Forum - View topicNEWS: Hikaru Utada to Appear in LA, NYC, Miami This Week
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bakaShin
Posts: 102 |
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I am sadden that BoA (who in the past had her album reviewed on this site) is not as news worthy as Hikki. She is also appearing in LA this past weekend doing promos for her new album since her music has been in many Anime and Video games in the past.
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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You can send news tips to ANN =) Haven't yet listened to her USA album ... but I hope it's better than Hikki's ^^;; |
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Ghiblix2
 Posts: 42 Location: San Diego |
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I agree Maaya -- Easy Breezy was what put a crack in Utada's otherwise pristine image as an artist for me. It made it clear that she was trying to appease a certain presumption of what American audiences are like rather than just give what she has to offer. That however, may have been due to outside influence during the making of Exodus. Still, IMO some of her best work is on Exodus.
Utada is first and foremost an excellent composer -- something she obviously admits, certainly she isn't the most gifted person in terms of power but her use of what she has is masterful, which is why she's great. Now, with that said, to say that she can't compose and craft songs any better in English than in Japanese is a fallacy. Unless of course you're willing to go the route of saying that she's better at making songs in Japanese, than she is capable of making in English, when she is completely fluent in both. Is she smarter or more talented when she's thinking in Japanese than when she's thinking in English? I will yield the fact that because she has more experience writing songs in Japanese that she might be slightly better at the process but is that something that is not exactly measurable, if you're bilingual yourself then you'd know that there are things that certain languages communicate better, surely English has its virtues that Utada will be able to exploit? |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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Maybe I'll give Exodus a second try, the last time I listened to it was back in 2004.
Actually I don't know. Does she write all her songs and her lyrics herself? I thought that the differences might stem from the people she's working with. I honestly don't think it has anything to do with the languages and her capability of using either one, but the content (?  ) of the lyrics and the sound is just so different and kind of feels flat to me =/
I have no idea  I don't know why, but her english songs just don't have the same "feel", "deepness" and also versatility ... not sure how to call it. I suppose the comparison is a bit unfair, because she simply has more japanese songs than english ones for now, but they just seem to have many different feelings, many different topics and different music ... while the songs on "this is the one" all sounded pretty much the same to me, always kind of the same beat in the background, repeating many times the same line and none of them touched me or stayed in my memory =/
Well, maybe the album will get reviewed on ANN, then we can discuss this in detail ^^ Here's a funny message from Hikki about her new album, she seems very natural and likeable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5byEKSVHYHo |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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Well, coming from someone who's looking for something deep and complex from these asian turn mainstream america artists, then I hate to burst your bubble. All of BoA's songs were written for her, which considering she learned english all in a little more than a year I can't fault her for it, however considering she's Korean she still has a bit of an accent when she sings in english so to "compensate" the studio over produced/processed her voice in a lot of her songs to the point where it'd be impossible for any live performance to live up to what's present on the album. Hikki wrote all her songs as per usual and of course having been born in America she doesn't have the same accent hurdle as BoA. Anyway for the fact alone that she wrote her songs, in the deeper meaning department that's you've so hailed, BoA's album is sitting at the shallow end of the pool. I plan to get both though, I like the up-beat dance music on BoA's cd and Hikki is my favorite! Her song Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence ~ FYI is the best. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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[email protected] So, she's making another attempt to break big in the US. Unfortunately I never listened to Exodus, since I heard that it did bad when it came out. Although I like her earlier stuff though. |
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Ghiblix2
Posts: 42 Location: San Diego |
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I just think you have a bias towards the Japanese language lol. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- you can say a sentence exactly in both languages and one will likely sound and feel better or more poetic, while the other may 'fall flat'.
Sucks but we have bias' and preferences. On another topic, did someone saying something along the lines of Boa being deep or did I misread? Lol... That's rich. If you're looking for some music with some depth then surely a person who sings, dances, and has rap cameos on many her songs as of late wouldn't be the best way to go. She's about as mainstream jpop/kpop as it comes really -- an unfortunate biproduct of the American mainstream scene that's being emulated badly overseas by Boa. Naturally she'd try to make it here but I really can't see that working out for her but who knows. I don't want to offend any Boa fans considering that I haven't given much of her music any listen other than the terrible Face album. If she does have some better stuff I'd like to hear it, she has a nice voice. Try Abe Fuyumi or Angela Aki for something more soulful. |
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zanarkand princess
 Posts: 1484 |
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Listening to Angela Aki lately is less interesting than watching paint dry. I like BoA too but even her Japanese and Korean songs were written for her, she is manufactured and there is no denying it. Nothing deep about her music. Technically Hikki's album is the better one. She isn't in love with auto tune, her compositions are much better, say what you will about This Is The One the lyrics are much better and of course her accent and understanding of the language is better. Mind you I liked BoA's english CD I even brought a physical copy. Honestly though I think one of the biggest reasons that she even did this was because Japan doesn't care about her anymore and she sort of left Korea hanging. Her last release there was in 05 so she's giving it a shot in the states. She released this album in japan to along with a best of and it's doing terribly.
Also there's this habit among otaku and some jpop fans to automatically say anything spoken, sung or written in Japanese is more poetic or better then in english. This isn't true, take Kumi Koda and Morning Musume as examples. |
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Ghiblix2
Posts: 42 Location: San Diego |
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Aha yeah well you might be right about Angela Aki, I don't know what I'm doing recommending her to people on a forum at ANN.
I don't think the piano singer who doesn't sing too much pop would do too well these days, people tend to listen to music mostly to be entertained. On that same note however, that is exactly why you get artists like Boa who abandon their initial singing roots and dive into the American cliched image of the 'entertainer' or 'triple threat' of diluted and pseudo-versitile mediocrity -- entertainers who can do everything but aren't particularly good at anything. I do agree and see why people may think that Angela can be boring and monotonous but she is no sellout and is a real singer -- meaning that if you sit her down at a piano and give her a mic then she'll be able to produce music that's clearly of substance and talent even if the sound and genre isn't of your preference. If you don't find that appealing then that's okay by me, although I still think that you're missing out on something good. |
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bluesheep02
Posts: 78 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Her music here is more her actual style. She's always had an R&B feel, especially if you look at her first album Precious back before she made it anywhere. Her lyrics are amazing in this new album, especially "This One (crying like a child)" I'm trying to make plans to book a hotel up in NYC and take a train from RI to see her. She is literally my favorite |
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zanarkand princess
Posts: 1484 |
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Ah ha you miss understood me. I do like Angela Aki, it's just that her songs used to have a different feel from one another lately they are blending in for me. It's like Kokoro no Senshi and This Love were quite different even though they were both beautiful songs in my opinion. But I love Namie Amuro so what do I know right? |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 618 Location: USA |
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Hey at least Koda Kumi knows how to work and entertain, especially with her music video for "Juicy." Morning Musume just sucks. Utada's album is pretty good better than Exodus and waaaaaay better than Heart Station which is awful. Dirty Desire was enough for me to buy it. It's similar to Rihanna's slow stuff. BoA's new english album is much more fun to listen to though, has a Lady Gaga kinda feel. I Did It For Love is an awesome song and Sean Garret ads some great vocals. |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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But I don't think that's the reason. I don't think English is inferior to Japanese in any way, there are a lot of songs with english lyrics I absolutely adore (as mentioned before f.ex. Yuki Kajiura's english songs are amazing and my all-time favorite band is Nightwish). And even when reading the literal english translations of Hikki's songs, they still sound good. So, "Hikari" and "Simple and Clean" ... the first one just has more substance imho. Same for Passion and Sanctuary (for this one I even do like the english lyrics, but Passion is still "more" ) etc.
I don't like either of them nor their lyrics But I do like Ayumi Hamasaki. And I think her lyrics are pretty "deep", and most of them written by herself. To me that's quite impressing considering her status.
This makes sense. And I hate R&B, unfortunately ^^;; |
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Shepperoni
 Posts: 110 Location: Topeka, KS |
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I feel your pain. 
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Altorrin
 Posts: 313 Location: Florida, United States |
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Hmm...Miami, huh? I’m half an hour away from there, but I was never too interested in her music. I liked Simple and Clean a little but that was kinda it. My sis really likes Hikari, Simple and Clean, and Automatic. Shame she’s in college.
Well, my friend’s obsessed with her. Maybe he’d be interested in this? |
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