Koda Kumi to return to the Kingdom in 2026, with a new old tour

Koda Kumi announced that she will be re-doing a tour of her 2008 sixth studio album Kingdom in 2026. This is a cool surprise, which spins off the back of her revisiting her Black Cherry and Japonseque album tours back in 2019, which Kumi did in place of a tour for her album Re(cord).

I really like the idea of revisiting an album and a tour and revamping it. I think it makes a lot of sense given where music is at right now, where we are in this age of old shit being new and being given more time of day than new shit — all because of the ease of accessibility to older songs and albums, thanks to streaming and TikTok.

And as much as some are sick of her at the moment — we can’t not acknowledge the impact of Taylor Swift rerecording her older albums and her Eras Tour. Sure, the level of success she saw with them was unprecedented and exclusive to her. But there’s no doubt that some artists and record labels are looking at what she did and thinking ‘How can we do some version of any of this which makes sense?’. And in Kumi’s case, it’s revisiting an album tour — especially given that she’d already done it before. It’s a smart move. Kumi’s material hasn’t really been connecting critically or commercially for the past decade. Die hard and casual fans alike are always talking about how they miss the old shit. So, here we go. The old shit is back and it has a tour.

Another artist that I imagine everybody is looking at is Mariah Carey, who has been given the gift of Christmas. Haters will say ‘All she’s known for is Christmas’. But to have an original Christmas song become a traditional Christmas song for all eternity is an amazing legacy to leave and one which so few will be able to achieve. And to have a song that tops the charts every year and a holiday that people associate you with which allows you to tour annually truly is a gift that most artists 30 years into their career would kill for. Mariah hasn’t gotta worry about what she’s gonna do to remain relevant each year or chart. Christmas will do the work for her. Mariah’s case is incredibly unique and much like Taylor’s success with re-recording her albums and her Eras Tour, it’s difficult to replicate. But both show that nostalgia can be harnessed, bottled and sold.

Kumi has a real issue with trying to move forward. And a part of me does feel that revisiting an old album for a tour feels like a bit of a cop out. It doesn’t feel like Kumi is even trying to evolve her sound or her live shows. But I get it. I really do. And maybe her circling the block is how she continues to hold on to the relevance she still has and remind people of her legacy, rather than continue to tarnish it with terrible albums and singles. She is still gonna release those. But stop-gaps of running back an album tour is a smart move for where Kumi’s career is right now. I can see this being something Kumi does every other year to celebrate an anniversary and she would be wise to do it. At least there would be sense in it and Kumi would have a sense of focus.

It’s a shame that this new tour won’t come with a re-release of Kingdom though. A new edition of the album with a couple of remixes, some unreleased songs from the golden vault and even re-recordings of a song or two would have so much value and be a great supplementary thing for the tour. Kumi could also hop on the vinyl trend and release Kingdom on vinyl for the first time in two variants — gold and leopard print.

Japan still isn’t fully on the album re-release densha. But there are a couple of anomalous cases where we do see them.

Virality in pop culture. Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love” became such a huge viral sensation that it became the flagship song for city pop. This resulted in her album Variety eventually getting re-release as 30th anniversary edition, which featured additional versions of “Plastic Love”, previously unreleased instrumentals and the original demo of “Aka no Enamel” — a song of which featured on Akina Nakamori’s 1986 album Crimson. In 2022 The Weeknd released “Out of Time” as a single, which sampled Tomoko Aran’s “Midnight Pretenders”. News of the entire musical backdrop of “Out of Time” being a sample of “Midnight Pretenders” went viral, which resulted in “Midnight Pretenders” itself going viral, which prompted Warner to re-release Fuyū Kūkan — the album which featured the song. And they even used The Weeknd and “Out of Time” to market the album. Printed that man’s name on the obi strip and everything.

Big bitches. Tatsuro Yamashita refuses to put his music on streaming. And with older pressings of his albums being scarce and so ridiculously priced that the new audiences he has acquired over the years can’t even buy his music, almost all of his albums have been re-issued. Hikaru Utada released all of their albums on vinyl. There was a period when a couple of their albums were released on vinyl for the first time. But the pressings were limited as hell, which meant that the resell prices got ridiculous real fast. But in 2022 there was a huge campaign in partnership with Tower Records coinciding with the release of Bad Mode — promoting Hikaru Utada’s complete Japanese discography finally being available on vinyl.

So, re-releases, anniversary editions and deluxe editions of albums are a thing in Japan, but they generally aren’t as common as they are in America. Limited editions of albums which often came with DVDs were pretty much the equivalent of a ‘deluxe edition’ in Japan. But re-releases and anniversary editions of albums are slowly becoming more and more of a thing. And to me, Koda Kumi and her team pulling together a vinyl release of Kingdom or an anniversary edition of the album on CD would make sense creatively and financially. Koda Kumi used to be the queen of unconventional release schedules and formats. Sure, she isn’t as popular as she once was. But she still has cachet as somebody who has been in this music game for a minute and had an incredible 10 year run from 2003 when “Real Emotion” first hit. And Kumi is still listed as one of the best-selling artists in Japan. A re-release of Kingdom would definitely make an impact and make the industry take notice of how Japan as a market could start to approach re-releases and re-visiting albums — without it harming the second-hand market and feeling as exploitative as deluxe editions of albums do in America.

The Kingdom tour doesn’t kick off until June, so there’s still time for Kumi’s team to pull a re-release together. And I hope they do, because it makes sense and could really centre Kumi at the center of something that the Japanese music industry takes note of. And it would also provide a solution for record labels who have acts who aren’t releasing music. Crystal Kay is in music limbo right now. Her re-recording odd songs, digging into vaults and re-releasing albums would be a great move for her. Same with Ayumi Hamasaki. Avex would do the same for Namie Amuro, but she made sure to tie them up in so much legal gunk that they can’t do a damn thing with her music.

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💿 Koda Kumi reviews: Affection | Secret | Grow into One | Feel My Mind | Black Cherry | Trick | Kingdom | Universe | Eternity ~Love & Songs~ | Dejavu | Japonesque | Color the Cover | Bon Voyage | Walk Of My Life | W Face | AND | DNA | re(CORD) | angeL + monsteR [My Name Is...] | Heart | Unicorn | De:Code