Utada's Exodus

I was able to listen to a few tracks off of Hikaru (Hikki) Utada's new album, Exodus, through a friend of mine. I had heard about the impending release several weeks back due to the album being released earlier in Japan. The one song that I had listened to back then was Easy Breezy, which was a catchy tune (although the lyrics make little sense)

Well, after listening to a bit more tracks off of the album, I started wondering. Was Hikki's lyric always this cheesy? In the beginning, when I first discovered her music off of Serpent's anime website (which hosted ripped MP2/MP3 OST tracks and Real Video encoded anime episodes) back in 1998, I immediately recognized that she had a wonderful voice and mastery over singing. I then started to listen to her other singles over the course of the year and then in late 1999, I purchased her album, "First Love" at a local japanese bookstore.

Her songs were upbeat, for the most part, except in the case of First Love and Give Me a Reason which were slow ballads. She authored all of the lyrics for the songs and the talent she commanded at such a young age (16) really impressed me. The translations of her lyrics popped up all over the internet in a scant few months following her album release and as I read it, I thought it was fair poetry - nothing earth shattering, but it was pretty good.

Well, over the course of the next few years, Hikki had put out more albums. As her popularity grew, so did the number of music videos she appeared in as well as the CMs all over TV networks in Japan. She even released a track which became the theme song for Square Enix's game, "Kingdom Hearts" entitled Simple and Clean. I got to follow her maturity over the years and while there were some bad decisions made (The music video for Addicted to You was pretty horrid by most definitions) her natural progression had made her a music genius.

However, this latest album, Exodus, is far from a work of a genius. What really left this impression in my mind was the sudden embrace of the new direction in which electronica hip-hop was taking - more of a cheesy jaunt through Motown as it were. I'm not a big fan of "black" music either, but I know when something becomes a departure from the norm just by listening to it.

The songs ring shallow and her lyrics are nothing more than the work of a confused individual, trying to succeed at the painful progression of leaving the small tidepool of idol and fame into the ocean of fast trends and egotistical talent that is the American Music Industry. Hikki is trying to gain acceptance in her new world by playing up as the new minority kid on the block, harping over racial discrimination in her quest for a "white" boyfriend or whining about the sacrifices made in the global trekking.

I think this is the worst work she has put out ever and I for one feel that this was simply a mistake and bad timing on her part to enter the music scene in America during a time of great political and ideological divide. Hopefully, she can recover from this deviation and not further shame herself in trying to grab attention of the media and listeners by playing up the trash-and-dirt that so many other mainstream artists have embarked on.