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In honor of the lead singers 23rd birthday (March 24th!), I bring to you the J-Pop super-group Every Little Thing. Most known for the female lead's ultra-smooth vocals, the chart-topping group has set records in Japan. ELT has also gained popularity outside of Japan, across Asia.

Trying to weed through those ELT sites on the web? Let me do it for you. Since this is just a little section I'm giving ELT, you may visit some of these sites (handpicked by Jen!) for every little info you desire:

• Simply Kaori - Every Little Thing - Nice site and color coordination. It has everything you would need for a quick look at a page. It doesn't go too in-depth into the group. I think it's a relatively new site. This would be my highest recomended site to visit, and you can go from there.
• Sakura - Every Little Thing - Another well organized site. Has lyrics of most every song ELT has released, plus useful info about singles and albums.
• Every Little Thing Official Page - Not much to look at here. Some of it's in English, some in Japanese. But it's the "official" page by the record company, I believe, so I had to put it here. Not that great.
• Tomobiki.com's Every Little Thing - I like this one. If you're looking to find a good quick history on the group, this page is where you should go visit. It's one of those "this guy knows what he's talking about" page. Just go see it and read about ELT!
• Every Little Thing's Place in Lemonfool's World - a small page, but what's interesting is that it offers an ELT startup logo, winamp skin, and ICQ skin.
• ELT World - Not as "pretty" as the other sites I've recommended so far (still very nice, though!), but in terms of mutimedia content, this is probably one of the best ELT sites out there. It has a great Discography page with loads of info, and a fairly, um, massive Image Gallery. Plus it offers video clips of the group as well.
• Sammy Sy's ELT Page - this one's just a page with the usual info, but he talks about individual songs of ELT. It's a good read to get a feel for what type of songs to expect from ELT. Go see!
• The Every Little Thing Shrine - hmm, a pretty old site ("ELT released yet another great song entitled Forever Yours!" which was released way back in June of '98), but it has a good image gallery, video clips, and mp3s, I think. Hmm, alright, I'll put it on this list.
• webweb kaori - lol. Some info are in Japanese, but it's a new site and worth a look. I like the way he edited the pics for the b&w look. Pretty.

Whoops, better stop. I wanted to list just a few sites, but the list got to be a little too long. Oh well. Just pick a couple and surf. .

I first heard of ELT at a con (AWA!). I believe it was the only J-pop song used for the music video competition that year (2000), so it kinda stuck in my mind. Anyway, I remember the video being introduced and the name of the group, but I can't for the life of me remember the song that was used (grrr)! All I remember was that it had a cool guitar intro (it could have been Future World).

I'm not sure if it was because of AWA's awesome sound system, but I was truly amazed when Kaori's vocals blared out of those speakers. I kept telling my sister over and over how cool her voice sounds all throughout the video (thus I don't even remember what the video was about *shrugs*).

Anyway, the next day at AWA Melissa and I were talking to a friend we met who's wife is a DJ in Japan (way cool), and he asked us if we listened to J-Pop. At the time I wasn't very much into J-Pop, so I told him, "No, just Megumi Hayashibara." (he then proceeded to laugh at my statement. He's at a con, what did he expect?) :P Anyway, he told us that he'd met a very popular group called Every Little Thing. And I said, "oh, from that video at the competition!" I made a mental note to one day listen to some ELT songs.

I had forgotten all about ELT until a couple months after AWA while I was searching for Megumi Hayashibara songs, I saw a song titled "Future World dance remix - Every Little Thing featuring Megumi Hayashibara"

"Hmm," I thought. "The group with that song from the Music Video Competition at AWA." I've been hooked ever since.

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If you're thinking of grabbing some ELT songs or CD's online or whatever, but don't know where to start because of the sheer number of singles they've released so far, here's what I think are good intro songs:

1. "Feel My Heart" (dance)
2. "Time Goes By" (ballad)
3. "Deatta Koro No You Ni (pop)

"Feel My Heart," was ELT's first single, so, this should be the first song you listen to, I guess. ^_^ It's a good example of their upbeat-dance stuff, which is what they're known for.

"Time Goes By," was their 8th single, but the first ballad they released, if you wanted to hear something slower. ELT's ballads are very pretty songs!

When I first listed to these songs, I thought at first that "Deatta Koro No You Ni" (5th single overall) was the first mid-tempo/pop song they released, but I just realized that "For the Moment" was released before this. Anyway, "Deatta Koro No You Ni" was the first song ELT song I heard, (not counting that video that I still can't remember what song was used). But because this is ELT, mid-tempo/pop still means upbeat. Even "Time Goes By" is a pretty upbeat ballad ^_^

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