Friday, December 23, 2016

SMAP reported to have rejected offer to appear on NHK's Kouhaku Utagassen

SMAP is said to have rejected NHK's offer to appear on this year's Kouhaku Utagassen before they go their separate ways on 31 December. According to Nikkansports, despite SMAP's name being missing from the list of performers in this year's Kouhaku announced on 24 November, the TV station had not given up on negotiating for the group's last performance. However, with the rejection, SMAP's last joint appearance will be on the final episode of "SMAPxSMAP" shown on 26 December which was recorded earlier on 1 December. It is understood that the last song they will sing during the programme is "Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana".

To date, SMAP had appeared 23 times on Kouhaku since their CD debut in 1991 and were the final performers for the 2003, 2005, 2010, 2011 and 2012 editions. There were only two years when the group did not appear i.e. 2001 when Inagaki Goro was absent due to a suspension of his work due to his traffic offence and 2004 when the members were busy with solo activities and did not spend much time on their music career. Leader Nakai Masahiro was also the Kouhaku host for 6 years in 1997, 1998, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. He was the youngest Shirogumi host to date back then in 1997.

Source: Nikkansports

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