[2007] This really convinced me! Utada is THE best!

[Kikaru]

I dunno. Kuu has a great voice, but she doesn't do the "dance and sing" that well.

[sugarbasil]

See--and first off, I'm a huge Hikki fan. She's one of my all-time favorite artists--I really didn't like that performance. Okay, let me rephrase that: I LOVED the actual performance as a WHOLE. As in, I LOVED LOVED LOVED the set and background, and I ADORED the background music. In fact, the ONLY thing I didn't like was her singing. I would even go as far as to say the singing ruined the performance for me. If I could get just the instrumental I would be one happy camper.

It's just that, well, I hate the song to begin with. In fact, I really REALLY dislike all of Exodus. Absolutely terrible in my opinion, and that's saying something coming from a long-time Hikki fan. The lyrics are extremely bad, in my opinion; completely lacking of any consistency and creativity. They're basically a bunch of extremely short and unrelated sentences put back-to-back to form a song. Furthermore, I just wasn't a fan of her voice in this performance. It wasn't very smooth, to me. That's not saying, however, that she has a bad voice; just that I didn't think it was up to her normal standards in that performance, and it wasn't because of her emotions (at least, not during the entire performance).

And I may sound like I'm bashing, but I'm just trying to give an honest criticism coming from an honest-to-god fan. Personally, this is not a clip that would convince me she's a good singer. There are many other ones, however, that would. This one in particular was just not in my tastes.

As for her having the best voice, like many others have said: that's really a matter of opinion. Heck, the word "perfect" doesn't have a uniform, universal meaning/significance in the first place. You can say it means, "no flaws," but flaws to one person are perfections to others. Personally, I do like Hikki's voice, but I get bored with it after a while, and it's just so...standard. Most Japanese singers with "perfect" voices have nearly the same voice, and I personally like something a bit more unique. If we had to go with a "perfect" voice though, I would choose Koda Kumi in perhaps her song Aishou. That to me is a perfect voice, but many others don't like it.

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by sugarbasil

See--and first off, I'm a huge Hikki fan. She's one of my all-time favorite artists--I really didn't like that performance. Okay, let me rephrase that: I LOVED the actual performance as a WHOLE. As in, I LOVED LOVED LOVED the set and background, and I ADORED the background music. In fact, the ONLY thing I didn't like was her singing. I would even go as far as to say the singing ruined the performance for me. If I could get just the instrumental I would be one happy camper.

It's just that, well, I hate the song to begin with. In fact, I really REALLY dislike all of Exodus. Absolutely terrible in my opinion, and that's saying something coming from a long-time Hikki fan. The lyrics are extremely bad, in my opinion; completely lacking of any consistency and creativity. They're basically a bunch of extremely short and unrelated sentences put back-to-back to form a song. Furthermore, I just wasn't a fan of her voice in this performance. It wasn't very smooth, to me. That's not saying, however, that she has a bad voice; just that I didn't think it was up to her normal standards in that performance, and it wasn't because of her emotions (at least, not during the entire performance).

And I may sound like I'm bashing, but I'm just trying to give an honest criticism coming from an honest-to-god fan. Personally, this is not a clip that would convince me she's a good singer. There are many other ones, however, that would. This one in particular was just not in my tastes.

As for her having the best voice, like many others have said: that's really a matter of opinion. Heck, the word "perfect" doesn't have a uniform, universal meaning/significance in the first place. You can say it means, "no flaws," but flaws to one person are perfections to others. Personally, I do like Hikki's voice, but I get bored with it after a while, and it's just so...standard. Most Japanese singers with "perfect" voices have nearly the same voice, and I personally like something a bit more unique. If we had to go with a "perfect" voice though, I would choose Koda Kumi in perhaps her song Aishou. That to me is a perfect voice, but many others don't like it.

That's exactly what I meant when I said that hikki's voice is flat!
As I wrote in my post, hikki is really good technical singer, but when it comes to emotion (specially with figurative and not simple lyrics she writes) I can hardly feel it from her excluding some songs/performances where it's really emotional (like FINAL DISTANCE) but most of the time her voice is just flat, smooth, normal which makes other artists vocals be better but I still could enjoy UTADA UNITED 2006 because all of the other things were awesome! and it's not like her voice was bad not at all, just not touching or special (again, in most of the songs).
And I love hikki's music too of course she's one of my favorites.

[Beauty4123]

i think the artist who can sing the best while dancing is nami tamaki. her dance routines are so much more difficult and complex compared to BoA or namie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W5oHYhdecQ (live)
PVs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVY3HQX7fbE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPXKYte0J4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA-A2...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGspoUCJals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCAt22tkTNk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2_fj...eature=related

now, nami isn't the best singer either, but her dancing is amazing. if only she'd do that now.

[TITANIC]

Originally Posted by prussian blue

^thats really true, i wanna see how the other artist do that

and i cant deny kuu has the same stamina like her too

yeah. that's true..
I forgot to mention Nami Tamaki

Originally Posted by Beauty4123

i think the artist who can sing the best while dancing is nami tamaki. her dance routines are so much more difficult and complex compared to BoA or namie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W5oHYhdecQ (live)
PVs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVY3HQX7fbE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPXKYte0J4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA-A2...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGspoUCJals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCAt22tkTNk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2_fj...eature=related

now, nami isn't the best singer either, but her dancing is amazing. if only she'd do that now.

I should i agree with you after whatching these videos. I didnt realize it because I never saw her performance before

[njanjayrp]

Namie doesn't sound that great while dancing, BoA does sound way better when it comes to that. Singers like ayaka and Hitomi Shimatani (and BoA, Otsuka Ai) are way better than Utada (live) is and rarely or never go off note.

[TITANIC]

Originally Posted by njanjayrp

Namie doesn't sound that great while dancing, BoA does sound way better when it comes to that. Singers like ayaka and Hitomi Shimatani (and BoA, Otsuka Ai) are way better than Utada (live) is and rarely or never go off note.

hmm I think BoA is great while dancing and singing but you could hear breath's sound clearly..

[Kikaru]

Originally Posted by riozz

hmm I think BoA is great while dancing and singing but you could hear breath's sound clearly..

Actually that's my problem with Utada Hikaru's voice - it's really breathy. Even the studio versions of her songs the big gulps of breaths are really visible especially for her slower songs..

[Chu-Lip506]

I think everyone is the best Hikki to Ayu to Ai-chin- to BoA but over all my Fave is Hikki!!Hikki Forever!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FuNsTyLe]

I see alot of people mention Namies voice to be better, because she can dance too? So that makes her voice better? Put the dancing and scene performance at side, and think about voice only, then namies is still good, but not the best.
And also, just because someone can't really dance, should not judge their voice on it, I never see Utada dance, but then again, her style and personality is not so dance-y, and if she started to dance it would look silly. So it's better that she doesnt. It all depends on the artists and his/her style and image really.

[prussian blue]

well, hitomi could sing very well even she keep jumping and running for the whole concert, is she consider as a good singer?

[Luv ~Venus~]

^She really wasn't breathy until Heart Station. Hikki had great voice control during her first four albums (well 5, if u include Exodus). Her lives were excellent as well especially Hikaru no 5. You guys should watch her covers of other artists songs like A-ha's Take Me On and Green Day's Boulavard of Broken Dreams (OMG! Talk about excellent vocal control. ). I guess after UU06, her vocal cords were really damaged. I read from another Hikki fan that she was suggested to get a surgery on it but she refused.

[Kikaru]

Originally Posted by Luv ~Venus~

^She really wasn't breathy until Heart Station. Hikki had great voice control during her first four albums (well 5, if u include Exodus). Her lives were excellent as well especially Hikaru no 5. You guys should watch her covers of other artists songs like A-ha's Take Me On and Green Day's Boulavard of Broken Dreams (OMG! Talk about excellent vocal control. ). I guess after UU06, her vocal cords were really damaged. I read from another Hikki fan that she was suggested to get a surgery on it but she refused.

I think her voice control was pretty good in her first three albums. In Dareka is when it kind of started IMO.

[bondingo]

Originally Posted by Kikaru

I think her voice control was pretty good in her first three albums. In Dareka is when it kind of started IMO.

Agreed. I think there were some very...interestingly-vocalized songs on ULTRA BLUE. Especially when I heard a bunch of her Be My Last lives, I can't say I was all that impressed. That being said, she is a very talented vocalist, but I do think her vocal ability has sort of gone down after years of strain on her vocal chords.

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

That's exactly what I meant when I said that hikki's voice is flat!
As I wrote in my post, hikki is really good technical singer, but when it comes to emotion (specially with figurative and not simple lyrics she writes) I can hardly feel it from her excluding some songs/performances where it's really emotional (like FINAL DISTANCE) but most of the time her voice is just flat, smooth, normal which makes other artists vocals be better but I still could enjoy UTADA UNITED 2006 because all of the other things were awesome!

Being flat is considered technically incorrect though. My brother is majoring in Vocal Performance, so I hear this more than enough. Hikki does strain quite a bit when she sings, moreso in recent times, and that's horrible for her voice. I don't think lack of emotion is the problem. I think it's probably the opposite. She's straining her vocal chords singing the way that she does and that's really just going to be worse for her voice in the long run.

[prussian blue]

^yeah i had heard UU06 too, and sometime she like to drag all the note together in ballads... be my last is actually a good song, but the dragging notes in the "ah~ah" part is @_@ make me uneasy

[yoshino]

wow.. Hikki does have a strong voice. it wld really be very difficult to sing this song.
this was the first time I hear Hikki sing in english. also the first time to hear this style of music that Hikki has. It seems great. =)

[Tom Punks]

I don't really get why everyone thinks Utada Hikaru's voice is strong. To me, it always sounds like she's about to pass out or something when she sings. She also tends to write songs that seem too high for her and she always strains to reach those "high" notes. I don't know, I just really don't like her voice or see how she's considered a "good singer". She's not the worst, and she definitely gets by, but I would never ever says she's "the best" or that her voice is strong. ^o) Utada and Otsuka Ai both sing in ways that make songs sound really sloppy to me, and that turns me off to some of their music. (Even though I do like them in general. )

I didn't like the live from the first post either. She sounded like she was going to pass out there too.

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

I don't really get why everyone thinks Utada Hikaru's voice is strong. To me, it always sounds like she's about to pass out or something when she sings. She also tends to write songs that seem too high for her and she always strains to reach those "high" notes. I don't know, I just really don't like her voice or see how she's considered a "good singer". She's not the worst, and she definitely gets by, but I would never ever says she's "the best" or that her voice is strong. ^o) Utada and Otsuka Ai both sing in ways that make songs sound really sloppy to me, and that turns me off to some of their music. (Even though I do like them in general. )

I didn't like the live from the first post either. She sounded like she was going to pass out there too.

I don't think you have heard much of her pre-2005 then. Watch anything from earlier stuffs and you'll be more impressed, I think..

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by dddaiyamondo

I don't think you have heard much of her pre-2005 then. Watch anything from earlier stuffs and you'll be more impressed, I think..

I've heard all of her albums. @_@ And as far as I can remember, I did think she sang better in First Love (album, not song), but I'm still not really "impressed" by her singing.

[CoriKaru]

Utada be serious business.