Utada's Second Coming - Japanese Phenom Plans to Re-enter the U.S. Market

It's not that often that we have superstars in the Asian music industry enter the U.S. market. And much less often do they succeed. Utada, known in her native Japan as Utada Hikaru (surname first), will be releasing her second U.S. album under the Utada name. Oddly enough, her music career started in the United States. Back in 1997, she had completed an English album under the stage name Cubic U, but it remained unreleased due to problems at the label. Japanese producer Miyake Akira heard this album and encouraged Utada to commence a career in Japan. And the rest is Japanese history.

In 1998, Utada debuted with her first Japanese single "Automatic / time will tell," which broke the 2,000,000 mark in combined total sales. Atfer another million-selling single, her debut Japanese album, First Love, quickly broke the record for best-selling album in Japanese music history (a record she still holds to this day). Follow-up albums, Distance and DEEP RIVER, posted amazing numbers as well, becoming the best-selling albums of their respective years. Though the numbers decreased, they were still spectacular by any standards, forever cementing Utada a place in Japanese history. After 2002's DEEP RIVER, Utada started working on an English under Island Def Jam. She went back to Japan and released her greatest hits compilation, Utada Hikaru SINGLE COLLECTION VOL.1, before continuing work on Exodus.

Exodus saw Utada undergo a more experimental style, which was well-received by the Japanese audience back home, but sold poorly in the United States. The music was interesting and fresh, but clearly lacked the mass appeal necessary for albums to sell well. While it apparently seemed like a good idea to Island Def Jam, lead single "Easy Breezy" was laughable with lyrics like "Your easy breezy and I'm Japanesey." I don't consider it a bad song; it's fun, but not when you're trying to break into the U.S. market. To be blunt, I didn't hear anything on the album that sounded like it would receive decent airplay here in the States. Her English is fine, but you can still tell an Asian is singing. Any album as experimental and quirky as Exodus would have a very difficult time performing in the U.S. Island noticed her impact in Japan and gave her a lot of freedom on Exodus, but perhaps they should've been tighter. Collaborating with hot producer Timbaland on a few tracks won't make a significant change, but heavy collaboration with established hip-hop and R&B producers might. It was something different, but too different. At least she came away with a dance hit with "Devil Inside," the kind of cool, dark, Asian-influenced track you wished American audiences were more receptive toward.

After releasing the album in Europe and Japan, as well as releasing 2006's ULTRA BLUE, there were talks of a follow-up English album with Island Def Jam on Utada's blog. In November 2007, Utada was featured on a download-only version of Ne-Yo's hit single "Do You."

Now as Utada continues work on her new English album, one can only hope that she's learned from Exodus and can become even a small fraction of what she's become in Japan.