What got your interest in Utada?
 

For all the Hikki fans on the board...if any xD...what drew you into listening to Utada Hikaru in the first place?

I have to saywhen I heard Hikari/Simple & Clean I was hooked. I heard the English version first, then downloaded Hikari and then her more and more songs from her. I've loved her since then, espeically Can You Keep a Secret, COLORS, Sakura Drops, Passion, Kremlin Dusk and Flavor of Life -Ballad Version-.

How about you?

Automatic and In My Room. I've been a fan since her First Love album. Probably because Pop/R&B slow jam vibe the album has.

Another quality from her that I look up to is her ability to still making interesting and quality music without being a fashion image (Unlike Ayu, Mika, Namie, etc)
Even a genre switch doesn't turn me off. I'm still lovin' EXODUS, although I have to admit I also feel weirded out by that album. But it's grown on me.

i like her song after i heard '1st Love' it was a very popular song last time..

Passion from KHII!
I loved the rest of Ultra Blue, but I don't like any of her other stuff!!
And Flavor of Life is ..... *Looks the other way*

I first heard Automatic, but I also got interested because she was the first j-pop artist I learned was born in New York. And because I'm American, I thought, "Cool." It's not like I started liking her only because she was American. I liked her music, but that fact got me more interested.

I had heard a lot of buzz about Hikki online, but I didn't become a fan until I heard "Simple and Clean" in a Kingdom Hearts commercial. Then I sampled all her music. :)

My Story......

Well, it was sort of random for me. I heard S&C on the KH commercial and I really liked it but I didn't know who sung the song for it. So, I guess a few months after listening to it, I was searching for Inuyasha/FFX-2 songs and somehow I happened to have found S&C and I instantly downloaded it. Once I played it on Media player it said the singer was Utada Hikaru. So then I decided to look her up and after doing that, I found a few more songs of hers (Sakura Drops, First Love, and Automatic -live-) and I happened to have really them. A few years later while watching MTV, I saw "You Saw It First" feat. Utada. She was talking about how Japan was different from Amercian and so on.

While she was talking they play clips of Automatic and was soooo suprised. I was like, "Wow, an Asian chick was singing a hip-hop song!" After that, it took me a while to find Automatic (I think about 2 years! XD) but I found it and I really was addicted to it and from then on I found more and more Hikki songs that I happened to have really enjoy and ummm....yea, I became a major Hikki fan! lol

Ever since her First Love single. omg, i still looooooooooooove that song... and all her other songs... so beautiful :)

ever since i saw an KH commercial on tv, which had "simple and clean" as the background music. then i got this gamepro magazine, i think, and it had utada's bio and picture in it. so i looked her up online and found her music.

I like her "First Love" , "Distance" & "Deep River" albums. Most of the stuff she has released after those albums isn't anything that special.

My favorite album by her is "Distance". It's very american pop/RnB because she worked with american producers like Jimmy Jam & Lewis and Rodney "Darkchild" Jenkins , but that's why I like it since I'm a big fan of anything by those RnB producers.

What? Automatic is hip hop song? :roflmao

Now, Hikki is my 2nd BEST artist EVER, after Ayu and before Kuu~chan

the same for me!!
my favorite song are: you make me want to be a man, exodus, traveling, canyou keep a secret and the new song flavor of life

i got interested in her when i downloaded the johnny vicious remix of automatic and liked it, so i went to find more of her songs and liked them all.

this is really what got me into jpop as a whole.

I've always somewhat liked her. Her genre wasn't really my thing, but I liked the select songs here and there, and Deep River album as a whole. It wasn't until the Exodus/ULTRA BLUE era that I became a fan. Now I anticipate her new releases as much as I do with artists like Namie, Gackt, etc. (I can't say Ayu, because that's a different plane of existence in and of itself :laugh)

Kingdom Hearts I :yes

and when I heard the japanese version...woah...soo much better...then I just...started...damn I don't even remember...there's like this huge gap between KHI and ULTRA BLUE lol I was probably only listening to ayu then...I don't really remember...but I love her now, she's right up there next to ayu.

Simple and Clean (Planitb Remix) from the US Kingdom Hearts CM and videogame!

I came across Hikaru while I was looking for another artist.
I noticed that Simple & Clean was very popular, and I downloaded the remix version.
I was very surprised; it was a great song, and Utada sang in English really well (I didn't know anything about her, not even that she was born in the U.S. or anything).
After hearing Distance, I became a fan -- not a big fan, but I still have my favorites.

i heard Hikari/S&C first, but it was "SAKURA drops" & watching the gorgeous PV that really made me interested in Hikki! :)

IMO, YES!:P

Now that I think about it, Sakura Drops was my first J-PV!!!!:D

I think Automatic is more R&B-influenced.
Hip Hop music includes DJing, backbeats, and rap music, which doesn't exist in Automatic. I think I should let you know about that. XD

Although I had always liked her, it was with Be my last when I "fell in love" with her. She's making great music.

been seeing her CYKAS pv for a few times on MTV, and i learned her name

then i saw Sakura Drops pv, and was so amazed by the awesome pv and great music. still havent got the JPOP craze yet

came KH, as i watch the credits when my lil bro finished it, and saw her name again. i thought "wow. she can sing english without accent too?". and the rest is history

probably the main reason i LOVE her is maybe bcoz she's the first japanese artist with perfect english that i knew. naturally, i found her music so good and meaningful lyrics. hoping for another english album >.<

I heard "Automatic" back in like 2000 and thought "hey this is a pretty good song and her English in the song is so good! I want to hear more." And then I d/led more songs by her and thus my interest in jpop began =P

Exodus '04. I LOVED that song. XD; I still do. I really got into her ALOT from "The Workout" XD

The Workout was a really great song.
Along with Exodus '04, those were the only 2 songs I truly liked on the album.

It's kind of a funny story with me, I guess. I originally heard of her because I bought Kingdom Hearts and heard Simple & Clean. I wasn't huge into J-Pop at the time, so I didn't really try to listen to anything else by her until her EXODUS album came out, which I purchased thinking that it was in Japanese. I was originally horribly dissappointed and thought it was one of the worst albums I'd ever heard, but after MANY repeated listens, I ended up falling for it, which prompted me to buy her Japanese Singles Collection Vol.1. Those songs took a little bit to grow on me, but I eventually fell in love with them all (except for Time Limit, which still sucks). Anyways, that just evolved into me having to buy all her albums, and I'm now a big fan. I don't quite love her as much as Ayu, or even Namie, but she's pretty damn close.

I have know about Hikki for years, but I JUST RECENTLY got into her a few weeks ago when I heard Flavor of Life LOL! :D
Now I REALLY love all her songs, and I'm buying some of her CD's :)

But then again, I did like her song "First Love" a few years ago.
So I guess that's what got me into her :)

I've been hearing her name for /years/. I still remember the Kingdom Hearts commercials.

But the fact that everyone thought she was so freakin' great made me check her out. At first I thought she sucked. So I waited another year before listening to her again. Now I think she's okay.

well for me...it was Simple & Clean. when KH was in production (for the US release) they'd show promotional shots/CM/ and behind the scenes for it on the Disney Channel, cause you know KH is very disney oriented. So I'd see it constantly and Simple & Clean would always play.

Those commercials (because I loved Disney movies and I loved gaming) sparked my interest for the game. So after a year or so after its release I finally got my hands on it, and lo and behold the remix was showed in the beginnings of the game.

That pretty much started my interest in her, but I didn't really look for her music. :shrug whenever I chanced upon her surfing the 'net I'd grab it (during this time I'd learned to love both Simple & Clean and Hikari equally, since they're both great. However I favor Passion better than Sanctuary), but that's about it. Until I heared eternally then I bought Exodus from Amazon. After that I actively searched for her music, downloading wise and on online shopping sites.

Last Nov. I found Deep River @ an anime convention for a reasonable price, so I bought it. (partly for FINAL DISTANCE) mostly for Hikari (brings back old memories, you know...) I listened to it and was blown away. I love the whole album. I've only got Deep River, For You single, and Exodus (+KH Original Soundtrack; finally bought it! ;3) in my physical Hikki collection, but I'm hoping to expand on that, especially since I'm currently job searching...

Kingdom Hearts commercials on FOX TV. I fell in love with Simple & Clean the first time I heard it. I always looked forward more to the commercial break than the show I used to watch. I was addicted. Gotta.. see... the.. KH COMMERCIAL! I got a computer later in the year and I downloaded the song. My gateway to J-Pop. I've been following the Japanese music scene since 2003.

Thank you, Hikaru Utada! :D

I just got into Ayu when I heard that Utada is the real queen of Japanese music (it was a very common opinion in my country) and that whatever Ayu does she won't beat Hikki in selling nor in popularity. I also heard that Utada is very short-tempered person and that she often insults Ayu (and this wasn't said by Ayu fans or other singer / band fans, it was just a note about Utada you could read on some J-music sites). Anyway, I got kinda mad with her and didn't want to hear any of her music at first just because I thought she's a bad person. I never had my own opinion about her, I just didn't know her and didn't want to know her music. When I've been to Japan my boyfriend wanted me to listen to her played for me Sakura Drops (the worst choice ever, I don't like this song even now). I don't remember when I decided to give her another chance but I know that I just sat and decided that I want to have my own opinion. I found three songs in the net (one of them was Passion) and she pwned me. I felt in love with her music right away (but I still don't like Sakura Drops :p).

the first songs I heard fron her were Final Distance and traveling, which i liked a lot! But it wasn't until the release of Be my last when I began to love her music *__*

Long story short: Kingdom Hearts + Bearshare = Simple and Clean...the rest fell into place.

A friend emailed me Hikari and I really liked it, so when I became friends with Kiyomi (an exchange student at one of the HS' I went to), I put it into a mix with some other Japanese songs for us to listen to. When she saw I liked Japanese music, she gave me some of the CDs she brought over to the States with her. One of the CDs was the first press of Hikki's Deep River album. <3 It's still my favourite Hikki album to date.

"First Love" , "Distance" & "Deep River" album got me interested in Utada.
The rest of the album didn't.

lessee...

i was in taiwan, watching a japanese drama with my aunt and mom (me being sorta young back them, i couldn't read the chinese subs, nor could i understand the japanese...dur...) it was the drama hikki's song first love was used for. i liked it, so my aunt bought me the album. then, i came back to the us, and she sent me her otehr albums (not including distance and ultra blue, but that wasn't released at the time.) so now, i have:

cubic u's precious
first love
deep river
utada's exodus
(wow...that doesn't sound much...)
yea, i knew hikki before ayu.

random thing: after the kh craze i had, i fell in love with simple and clean. then i listened to my deep river cd after losing it for so long (XP), i listen to the last song. i started screaming
it was simple and clean the japanese version

okee, that's my story XD

I was addicted to her Movin' on without you and Another Chance from her first album. Been a fan ever since then!;)

It started out with Simple and Clean...years later...I met ayumi's music...which made me succumb into her music and not caring for anyone elses...but then I learned of Utada's Exodus release, few months after it was released...and then I started to like Utada for being an artist that could possibly break the market...

of course, she flopped. but she gained a new fan. =)

Hikari sparked my interest. Easy brezzy killed it.

First heard her through Simple&Clean, didn't care much though. Then randomly picked up Distance, and became a fan afterwards. My interest waned a little after EXODUS, since I didn't like the tracks after Easy Breezy, and Ultra Blue was a little weird. But I really like the Flavor of Life.

Ugh....that seems like every ones reason why they don't like her now (maybe if Koda had sung it.....would've been better! :rolleyes )

Anyway, I found nothing wrong with EB or Exodus....one of the best albums I have ever heard!

Kingdom Hearts - Simple and Clean PlantiB remix - stiIl love it!! ^^

*screams*.....that's one of my fave Hikki mixes!:D

I kind of heared she had a song in Kingdom Hearts I on some form ages ago which i had preordered and would come in the post so i switched the game on and st it to new game and up pops Utada's song. Been a fan ever since.