GReeeeN

While enrolled as students at a dental school in Fukushima—a city roughly two hours from Tokyo by train—the members of Greeeen, nominally a quartet of dentists with one still completing his studies, first began laying down tracks. Their style aligns with the standard approach taken by male vocal ensembles across Japan and Korea, leading the group to concentrate on understated pop ballads after the Top 40 Oricon-charting debut single “Michi.” Following several follow-up singles, they issued their first full-length album, A Domo Hajimemashite, in June 2007; it moved 130,000 units during its opening week and reached the number-two position on the Oricon chart. Buoyed by that performance, Greeeen kept issuing singles yet stayed conspicuously absent from public view, a strategy that preceded the June 2008 release of their second album, A Domo Ohisashiburi Desu. That set surpassed the debut’s first-week numbers with nearly 400,000 copies sold and claimed the top slot on the Oricon chart.