Utada

Utada was the English language project name of 宇多田ヒカル (Utada Hikaru). On November 8, 2010, EMI Japan announced that they had made a new global recording deal with Utada, stating that all of their future work regardless of language would be released under one name: Hikaru Utada. This signaled the retirement of their Western stage name. Utada continues to maintain this name in the West as they intend to keep their English style separate from their Japanese music. Utada is a third culture singer, composer, arranger, and record producer working in Japan and the United States. They have sold an estimated 52 million albums worldwide. Utada is fluent in both English and Japanese as they were raised in both New York and Tokyo. They’re most notable in the west for composing and singing the main themes for Kingdom Hearts 光 (Hikari) and Simple and Clean, as well as the theme songs for Kingdom Hearts II, Passion and Sanctuary. Utada Hikaru was born on January 19, 1983 in New York City to Japanese parents who both had roots in the Japanese music industry; their father, Teruzane Utada, was a producer, while their mother, Junko Utada, was an enka singer (she performed under the stage name 藤圭子/Keiko Fuji). Utada has been recording since 1993, creating their first professional recording at the age of twelve. They released their first album comprised of all English songs, Precious, in 1996 under the pseudonym Cubic U. The album led to their career overseas. In an MTV interview (MTV's You Hear It First, October 2004), Utada said: "Someone in Japan heard it, at a Japanese record company, and he said, 'Oh, can't you write in Japanese? You speak Japanese.' And I didn't want to say no, so I had to try it." While much of Utada's earlier work borrows from the stylings of 90s Western R&B, their music has shifted to incorporate more pop/experimental tones over time. This R&B sound was what brought them so much attention with their first release in Japan; Automatic/time will tell, stood out among the crowd, as there were no other artists with their distinct style. Utada was once-married to famed director Kiriya Kazuaki, who directed the movie CASSHERN, where they sang the main theme song Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro. After their first singles compilation album Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol.1 was released in March 31st, 2004, Utada moved back to New York to work on their second English album Exodus, which was released in the US on October 5th, 2004. Due to lack of promotion by their record label Island Def Jam and a lack of precedent for third culture artists at the time, however, the album was met with indifference in the US market. The second single from this album, "Devil Inside," managed to become a club smash in the US despite this and topped the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Airplay charts. Devil Inside also had a notable appearance in the 2000s LGBT serial drama Queer as Folk. Utada moved back to Tokyo after a year of promotion for Exodus, and returned to the Japanese music scene. Despite flogging sales overseas, they released three albums over the span of 2 years: Ultra Blue and Heart Station, both certified of selling one million for shipments by the RIAJ, On October 20, 2008, their song "Eternally" from their 2001 album Distance was used as the theme for the drama Innocent Love. The song was later released as a digital single. By the end of the year, Utada was also voted the "#1 Favorite Artist of 2008" by Oricon's annual readers poll, making it their second consecutive year, and third time overall, to win the vote; their previous years being 2004 and 2007. According to Utada's blog, on September 25th, 2007, Utada began speaking to Island Def Jam about their second English-language album. There was no set schedule, as Utada's tone suggested that they were in no rush. On October 23rd, 2007, Utada said that they had already made several demo tracks for not only the upcoming English album, but also their fifth Japanese album and was scheduled to record some of the songs on that afternoon. On November 14th, 2007 it was announced that Utada would be featured on a download only version of Ne-Yo's song Do You. The song was released in Japan on November 21st. Utada released their second English album, This Is The One, on March 24th, 2009 in the United States electronically. A physical copy was released later, on May 12th, 2009. The main single "Come Back To Me", which they dubbed them "breakout song" during an interview with KiwiBox, was released for airplay on February 9th, 2009. Despite their previous English album's lesser success, Utada was confident about this one. "I don't want to do experimental stuff. I just want to make a really good pop album," they told the interviewer. "This is the one, you know?" Hikaru Utada hasn’t released anything under the “Utada” pseudonym since their last effort in 2009. Official sites: www.utada.com www.emimusic.jp/hikki www.u3music.com Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.