-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

Speaking of Hello Kitty, did you know Hello Kitty’s first music album, “Hello World” that is about to be released on 7 Oct. in the U.S? That sounds a little weird to me because I couldn’t just connect Kitty and songs. (Kitty doesn’t even have a mouth…no, I’m kidding! The idea sounds something interesting!!) Of course Kitty doesn’t sing a song, she is just a basic image that inspires musicians.

To sample album, for music player:

for audio stream:
Audio Stream: “Do You Really Wanna” by Cory Yarckin
audio (media player)
audio (QTime)

The album is available on iTunes now:
itune

For further info, here’s press release 9/15 from Sanrio.
===quotation from here===
SANRIO, Inc. is thrilled to announce the release of “Hello World”,
the first-ever Hello Kitty album available on Lakeshore Records. The
album will offer 11 tracks of original pop tunes, performed by a
number of up & coming young artists. The result is an upbeat and
perky compilation that reflects the life-embracing mood of the Hello
Kitty brand.

The album launches October 7th exclusively at Wal-Mart and the first
single “Come On, Come On”, with early airplay reported from Radio
Disney, will be available on iTunes starting September 30th. The
online community is already abuzz over the album’s MySpace and
Facebook pages that allow listeners to sample the tracks. Additional
distribution, including SANRIO stores and www.sanrio.com, will begin
in January 2009. A merchandise program featuring t-shirts and
accessories emblazoned with the album’s colorful Japan-Pop artwork
will coincide with this expanded release.

“Hello World” was created in partnership with New York’s Cherry
Lane Music Publishing Co. Inc., home to the catalogues of Elvis
Presley, the Black Eyed Peas, Wolfmother, John Legend and Quincy
Jones. ‘Hello World’ is the first endeavor resulting from the
multi-year joint venture between SANRIO, Inc. and Cherry Lane to
produce original music for Hello Kitty and other character brands
under the SANRIO umbrella.

Belting out the Hello Kitty headline track, “Come On, Come On”,
actress, musician & Hello Kitty fan Keke Palmer mirrors the fun and
friendship that’s synonymous with Hello Kitty and the entire SANRIO
family of characters. A SAG-nominated & Image Award winning actress,
Keke is part of DAS Communications’ impressive roster and has
starred in the critically-acclaimed Akeelah & the Bee and Jump In, as
well as the recent film The Longshots, with Ice Cube. Keke also has a
debut solo album, ‘SO UNCOOL’, which was released in September
2007. Keke models girl empowerment, an integral trait of the Hello
Kitty brand.

Cori Yarckin performs the album’s follow up single “Do You Really
Wanna”. Named by Rolling Stone Magazine as “One of the Girls of
MySpace” (in a feature on young female performers), Cori’s upbeat
power pop sound will have listeners rocking out to this track. The
video, currently in production, will launch online and made available
on sanrio.com, YouTube, and multiple social networking sites.

For ‘Hello World’, writers and performers were hand-picked by
SANRIO and Cherry Lane and primarily came from Cherry Lane’s
impressive roster. “Come On, Come On” was co-penned by Nini Camps
and Gary Phillips (producer of the popular Kidz Bop albums). Other
‘Hello World’ songwriters and producers include Toby Gad, the
writer behind Fergie’s #1 song, “Big Girls Don’t Cry”and Gen
Rubin, who brings his Grammy-nominated talents to three ‘Hello
World’ songs in total.

So look out world! SANRIO and Hello Kitty are keeping music lovers
engaged with perky personality, fun-loving attitude and a commitment
to harmony at every turn!
===quotation up to here===

Hello Kitty is used even for train pass or bank card these days in Japan.
I asked one at my bank before but for some reason I was not qualified for it
Hope the album goes well… (o_0* I write too much about Hello Kitty these days, as it turns out…)