooks, TV commercials and so on. Even though her major label debut was in 1998, she released one album and one single in 1995 featuring her song Nothing from Nothing.

Her record label AVEX Records also commissioned a series of remix albums called ayumix featuring DJ's from around the world.