4 Hikki








































Utada Hikaru is the rarely-disputed Princess of Japanese Pop. Born in January of 1983, and daughter of enka singer Fuji Keiko, she grew up in both the United States and Japan, graduating from an international high school in Tokyo and then entering Columbia University. Her first album, First Love, quickly proved her musical talents to all of East Asia, and her second, Distance, has become one of Japan's all-time best sellers after only a year and a half on the market.



"Hikki," as fans call her, is rather unique in the J-pop world. She's just as American as she is Japanese, and her music toes the line between American and Japanese musical norms. Unlike most Japanese singers, Hikki can sing in English rather naturally, although her lyrics are sometimes ambiguously improper (e.g. "I want your baby"), which leads me to believe that she either has non-English-native songwriters, or that she really doesn't speak English as perfectly as those who know her would claim. But that's another day's discussion.



Her cross-cultural musical abilities were showcased this summer, when she released "Blow My Whistle" with Foxy Brown on Def Jam's Rush Hour 2 soundtrack. Many R&B fans, who had purchased the CD solely to hear Ludacris or Montell Jordan, were surprised by a Japanese voice singing "What am I supposed to do? I don't wanna be your referee..." and suddenly found themselves wondering who the hell Utada Hikaru was.



And then, as if that weren't cool enough, she was on the cover of Time magazine's "Music Goes Global" issue, and they wrote an excellent article about her that's available at their website.



Recommended songs: "Automatic," "Distance," and "Wait and See" are fairly representative of her work. No less than a jillion versions of "First Love" are out there, including a couple of dance mixes, various instrumental versions, and an English cover by Filipina singer Jessa Zaragoza, so I wouldn't hesitate to say that it's the song she's best known for worldwide. "Kettobase" goes highly recommended as well, although it's rather... unique, compared to her other songs. I like dance music, and there are quite a few good Hikki mixes out therelook for the plaintb remix of "Distance" or the John Luongo remix of "First Love."



Albums: Hikki's two main albums are First Love and Distance, which are widely available in Japan and not too hard to find in other parts of East Asia. The other album worth noting is Promise, which she recorded (inexplicably) under the name "Cubic U." Promise is almost entirely in English, and (imo) the songs on it aren't as good as the songs on the other two. Recently (September), a new compilation called Live was released, but all of its songs are from other albums, save a few new mixes. If you're looking for a good all-around collection of Hikaru, then Live is the way to go, but don't get it if you already have her other CD's.



'Nuff of that. Suggestions and comments are welcome. Enjoy the show. Buy music.