All I really care to rank at this moment is my #1 and that is...

Take 5

It's such a wonderful piece of musical artwork. So other-worldly. I remember reading an interpretation of the song/lyrics somewhere - hot it's Hikki's "take 5" in life or whatnot. Really great read.

P.S. - will Hikki ever return to the J-Pop scene? Lol.

Oh! That's the feeling I got from UB, which I couldn't describe before. The thing makes me treat UB as her most experimental album is the surreal feeling. It's like something true, and at the same time it's created from imagination. The only problem for UB is the complexity, which is a bit too much. HS is a down to earth form of UB. Even tho it's a bit too simple, it soothes me a lot. The only song that reminds me of UB is Take 5, which is actually the material from UB.

And yeah DR is quite surreal as well. It's like you're looking at a colorless pictures (lots of grey tones). When you close your eyes tho colorful images running out from the music. That's how I feel about DR.

LOL I love how you connect First Love with BoA. Quite interesting, but hikki is much better than BoA. Among the avex female artists, BoA is probly the most boring one...

yes, HS is too down to earth and i also dont feel the same emotion as in UB. is all ^___^ (complex? how so complex. to undertand? whaa? - the more complex the better i say. that talent)
yes. I prefer hikki a thousand times over BoA. First Love was just an album too me. anyone couldve made it.

yes surrealism. and that may be why Take 5 is my fav of HS then haha. its also why i adore the artist Eiko Shimamiya almost as much as hikki. everything she makes is completely surreal.

i wish for hikki to accomplish that surreal feeling again with anything later she releases. so its not so down to earth. :)

I would say HS is Hikki's most complex album production wise... all the layered sounds are there, all the lyrics with multiple meanings are there... But it's the final part of the sound experiement she started with Deep River and denveloped trough Exodus and Ultra Blue... That's why I love this album so much, it's like she being able to do something she was trying to archieve since her first non R&B album... The mature version of that idea

I love how deep river is all black and deep looking yet there are songs like sakura drops, hikari, and traveling, and then we get heart station with everything being plain and bright white, and we get songs like take 5, flavor of life, and prisoner of love. haha

I think the albums are polar opposites.

I want something like Tokyo Nights again :(.

HEART STATION is not pure white. It has a red heart, and I can definitely feel the heart beats (esp during the chorus).

I just love the song so much :D.

First Love and Distance are strictly R&B for me, even though Distance had a hint of rock. This Is The One is definitely reaching back to those R&B roots but putting her current, mature spin on them. DEEP RIVER, EXODUS, ULTRA BLUE, and HEART STATION all radiate color though. That's just the way the music is~

I love what Picaflor said about DEEP RIVER, and I love what bluegie said about HEART STATION. I totally agree. DEEP RIVER and HEART STATION are both equally colorful but they contrast each other totally. EXODUS and ULTRA BLUE are the same but with less contrast as they were back to back. It definitely feels like they were consecutively made to me, and they were! haha :heart

I listened to ULTRA BLUE all day today. I'm really getting back into that album. Especially Keep Tryin'!

I love Kairo too... a beautiful song, in my opinion :P

It's probably been brought up before, but do you guys wish Hikki released music in the typical Japanese way, that is, an album a year?

I wonder if the quality would be lower.

No. but I do wish she didn't take her good old time doing her thing. since she does 90% everything herself, she is allowed to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, which is why she so infrequently releases stuff. Cause if she doesn't feel like doing something, she won't do it. haha. but then again, it is more genuine this way. she writes when she wants to, and usually is inspired or something.

Yes >___>

I don't want her to release an album in a year, quality of the music will suffer too much imo. :< I want her to stick with this "western way" of releasing a album every second year. I love to wait for a Hikki album. :)

When she blogs about her creative process, u can see that some songs take her months to finish... I don't think that she would be able to release one album a year doing everything by herself...

^But the time length between Distance and DEEP RIVER is about 15 months. I was pretty shocked when Toshiba announced the release of DR, since I expect it would take another 2 yrs for her to release the 3rd album..

My point is that the quality of DR is much better than of Distance (IMO). I wouldn't say Distance is bad, but it's a pretty boring album compared to her other releases. So I think so far the time length is not proportional to the quality in hikki's case.

I hope she'll release Single Clip Collection Vol. 5 soon! :) She's got catching up to do! Here's a list of all the PV's since Vol. 4:

Boku wa kuma
Flavor Of Life
Beautiful World
Kiss & Cry
Heart Station
Prisoner Of Love

And I think we also need a DVD release of her Utada MV's! :)

Easy Breezy
You Make Me Want To Be A Man
Come Back To Me

or a big Best Of / Single Collection 2 with [CD+DVD] edition, Ayu style! :D With a Bonus PV for Dirty Desire!

*dreams on*

It is really being time for Single Collection Vol. 2

And imagine the sales for that... best + utada combo = insane cash

I hope they don't do a Single Clip Collection Vol. 5 yet... x__x She really only has Flavor Of Life, HEART STATION, and Prisoner Of Love. None of the other music videos feature her. I don't think it'd sell very well at all because of that. If they included the making of Boku wa Kuma, Beautiful World, and Kiss & Cry... that'd be boring too. xD No Hikki still! D: Unless maybe her and real Kuma went to watch them make Boku wa Kuma (doubt it.)

Let's see... Single Collection Vol. 1 had... 15 tracks. This is what Single Collection Vol. 2 would look like if released right now:

1. 誰かの願いが叶うころ
2. Be My Last
3. Passion
4. Keep Tryin'
5. Flavor Of Life -Ballad Version-
6. Beautiful World
7. Kiss & Cry
8. HEART STATION
9. Stay Gold
10. Prisoner Of Love

I don't think she's had enough singles yet... x.x For some reason, I really feel like she won't included Boku wa Kuma. I know we all thought she wouldn't put it on HS either, but I really can't see it on the second single collection. I think that may have been why it was released under "Utada Hikaru presents" instead of Utada Hikaru; that way it could be excluded from the second single collection.

There's always the possibility of her including Boku wa Kuma AND the digital singles though which would make the tracklist look like this:

1. 誰かの願いが叶うころ
2. Be My Last
3. Passion
4. Keep Tryin'
5. This Is Love
6. Boku wa Kuma
7. Flavor Of Life -Ballad Version-
8. Beautiful World
9. Kiss & Cry
10. HEART STATION
11. Stay Gold
12. Fight The Blues
13. Prisoner Of Love

They could release it like that, but I still feel thats a bit short. haha I'd like it to be a solid 15 again, which is why I think they should wait until after her next album. Plus, I think the 10 "traditional" singles are superb, and there's nothing wrong with BwK, This Is Love, or Fight The Blues-- but they really don't feel like singles to me, and I think they should stay off of single collections. I could live with This Is Love and/or Fight The Blues getting a spot, but not BwK, please. x.x

If EMI wants to be mean like avex they could always do the second tracklist I made plus:

14. Eternally -Drama Mix-
15. Beautiful World -PLANITb Acoustica Mix-

^That's the worst case scenario. D: It'd ruin her Vol. 2 for me. I prefer to wait a little longer for it~

Before I finished reading your post, I wanted to reply adding those exact 2 songs! I would LOVE that!!

Well.. She could also just add Come Back To Me and Dirty Desire.. but those aren't from her Japanese work so she wouldn't, I guess.

However, I would actualy be very happy with the tracklist you proposed! You think the same way I do xD Before you added This Is Love and Fight The Blues, I was thinking "He should add FTB..", and then I thought "yeah and BW ~PLANiTb Mix~ too", and then you added that too xD

This would be my ideal tracklist, eventhough it wouldn't exactly be a straight-forward single collection, but a bit more mixed up:

She should release a huge BEST koda kumi style when she has her next tour....yeah :D

They'd make serious cash.

although...I guess she should release another album for a tour...but meh I wouldnt mind...I want a tour lol