Utada's Exodus Over?!
 

I may fear the worse i heard from a friend that Utada is no longer bent on staying in America due to her failed sales of Exodus the album was awesome i just don't understand why people didn;t buy it. Everytime i play it people are like what is that they love the songs. Usaully "The Workout" But i heard she went back to Japan to record a new japanese single and working on the followup to Deep River. I am so depressed finally we got a good Jpop idol and America and they send her back to Japan :no yeah thank u stupid U Team for promoting Utada i myself could've done it better and her fans could've too! thanks alot for a crappy debut of a great artist!!!!

have you read other posts regarding her lack of sales?

-lack of serious heavy promotion
-many people did not the enjoy the songs on the album

'Easy Breezy' as a first single was a big mistake...

The song was a mistake in the first place... x_x

Easy Breezy..was not my style. I LOVE Tippy Toe.. Devil Inside.. one of those should of been on the radio.

She was not heavily advertised, so nobody has no damn idea who she is. From my cousins point of view, she's just the girl that sang SIMPLE & CLEAN on the Kingdom Hearts game :shurg

She failed in her international debut. Well let's wait and see... =[

Internationally? Well.. you mean American? I read somewhere in a magazine that Utada's English is good.. did that dumbass do his research properly and know that she speaks English FLUENTLY? :laugh :rolleyes .. However.. I don't know what to think of this. Most Asian artists must feel defeated after their album doesn't do that good in the American music market. It's sad. They have no idea what they are missing.

It's kind of a pity that it wasn't promoted more, it wasn't that bad. Most of the tracks on the album were either hit or miss though - I thought Exodus and Easy Breezy (that's right, you heard me) were great songs, Kremlin Dusk too. Hopefully it's more because of promotion than people just not being interested. :(

pfft .. its IDJ's fault as well as Utada's fault. Sure she said she did what she wanted but at the same time .. she's a product and doesnt have that full of freedom to do anything she really wants. Let's face it fanboys/fangirls the world of entertainment follows trends and the music she put out did not set nor reshape any of the trends going on. She didn't attract an audience wide enough for high sales.

I have read that she said she won't promote anything until next year. Which is strange to me.

I've also heard from a girl I've met up in Chicago that schedules shows at a club that she has spoken with Utada's people and Utada is interested in doing small shows throughout the states. She may not be done just yet ... maybe we'll get another album that is good.

I certainly don't mind another follow up to Exodus, but another Japanese album?! Alright!

That wouldn't be a follow up to Exodus lol ;p .. that would be a follow up to Deep River ;)

Oh, I guess I didn't state it so clearly. I am aware that there is a follow up to DEEP RIVER.

well I think that she should release another single off the album like "Exodus" and Promote as much as she can to see what happens.Then decides what she wants 2 do

Easy Breezy was a mistake, they shouldn't have made the first single something that didn't represent what the rest of the album was like and could potentially be very annoying ("you're easy breezy and I'm Japanesy" sounds like something a one-hit wonder would sing, not an artist). It's a shame, because worse albums than Exodus have been huge hits and I would have liked to see Utada succeed in America.

I got the impression that the advertising wasn't very good. There were a few articles, some in big papers, but I don't think Utada was out there performing on American shows/clubs and making herself known. Unless you're already famous from TV you can't neglect that kind of work.

I don't think she made one live appearance for singing any of her songs ... except in Japan.

IDJ don't even bother to promo for hikki...
but did you guys heard that Jay-Z is now the president of IDJ or something?
Back then DefJam's artist is the main promoted artists but since now he is the IDJ pres..things will be going backwards he'll be vocusing IDJ'artists meaning Hikki is included
*or he won't promote her if he don't find hikki's exodus to make a big hit
and sending her back to japan*my thoughts
also i read that IDJ is gaining all their power to push Mariah Carey's new album to the top and possibly to make her back to where she was back then
but can they? glitter was.......eh
i really hope hikki can do more promoting and get more recognized in few months >.<

that's really sad. i bought her album and even though quite a few "hardcore" fans of utada only like her japanese music.. [quite a few of her 'hardcore' fans refuse to even LISTEN to her english music because it's going 'americanized', which i think is rediculous] .. i think that if she put out a truely amazing single and promoted the next american album more it could really have high sales.

i think the key is the first single, which went horribly wrong. i'm glad anyway, i liked her japanese stuff better (although exodus had it's perks)

:yes

It's true. Glitter was a soundtrack though, not an original album, which is why it wasn't what people expected of her. The movie took place in the 80's, so all the music is pretty funky, and I think it's actually a pretty decent album. She had Charmbracelet after that which was also really good, but it had its share of forgettable songs, which is bound to happen with your 9th studio album. The new album is getting rave reviews from insiders though--I've heard two of the tracks from it and while I'm not super impressed, I could see how the American hip-hop/r&b market would eat it up.

But back to Hikki--I wouldn't blame her for going back to Japan simply because she'll make a LOT more money than she would here. She sells a great amount more, and albums are more expensive there. And while she wasn't promoted that much, do you think it would've been a whole lot better if she was? I mean, if you look at the interviews she's done, she's just SO uncomfortable and she has no social skills for such things. More promotion probably would've caused her more ridicule. I think the album is mediocre, but that's just my opinion--I know many people like it. I like a few tracks, but it's overall a forgettable album. I sent my favorite tracks to one of my friends and I think he put it best "it was pretty good, but it didn't make me want to check out any more songs by her." I was expecting a really amazing album since she took so much time for it, and I was also expecting something more hip-hop/r&b ish. And it's not just Exodus I dislike...I thought Deep River was no where near as good as Distance. I don't like it when she produces, composes, and writes ALL of her music (or most of it for that matter) because I think her style stagnates and everything starts to blend in with everything else.

And that was a long reply. :innocent

I remember hearing from someone on the U Team that a rumor a single that was not on the album will be released early 2005. similar to what Fefe Dobson did with her single "don't go girls and boys" i hope it is true and she isn;t the one producing it but the neptunes i hope it is true so they are starting over

LOL By the way they (Or Utada) chose the singles to be released, I'm sure the next one will be Wonder' bout (which sucks). Honestly, EASY BREEZY and devil inside were the most boring pieces of the album along with Wonder 'bout so seeing how they chose the singles that one is surely to be the next :laugh I don't think Utada has much place of putting "japanese sounding" songs (devil inside) and songs redundantly (is that a word? ahaha) talking about how she is Japanese and expect american people to get hooked to it :rolleyes

i got a friend thats goin to japan to work on his debut album... he been signed by sony music entertainment and he gonna b workin with utada on his album and also namie and boa... his album should b out by summer 05 so ppl.. look out for it... i know i will... "cory heywood - at 35,000 feet"

So Not True Jay-Z is vice pres. For Roc-a-fella Records

I'm actually happy about this news. LOL. She's working on a new single in Japan? ALRIGHT!! Now this is interesting. Screw the international idea. It just doesn't work. I'm anticipating her and Ayu's challenge next year.

i was so disappointed in the promotion, Utada should have made them promote her. like ayu is practically her own boss, and she makes SURE she gets promoted properly. Utada shoulda pushed for a better promotion. neway, im not blaming her. im sad that the US cant accept JPop yet :( but i'm kinda glad she's going back to japan coz i like her japanese work the best, i'd love to hear a new japanese album from her

utada deserves another chance

They supposedly had a PR team ready for her, but I didn't like the way they were going to rely exclusively on generated buzz. If you can generate buzz and create a grass-roots fanbase, great. But, you cannot rely on this.

In order to tap the American market, RADIO PLAY and a strong MUSIC VIDEO presence are the most important. Without MTV time and radio play, it is increasingly difficult to release something that will sell. We don't do many CM tie-ups or have dramas on television that have popular songs as theme songs. This leaves precious few ways to advertise.

UTADA's album was a paramount to how terribly Japanese albums are advertised. The same fate befell other Japanese who fancied crossing over. Dreams Come True comes to mind immediately. They even created English-language music videos but they weren't played stateside. Asian countries got them, but we did not.

i saw the easy breezy video. it was too plain and did not stand out at all. i think the video should have been grand or innovative to attract mtv play

i hope if she does release a 2nd single, it would be something like The Workout.
i'm not a big fan of the song, but i think it will attract listeners.

i want hikki to go back to japanese...i liked exodus, but it wasn't as good as her japanese stuff, imo. the vocals were weaker, and the songs didn't have the beats you would expect of hikki. i would have prefered her have some songs like devil inside and the workout and easy breezy, but then fill in the rest in english versions of her japanese songs...but that's too BoA and really cheap. so i can't really complain about what she did. I just wish it could have gone better, so she would release something better in english?

koda's Shake It video would've attracted an audience..heh

Yep....its over
I bet she regrets signing with def jams now V_V

She could've looked at other IDJ members and realized it was a crap company to go to. None of the artists receive promo there.

well I think that was kinda a stupid more for her to do. I mean before u sign with the label do some research first. She should of Signed with the Regular Def Jam or Arista. They would give her all the promotion she needs. But I think Utada's lazy she has enough money to promote with help from the record company

I didn't like EXODUS, and I'm glad she's going back to Japan, as her Japanese stuff is a lot better. Sorry it didn't work out, but she should have just re-done good old songs from Distance and Deep River. It would have been a lot better...:(

island records is not a crap company.

ok then so what artist on Island? Are popular?

Thursday! ^_^

There are some popular artist from Island, although, they're not really my favorites:

Cristina Millan
Hoobastank <-- Good band
Sum 41
Fefe Dobson
Saliva

In other thoughts, Exodus was really bad, and I'm sad to spent money on it. It really just wasn't worth it. Her Japanese stuff is so much better.

i dotn even listen to it.......OVER

Bon Jovi.

Other than the ones mentioned--
The Killers, Lionel Richie, MARIAH CAREY, Def Leppard, Bob Marley, etc.

They have some GREAT selling artists on there. Maybe she didn't sell because people didn't like the music they heard, not everything is the record label's fault and people who blame it solely on that are just being stupid. It's like saying Ayu isn't as popular as she used to be just because Avex is bad, there are other reasons.

There really was just 0 promotion for this album. I did not once see anything about it on VH1 or MTV and lets face it, to get good record sales these days, you need those networks and others similar to it behind your album.

What's really sickening is that Lindsay Lohan...LINDSAY LOHAN is on heavy rotation on MTV and an actual artist like Utada can't get their video played.

I don't like Exodus as much as her other albums, but it is certainly better than Lindsay Lohan's freaking album.

Because Lohan is popular and she did that cross over Actor/Singer crap like J.lo did.But I still think if Hikki wanted to sell she would have promoted. She has the money 2 do it

I enjoy Utada's japanese work , but I think overall whole crossing-over to US and making Exodus was a failure. I don't think it can be blamed just on the lack of promotion

first of all , Exodus isn't that good of an album. overall it's got this edgy eletronic sound which won't be liked by that many people and the lyrics are nothing special. there's only a couple tracks which are ok in my opinion and several bad ones.

I feel she doesn't have the looks or personality to attract attention , she doesn't seem to do enough lives ( has there been any live performances by her in the US ?).

out of the j-pop acts , I think koda Kumi has the best change making it in the US , she'd only need to work on her english skills. not only because of her looks and etc , but her music is the type that could easily appeal the MTV audiences. or AI from Def Jam Japan , I'm not sure of her english skills tho.

i think Utada is OKAE..in america. Her english might be fluent but her voice is like so deep when she speaks english. the only song that i like from Exodus is Exodus 04. the others are horrible to me. the workout /tippy toe or devil inside and the rest are soooooooo ..hmm..not the kind of songs that will get much attention. or couldn't make it as a single... doesn't much appeal to americans? unlike her Deep River album, the songs are fantastic. why didn't she do something like that instead.?

I don't think her Deep River album would make it big at US though. Maybe "First Love" or "Distance" which were plainly much more americanized but Deep River was kinda japanese in a way.

people are saying they're happy she's going back to Japan in this post ... where have you read that she's going back to Japan right now? I haven't seen anything on it.

I think some of them were really good songs (Let Me Give You My Love; Hotel Lobby; You make me want to be a man, etc.) but to me, the album really accented what I found a turn off in Utada's Japanese music: consistancy. She can release some good stuff, but most of it is pretty average. She likes to do quirky things, but if they aren't strong, the experimental songs sound like exercises in songwriting instead of actual album tracks.

Why did people not buy it? Frankly, I think it's because a lot of the songs sucked compared to her Japanese stuff. Lyricwise and music-wise. Secondly, as others have said, there was little to none promotion. I never saw Easy Breezy's music video, or any ads in magazines that I read or whatever. o_o;; I didn't think she would sell well anyways, despite the fact that the album was okay. =\ My main gripe with the album was how she tried to sex herself up. It was almost like she felt she had to do that to get some success over here and it was a mistake.

Not to mention, Easy Breezy was a terrible, terrible song and a crappy choice to start off her career with. x.x;

The lyrics were terrible, really, really bad.
I really have to agree with Aldonia on this.

I think the lack of promotion was the decisive point. IDJ seriously did something wrong here, which is pity. I personally don't think the 'weak' material caused a lack of interest, mainly because the material wasn't weak. I feared the idea of an English Hikki album at first and was reluctant to buy it. I picked it up though, being curious, and I gave it a couple of spins, judging it objectively (as far as that's possible). My conclusion was that Exodus was actually a more than decent album, a pretty good one actually. In the end, I think Exodus was an extension of Deep River in many ways. It has some very good songs, and it's quite strong overall. Hikki'd definitely deserved to sell millions with this.

Actually he was just named president and CEO of Def Jem Records. He reports to LA Reid of Island Def Jam (the immediate portion that UTADA is on).

I think some of the tracks were really inventive and as much as the lyrics suck to some I found some of them to be clever and interesting. The album had some bad flaws though:

-Utada's voice is nowhere near consistent in this album. You know how a very shy person is suddenly dropped in front of a microphone to say something to a huge crowd? That's how Utada sound, her voice trembles, she seems scared and her voice sound that of an intimidated person. She didn't seem so secure of her english at all.
-The excessive reference of her being japanese and asian felt completely wrong, ruined the whole mood of the album. Utada has already traces of being asian she doesn't need to use the songs to tell that. Plus from interviews and other stuff people would get to know she IS japanese. The I'm japanesey thng was unecessary even though to so,e it was clever. for me it seemed stereotyped, it didn't feel nice.
-Putting traditional japanese instruments in the song was something not really needed at all, specially to try to achieve a market where not everybody is interested in hearing the cultural richness of one particular song. She could use all the japanese instruments she wanted in one situation only: if she had achieved enough popularity which obviously wasn't so it wasn't a safe step to try experimenting with such stuff.

Sad indeed to see her not doing successfully hear, we all still love you Hikki! :(

Eh IDJ is so stupid. They had a good artist on their hands, with lots of creativity and inventive ideas, and they just go and dump her entire project. Then again most of the stuff that's successful on American radio is the exact opposite of that anyway. What's playing on the radio is mostly garbage. All they had to do was get her on MTV & VH1 cause as soon as those two outlets back something up, EVERYONE goes wild and buys it. I guess it's obvious from my sig/avatar set that I really liked Exodus. Anyway, I don't really care cause I really enjoyed the album (and still do). Also www.akadot.com ran article about an interview that hikki had in japan and in it she declared that she plans to make a lot more both Japanaese AND American songs, so it's all good cause I like both anyway. I hope she doesn't give up and feel like she has to creatively limit herself cause people won't get it.

P.S. I also read somewhere that she plans to promote Exodus after '05 which I find kidna odd and unlikely...

alright! back to Japan. now some nihongo no uta

That is false ...

She said that she will do more Promotion in 2oo5 in America ... She had so much to do with her Album und Promotion for the Nintendo DS in Japan ...

But she said that she will do some Promotion next year in America ...

I am not sure.. but like no one knows about her (in the US), so why should they buy her album?
Plus well.. in my honest opinion, her songs weren't that good. I preferred her previous songs better. Plus the style wasn't exactly her style in my opinion. Her voice is too powerful to waste it on a different style. I think ballads and R&B fit her more. I donno.. I felt like she was trying to fit in.. but it's not really her true potential. Plus most people buy stuff which is advertised on MTV and other popular stations. If she was given more coverage she would have done more success. But somehow she must work harder to fit in. Some of the most famous singers are like.. they spent their whole life there developing their career in the US. So yeah.. she has to work harder, especially at getting more advertising, else she won't be much popular over there.

That's what I think anyhow.

Do you think maybe she became so hmm... what's the right word... sexly, because she got married and had sex? Like how Britney Spears became all sex-driven after she had sex.

Or maybe that Utada is really like that but back in Japan she puts on the image of being innocent?

but my thing is If she really wanted to make it in the U.S she expects to sell with No Promotion and Easy Breezy as her first single ?

ahah the devil inside her :evillaugh

Utada is acutally a japanese american she is not an alien to the united states at all don't forget that.Alot of things went wrong but on MTV they do mention her everynow and then. So i think Utada is gonna blow up next year here with a new single and maybe a follow up to Exodus because Timbaland has also been keeping quiet. The only reason she really signed with Def Jam was because of her friend Foxxy Brown. So i expect some great things from her a new english single and hopeful it is true about the japanese single :) and why isn[t ayu popular anymore?

It's obvious that it's the lack of promotion that caused "EXODUS" to end so miserably. IDJ has done absolutely no promotion at all for this album, and they expect it to succeed in the states? HELL NO.

And why did they even bother using "EASY BREEZY" as the debut single? I mean, it's a good song but there are better songs on the album like "EXODUS" "The Workout", i'm sure if they had put "EXODUS 04" as the debut single and have done a better PV and have given time for promotion, the album would do 10 times better than now. I mean, the sales are horrible, i know we shouldn't judge the album by sales, but if she wanna make it big here and be well known, she has to convince the company to help on promotion. I feel bad for Hikki...she deserved more pubicity with the album, just that IDJ didn't know how to promot her...

If i had the choice between japan and america i know where i would be...and no, not in america...

Well you don't have a choice ... none of us do.

So if we are fans of one persona than we should support that and let the other be. There are others that do support Utada for being Utada, rather than Utada for being Utada Hikaru.

pf...thanks and no thanks IDJ!!
for not even bother to "try" and promo hikki and wasted such a talented
artist :eviltongu ..poor girl..
v.v

All we can do i support I got the exodus cd and the devil Inside single.

Bleh I went to Target with my friend and there were STACKS of U's Exodus not being sold while all others had some. I feel bad for her. She deserved more publicity than she got...

I got mine from Best Buy. And there were lot of copies as well

go to best BUy

i bought the album but i only liked few of the songs, for example the opening and exodus '04.

lack of promotion i'd say.................. but.... everyone's gotta start somewhere right?

Well--- the only thing I saw as promotion for this album was like a 5 minute clip thing on MtV--- and the only reason I recognized her was because of my little sister recognizing the music clip from "travelling" that I used to play a long time ago.

I saw basically... NOTHING for this album. Besides that thing on MtV... nothing. Heck- even TMR and L'Arc en Ciel are getting much more promotion from Tofu records by appearing in anime magazines; TMR was touring at expos this past year!

With that said, I haven't heard the album, but I keep getting the impression that it's not even worth it to buy. And I like Utada's work... well- her early work, anyway. The whole singing in English with lines like "I'm japanesy" honestly freak me out. How corny.