Walk of My Life

Walk of My Life is Koda Kumi's twelfth Japanese studio album (twenty-seventh overall) released on March 18, 2015.[1] It debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon Albums Charts and remained on the charts for fourteen consecutive weeks.[2][3] This became the tenth straight year for the artist to have chart-topping albums, which began in 2005 with her compilation album Best: First Things.[4]

The album was released in six separate editions: a standard CD, a CD+DVD/Blu-ray combo, two limited editions through the site Mu-mo that contained a CD and a music card,[5] and a limited fan club edition that contained her second limited live performance on December 6, 2014, at Studio Coast.[6][7] Her previous limited live was done for her album Secret in late 2005.

Walk of My Life became Kumi's first album to have only two preluding singles: "Hotel" and "Dance in the Rain". Despite releasing the EP Fever: Legend Live prior to the album's release,[8] none of the songs or their music videos were utilized. However, the song "Kimi Omoi" would later be placed as the coupling track to her 2016 single "Shhh!" and on her 2017 album W Face: Inside/Outside.[9]

The music video for "Walk of My Life" introduced a new technique called "4D View." Forty-eight different shots were combined with 3D animation for the dance in the sky, which was to show the story of how her strength had grown.[10] The music video was filmed in Times Square in the borough of Manhattan in New York City in the United States.[11][12] This made the first time Kumi filmed a video on the east coast of the country, whereas she had filmed several videos on the west coast in the state of California throughout her career ("Run For Your Life," "Anytime," "That Ain't Cool," "Touch Down" and "Lalalalala").[13]

On an interview for MTV Japan, Kumi described the theme of the album as "not how a person thought, but how they live."[14]

The album was made available in six editions, with the CD portion of available versions featuring the sixteen musical tracks. The DVD and Blu-ray editions contained five music videos, two of which were produced for the album, "Like It" and "Walk of My Life." Both versions also carried the behind-the-scenes makings for the two new videos. The fan club edition was released as a CD+2DVD, with the second DVD housing her 15th Anniversary First Class 2nd Limited Live at Studio Coast concert, which was performed at Studio Coast in Tokyo on December 6, 2014.

Two music cards were also released for purchase, though they were only available until July 31, 2015. Both music cards carried identical content, although their image artwork varied. The music cards allowed buyers to download eight tracks from the album to either iPhone or Android. These versions were available through Mu-mo.