<3
I'm not even mad, as I am all of those. Mostly a pretty pony though.

Heart Station still is my favorite album.

Nowadays my ranking would be something like:
HEART STATION
Exodus
Deep River
Ultra Blue
This Is The One
Fantôme
First Love
Distance

But I don't think any of her albums are bad.

I can't even make a list, seriously. And if I did it would be all for albums 1st place and TITO 2nd, even though I love TITO

If someone had me at gunpoint and told me to pick (lol), I guess it'd be something like this:

Fantome
Exodus
Distance
Deep River
Heart Station
Ultra Blue
First Love
This Is The One

Man, that was hard. Like Andrenekoi said, though, I don't think any are bad - I love them all.

The reason for me considering Distance as my least favourite hikki album because its vibe is close to First Love's. Of course Distance is more dynamic, at the same time the flow of the album is less unified than of First Love. Also, I was already a fan since First Love, so when she released Distance, I just felt the album was lacking. Also, Distance was (unfortunately) followed by DEEP RIVER, which was considered her peak by most fans during that period (I think you've been her fans so long, so probably you've witnessed this as well :P).

Distance is my favorite album of hers. I think it's the easiest one to relate to the lyrics. All the love themes she deals there are very universal, and I love that.

That actually makes a lot of sense when you put it like that! When you look at it's place between First Love (her massive debut) and DR (her magnum opus according to many), it definitely does look a lot less impressive by comparison.

I admit my love is partially nostalgia-based, too. While I genuinely love every song, I listened to it a LOT as a young kid/early teen, and so it has more than just good music for me.

Distance was the right album for her to release at the time. The 2nd album tends to on the safer side most of the times because it can literally end a career

I don't know how I feel about Distance to be honest.. On one hand I really love and on the other hand I am like "it's good but that's it"... Although that might change with time, it feels like Distance is personally an album I can only listen to when I 100% feel like doing so... Not sure whether my favourite is Heart Station or Deep River though... For me, there's no "bad" Hikki album anyway. There are some tracks I dislike but that would be it.

Distance has great singles, but I can't get into the album as a whole.

Deep River on the other hand has a great flow. My favorite album is still Heart Station.

Distance's singles were good... somehow they don't really stand the test of time (at least to me). I still listen to First Love's singles (and album songs as well) from time to time, but I don't listen to Distance's single songs that often.

I guess that probably applies to hikki, as her debut album was too massive. Ayu's 2nd album was way more risky than the first one (at least her cover lol). Still, when I got the album, I felt the album was a bit boring. Probably that feeling affected how I view the album. Also, A BEST was more... exciting (I listened to A BEST more than Distance during that time... lol).

DR was the moment she took the risk. She ditched R&B and ventured into different areas. The result was so "colourful" (yet the cover was monochromatic lol). I think DR also gave hikki encouragement to keep searching for new sounds.


Distance does sound more complex than First Love. She didn't jump away from R&B (of course, R&B was pretty massive during that moment, and it's hikki's signature sound. It would be weird if she changed the genre :/). I suppose she wanted to level up her game, but in the end the album sounds so forced. I wish I would love the album more, but I was so in love with First Love and I had too high anticipation/expectation for Distance (and also the hype created by Toshiba and avex lol). It was pretty much an anticlimax to me :P.

My ranking of her albums would be:

DEEP RIVER
Distance
Ultra Blue
Exodus
First Love
Precious ( :D )
This Is The One
Heart Station
Fantome

I would rank the albums:

Deep River
Distance
First Love
This is the One
Ultra Blue
Fantome
Exodus
Heart Station

Distance felt more like a collection of songs than an album to me and I was disappointed on my first listen. I was very hyped to finally listen to it but it wasn't as great as I had assumed it would be. I don't listen to it very often but I still consider it a great album.
Drama and Kettobase felt very out of place mixed in with all the pop/r&b songs. And when she starts singing " I want your baby" in Kettobase, it felt weird to me.:roflmao
I think my list would be:
Heart Station
Ultra Blue
First Love
Exodus
Deep River
This Is the One
Distance
Fantome

My ranking (excluding the English releases)

1.) HEART STATION
2.) Fantôme
3.) DEEP RIVER
4.) ULTRA BLUE
5.) First Love
6.) Distance

Although tbh each album has high highs and low lows. So I enjoy all her albums equally (although I do slightly prefer Fantôme as a whole).

Image-wise Ayu was always more of a risk taker than Hikki (or anyone that got as big as them). As a company, Avex was right on trying to release big acts durig Ayu peak because there was always a chance some risk Ayu took could backfire (and it did, several times). But I also believe a lot of that had to do with what they expected of their careers at the moment: Hikki is the daughter of a producer and a music legend, they most likely planned a long term career for her. Ayu was pretty sure it wouldn't last that long, considering Duty and A Best, so it really feels like she was doing everything she wanted to do before it was all over.

Funny enough Hikki went from safe popstar to a very experiemental musician for pop music standarts and Ayu still is around 18 years after she released an album about her career falling short.

I've always wondered how much of a role Utada's status as the daughter of a famous producer and a former idol singer from the 70s played in her success. Hearing stories about people like Taylor Swift, whose father had some connections to Big Machine financially, and knowing that played a massive role in launching her career, I've always wondered about Utada.

And I think it's also a testament to Utada playing her cards right. She's never done anything scandalous or shameful to the public. And she evolved. I think because every release is "fresh", it's been hard to fall out with Utada. She won't be selling 3X Platinum forever, but that's a pretty big feat for a comeback these days.

And Ayu, well... I mean, she was just massive. She blew up and became so big, so quickly that I think she honestly thought she was going to be a 2- or 3-album music wonder. Luckily, she evolved enough to keep it going for another decade, but just keep in mind that by 2008, Ayu was selling half as many records as Utada. And she had ended up behind the curve on things like digital singles. Utada launched Flavor of Life and pretty much made the case for a digital music market with that single. Ayu followed it up with Together When... a year later, which is still her best-selling song in numbers ever.

But still, I wonder so hard whether Utada's parents had a lot to do with connecting her to the right people and practically guaranteeing her the successful career...?

OMG !!
Kingdom Hearts III theme song preview
Chikai (JP Version)


Don't Think Twice (Eng. version)

She's also making another song for KH3 called Oath

Hmm...not writing the song off, but it doesn't give me the same hype as "Simple & Clean" and "Passion". I'll wait and see.

It's not another song, it's the translation of the Japanese name of the song, 誓い Chikai.