generasia:Featured article for 2011 week 18

THE ALFEE

THE ALFEE is a three-piece Japanese band that is currently signed to EMI Music Japan. The trio is composed of Sakurai Masaru on bass guitar, Sakazaki Kohnosuke on acoustic guitar, and Takamizawa Toshihiko on electric guitar, with all three sharing the main vocals. They debuted in 1974 as a folk band, but soon progressed to rock. In 1983, nine years after their debut, the band finally had a hit with their sixteenth single, "Marie-Anne". Ever since, all of their singles have charted in the Oricon weekly top ten. THE ALFEE is known for their numerous concerts; they have toured Japan every year since 1981 and have also held a large-scale (mostly outdoor) concert every summer from 1982 to 2006, with a final one in 2009.

THE ALFEE celebrated their 35th anniversary in 2009. Together with their current label and their former label Pony Canyon, they re-released forty of their albums as either SHM-CDs or HQCDs in a cardboard jacket and twenty of their DVDs in a long case with lower price on March 18th. Later on August 8th and 9th, the band returned to their summer lives that went on hiatus for two years to hold their 26th and final, THE ALFEE Legendary Summer 2009 YOKOHAMA PERFECT BURN. 2009 was also the first year since 1999 that THE ALFEE released more than one single. As of June 27, 2010, they have performed 2,274 concerts.

"Let It Go" is the 60th single released by THE ALFEE. It was released in three versions, each with a different cover and third track. The title track was used as the image song for the 2011 Osaka International Ladies Marathon.