Best of Soul is the second Japanese compilation album by South Korean recording artist BoA. This is her first greatest hits album to contain her Japanese songs. The album was released on February 2, 2005, under Avex Trax.
The album contains singles from her debut Japanese album, Listen to My Heart (2002) to her third album, Love & Honesty (2004). It also contains two singles that were released for the album, "Quincy / Kono Yo no Shirushi" and "Meri Kuri". The album was released in two versions; the regular stranded CD version and a "perfect" version, which was packaged with a DVD that contained a few of her music videos.
Best of Soul was commercially successful in Japan, becoming BoA's fourth album to attain the number one position. It was certified million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) and became her third album to have been certified million, following Listen to My Heart (2002) and Valenti (2003).[1] It has since sold a total of 1,100,000 copies.
Background and release
Best of Soul was released nearly one year after her third studio album, Love & Honesty. In order to promote the album BoA released two singles "Quincy / Kono Yo no Shirushi" and "Meri Kuri". The former debuted at number four on the Oricon single chart while the latter debuted at number five.[2][3]
Commercial performance
Best of Soul ranked number one of the Oricon Albums Chart selling 489,067 copies in its first week.[4] The album later sold 1,003,000 copies in May 2005 which made BoA the only non-Japanese Asian singer to have two albums that sold over a million copies in Japan. The first album to do so was her second studio album, Valenti which was released two years prior.[5]
By the end of the year, Best of Soul sold a total of 1,060,039 copies in Japan according to Oricon, making it the ninth best-selling album of 2005.[6] It remained the last album by a foreign artist to have sold over 1 million copies in Japan for 16 years until BTS, the Best in 2021, which sold over 1,120,000 copies.[7]
^Note: Press ctrl+A to see the list 2005年 年間アルバムチャート (in Japanese). Oricon. December 19, 2005. Archived from the original on December 24, 2005. Retrieved April 28, 2009.
^"2005.03월 – 가요 음반 판매량" [March 2005 Domestic Album Sales]. Recording Industry Association of Korea. 2005. Archived from the original on September 20, 2005. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
^"2005년 – POP 총결산 음반 판매량" [2005 International Album Sales]. Recording Industry Association of Korea. 2006. Archived from the original on November 12, 2008. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
