generasia:Featured article for 2011 week 22

Abe Mao

Abe Mao (阿部真央) is a Japanese pop singer signed to Pony Canyon. She began playing piano when she was in third grade, and by junior high, she decided she wanted to be a singer. When she was high school, she dropped piano and started playing guitar. During the summer of her second year of high school in June 2006, the manager of a music store recommended that Abe should participate in Oita's YAMAHA TEENS' MUSIC FESTIVAL 2006. She won, with her song "Haha no Uta". The following November, she participated in the same competition at the national level and was awarded an encouragement prize. She graduated from high school in Spring 2008 and proceeded to move to Tokyo.

In October, Abe's song "want you DARLING" was used as the theme song for the drama Tetsudo Musume ~Girls be ambitious!~. She also released an acoustic version of her song "MY BABY" on iTunes, which was featured as the single of the week. Soon, Abe gained feature coverage on MySpace and au one music. Her popularity slowly rose, achieving high ranks on BARKS, Google, and mixi. In one day, her MySpace received 20,000 listens.

Su. (released on June 1, 2011) is the third album released by Abe Mao. It was released in two versions: a limited CD+DVD edition that was housed in a sleeve jacket with a 16-page booklet, and a regular CD-only edition.