Best Utada Hikaru Album

[Raul Herrera]

Iseem to be in a minority but Distance is my favorite album by her. I love the Latin and rock mix with the the R and B, the passion, sensuality, playful, range and experimentation in her voice quivering, beautiful whining and crying qualities, the groovy and soothing backing harmonies and the rocking rhythms.too. Deep River are Eternal Blue are tied for number two. Then, Fantome with some of her best ballads.

Utada was born in the United States to Japanese parents, record producer Teruzane Utada and enka singer Keiko Fuji. She[a] began to write music and lyrics at an early age and often traveled to Tokyo as a result of her father's job. After signing to Toshiba-EMI, she released her debut English-language debut album Precious as Cubic U in 1998, which was a commercial failure. In the following year, heavily influenced by R&B and dance-pop, Utada released her Japanese-language debut, First Love, which was an immediate success. Backed by the success of singles "Automatic", "Time Will Tell", and "Movin' On Without You", the album sold two million copies in its first week in Japan, topped the Oricon charts for six non-consecutive weeks and went on to sell six million more throughout the rest of 1999. First Love eventually became Japan's best-selling album of all time.

By the end of the 2000s, Utada was deemed "the most influential artist of the decade" in the Japanese music landscape by The Japan Times. She is one of Japan's top-selling recording artists of all time with over 40 million records sold.[4] Twelve of her singles have reached number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, while ten albums have become chart-toppers. Six of her full-length releases are among Japan's highest-selling albums, including First Love, Distance and Deep River, which are among the top ten best-selling records of Japan's music history. She is best known by international audiences for writing and producing four theme-song contributions to Square Enix and Disney's collaborative video game series Kingdom Hearts: "Simple and Clean", "Sanctuary", "Don't Think Twice", and "Face My Fears". In 2021, Utada became one of the first Japanese figures to identify as non-binary.[5]

Hikaru Utada was born in New York City as the only child of Teruzane Utada, a Japanese record producer, and his wife Junko, an enka singer performing under the stage name Keiko Fuji.[6][7] At the age of 10, Utada began to write music and lyrics.[8][issue needed] She made recordings with Keiko, releasing songs under a band named "U3" until 1996, when she started a solo project as Cubic U.

The first Cubic U single, "I'll Be Stronger", was released as a limited pressing in Japan in 1996. The next year, Utada started another project, releasing "Close to You", a cover of the Carpenters' song. She included it on her debut album Precious the following year. Both the album and single failed to chart on Oricon in Japan.

Utada moved to Tokyo in the summer of 1998 and attended Seisen International School, and later the American School in Japan, while continuing to record on a contract with Toshiba-EMI. Early success came from Japanese FM radio.[9] She was at the forefront of a new wave of singer-songwriters in Japan, branching out from the previously dominant idol singers.[10] Leading up to the release of her Japanese debut album First Love, at the age of 15, she released two successful million-selling singles: "Automatic/Time Will Tell" and "Movin' On Without You". "Automatic/Time Will Tell" sold over two million copies.[11][12] Backed by these singles, First Love went on to sell over 7 million units in Japan alone (with an additional 3 million overseas, bringing it to a sum of at least 10 million units[13]), becoming the highest selling album in Japan's recent history.[14] The album yielded the single "First Love", which peaked at the number 2 spot. By the end of the year, Utada was ranked 5th on Japanese radio station Tokio Hot 100 Airplay's Top 100 Artists of the 20th Century by the station and its listeners.[15]

In 2001, Utada recorded the song "Blow My Whistle" for the action-comedy film Rush Hour 2. It was a collaboration with American rapper Foxy Brown, and was written by Utada alongside Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo.[18][19] The song is included on Def Jam's Rush Hour 2 soundtrack, which peaked the 11th spot on both the Billboard 200 and number 1 on the Top Soundtracks.[20][21] While most of her work has been self-produced, Blow My Whistle was produced by the Neptunes. Utada attended Columbia University in New York City starting in 2001.[22] She attended for less than a year.[6]

Leading up to the third album, Deep River, Utada released "Traveling", "Hikari", and "Sakura Drops/Letters"; all the songs reached the top of the charts. Before the release of the album, she underwent surgery after being diagnosed with a benign ovarian tumor.[23] After recovering, she released Deep River and immediately went on promotional tours. Deep River sold 2.35 million copies in its first week. Oricon reported that sales eventually surpassed 3.6 million, making Utada the only singer or group in Japanese music history to have three consecutive albums surpass the three-million mark, by RIAJ standards. It was her third consecutive album to reach number 1 on Oricon's Yearly Albums chart[24] and became the eighth best selling album of all time in Japan.[13] In 2003, Utada's promotional and personal life schedules became more active due to her marriage and an agreement with Island Records in the United States to release a "proper" full-English debut album. "Colors" was her only single release for 2003.

Utada's first singles compilation album Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 1 was released on March 31, 2004. It became the best-selling album of 2004 in Japan, making her the only solo or group artist to reach number 1 four times on the yearly charts. It was the first compilation album to reach number 1 in six years on the yearly charts, and the first compilation album to reach number 1 in twenty-six years by a female artist.[25] Despite its success, the album received little promotion and no new material; moreover, it charted longer on the Oricon Albums chart than any other Utada release to date (over two years). The album sold 2.58 million units in Japan, making it the 34th best-selling album ever in the country.[13] A month later, on April 21, she released a lone Japanese single for 2004, "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro", which topped the singles chart for two consecutive weeks and sold 365,000 units by the year's end. It was also the main theme song for Casshern, directed by her husband at the time, Kazuaki Kiriya.

In mid-2004, Utada moved back to New York, and began work on a recording contract with Island Def Jam Music Group. On October 5, 2004, she released a North American English-language debut album, Exodus, under the newly announced stage name "Utada".[2] It was released on September 9 in Japan, with a special booklet and housed in a cardboard slipcase. In an MTV interview, she expressed skepticism about this American success: "I don't think it's the music that I'm concerned about. It's obviously that I look really different and there really aren't any completely Asian people [who are popular singers in the U.S.] right now."[26] She also remarked on the album not being one that pandered to fans, but wanting to make it anyway.[27] Exodus became her fourth consecutive release to debut at number 1 and boasted 500,000 copies in its first-week sales in Japan. American sales were not quite as successful: it reached number 160 in the US Billboard 200 chart;[28] and peaked at number 5 in the Heatseekers chart.[29] "Easy Breezy" was released as the lead single in early August 2004, followed up by "Devil Inside" six weeks later. Utada appeared on the cover of Interview magazine's June 2005 issue.[30]

"Exodus '04" was released at the end of June 2005 and featured remixes from the Scumfrog, Richard Vission, JJ Flores and Peter Bailey. In the UK, Mercury added another two remixes for "You Make Me Want to Be a Man" in the original album, titled "You Make Me Want to Be a Man (Bloodshy & Avant Mix)" and "You Make Me Want to Be a Man (Junior Jack Mix)". By the end of the year, Utada was voted "Number 1 Favorite Artist of 2004" by Oricon's annual readers poll.[31] The fourth single from Exodus, "You Make Me Want to Be a Man", was released in October 2005 in the UK. "Devil Inside" became a club hit in the U.S. and topped the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Airplay charts.[32] Both the Exodus album and the "You Make Me Want to Be a Man" single were released in the UK, with different artwork from the US and Japanese versions.

A year after the release of Exodus, Utada moved back to Tokyo and returned to the Japanese music scene.[33] Leading up the release of a fourth album, Ultra Blue, she released a string of successful hit singles: "Colors" (number 1), "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro" (number 1), "Be My Last" (number 1), "Passion" (number 4), and "Keep Tryin'" (number 2). The digital single "This Is Love" was released to promote the album, netting 1,000,000 downloads.[34] Ultra Blue sold 500,317 copies in the first week, lower than that of the previous album, although it still topped the Oricon Daily, Weekly, and Monthly charts. Ultra Blue was Utada's fifth consecutive chart-topping Japanese album (excluding the English-language Exodus) to sell in excess of 500,000 copies in the first week.[35] On July 13, Toshiba EMI published a report stating that Ultra Blue had sold over one million copies worldwide and four million digital ringtones already making it one of EMI's 10 best-selling albums of the past year.[36][37] The album, which did not contain much pop music, was met with mixed reception,[38] although the album was certified Million by RIAJ.[39][better source needed] Additionally, it was the highest-selling original studio album by a Japanese female artist in 2006. Ultra Blue later became available on the iTunes Japan online music store, charting at number 4 on the 2006 yearly download rankings.[34] Two weeks after the release of Ultra Blue, she went on a nationwide tour titled Utada United 2006, from June 30 through September 12. This was her second concert tour after the Bohemian Summer 2000 tour.

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