World! Wide! Love!

"World! Wide! Love!" is the 33rd physical single and 34th single overall by Japanese singer-songwriter Hitomi and was released on May 20, 2009 by Avex Trax.^[1] "World! Wide! Love!" is the second single from, and is set to appear on, Hitomi's ninth studio album, "Love Life 2".^[2]

Background

While there were many rumors that Hitomi was going to retire, they were quickly disbanded when her 34th single, "Sagashi Tsuduketeta Mono/World! Wide! Love!", a double a-side featuring a "pop ballad", was announced to be released on January 28, 2009. However, this single was soon cancelled for unknown reasons.^[3] Not long after, another single release, tentatively titled, "Birth", was soon scheduled on online stores to release a month later, on February 18, 2009, in both a CD-only and CD+DVD edition. Once again, however, this single release was cancelled for unknown reasons.^[4] Finally, however, her ninth studio album, then untitled, was confirmed by online retailers and Hitomi's official website. Soon after, "World! Wide! Love!" was announced.^[5] The title track was used in skincare product "Easuterinie" commercials, and was also a tie-in song for the "Bee TV" series in Japan.^[6] Both "World! Wide! Love!" and the b-side "Kokoro no Sogen" will appear on Hitomi's upcoming album "Love Life 2".^[2]

Music video

The promotional video does not feature Hitomi herself; rather, it depicts a girl in a long t-shirt walking around a school campus. As she walks, more girls join her and wear part of the girl's long t-shirt. The beginning of the video features a spoken, robotic message (most likely from Hitomi herself), and the song used in the video prior to release of Love Life 2 uses a more vocoded voice than the version on the single. This vocoder version appeared on the CD Love Life 2 However, the version of the video on the CD+DVD version of Love Life 2 uses the single mix.

Track listing

Charts

Oricon Sales Chart (Japan)^[7]

References

1. ^ World! Wide! Love! @ Oricon
2. ^ ^{a b} Pre-Order Page for "Love Life 2"
3. ^ Cancelled Single Release Pre-Order Page @ CDJapan
4. ^ Cancelled Single "Birth" @ CDJapan
5. ^ Hitomi "W!W!L!" discussion
6. ^ Love Life 2 Detial @ CDJapan
7. ^ Hitomi Sales Records