[Utada Hikaru] Songs of Utada Hikaru | the 52nd thread

[Minttulatte]

I honestly don't care what type of a song she releases. I just miss her so much that I don't care if she goes and releases a rap song for example. I would cry in happiness because I've been missing her so much. ;_;

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by drdolce

I honestly don't care what type of a song she releases. I just miss her so much that I don't care if she goes and releases a rap song for example. I would cry in happiness because I've been missing her so much. ;_;

RAP STATION?
ULTRA RAP?
DEEP RAP?
FIRST RAP?

Yes! I honestly can't wait for her new releases either. Whatever it is, it's going to have a special maturity to it that we won't hear anywhere else. What made Sakura Nagashi so breathless is it's maturity. It was a huge throwback to songs like FINAL DISTANCE though... Ugh... I'll just be thrilled to hear an intellectual pop star again. I love Ayu, but she's kind of a dumb blond compared to Utada, especially in terms of songwriting.

[Surreal17]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

RAP STATION?
ULTRA RAP?
DEEP RAP?
FIRST RAP?

Yes! I honestly can't wait for her new releases either. Whatever it is, it's going to have a special maturity to it that we won't hear anywhere else. What made Sakura Nagashi so breathless is it's maturity. It was a huge throwback to songs like FINAL DISTANCE though... Ugh... I'll just be thrilled to hear an intellectual pop star again. I love Ayu, but she's kind of a dumb blond compared to Utada, especially in terms of songwriting.

Wow, this comment is so wrong, I just can't. The "dumb blond" comment is really unnecessary. And as always, some fans overrate Utada when Japanese music scene has amazing songwriters like Yuki Kajiura, Kokia, Chara, Sheena Ringo etc. I like songs from Utada but she's nowhere people are trying to put her. Can't we just appreciate songs and artists without trying to compare and put down others? And yeah, I know forums are meant for discussion but I had to say something about this.

[chocopockymaster]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

I love Ayu, but she's kind of a dumb blond compared to Utada, especially in terms of songwriting.

You can fuck right off with this comment. Utada is the one with a song whose lyrics literally read, "You're easy breezy and I'm Japanesey". Come on now.

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by chocopockymaster

You can fuck right off with this comment. Utada is the one with a song whose lyrics literally read, "You're easy breezy and I'm Japanesey". Come on now.

Well, you can screw off in your own right too. Since 2006, any Utada track has been significantly better written than almost anything Ayumi has put on a record since Secret. You can't discount Utada's Japanese works for what she did on a very experimental English record. Ayu's talent as a songwriter has gotten worse, whereas Utada has significantly improved.

And to hammer this point home: How many of Utada's songs since ULTRA BLUE have been about love or relationships or breakups? ...Now, how many of Ayumi's songs since Secret have been about love, relationships, breakups, missing someone? My point is that Utada is not only a better songwriter today, but she's also a more diverse songwriter.

[primavera♥]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

Well, you can screw off in your own right too. Since 2006, any Utada track has been significantly better written than almost anything Ayumi has put on a record since Secret. You can't discount Utada's Japanese works for what she did on a very experimental English record. Ayu's talent as a songwriter has gotten worse, whereas Utada has significantly improved.

And to hammer this point home: How many of Utada's songs since ULTRA BLUE have been about love or relationships or breakups? ...Now, how many of Ayumi's songs since Secret have been about love, relationships, breakups, missing someone? My point is that Utada is not only a better songwriter today, but she's also a more diverse songwriter.

Lol like most of them, what are you even talking about? In fact, I find a lot of the lyrics from Ultra Blue and onward to be similar to ayu lyrics and approach similar things. I do think they are great. But not necessarily more diverse. And the quality more on par with ayu. Only a few songs lyrically are what I would consider superior to ayu's as opposed to more on par. Also, I always wonder what is lost in translation.

I remember the lyrics of Beautiful World reminding me a lot of something ayu would write and I frequently think that when going through hikki's lyrics just due to some of the themes she touches.

"If I can be granted just one wish,
Please let me sleep next to you. Any place is fine.
Beautiful world
Without regrets, my eyes are only on you.
Beautiful boy
You don't know yet, just how beautiful you are."

[Surreal17]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

And to hammer this point home: How many of Utada's songs since ULTRA BLUE have been about love or relationships or breakups? ...Now, how many of Ayumi's songs since Secret have been about love, relationships, breakups, missing someone? My point is that Utada is not only a better songwriter today, but she's also a more diverse songwriter.

Ok, first of all your point isn't valide. The questions should be like : How many Japanese albums (to exclude her English attrocity, lyrically speaking) has Utada released since 2006? 2 plus mini album. So this equals less then 30 songs. And how many albums has ayu released since 2006? 10 plus 2 mini, so over 100 songs at least. Of course ayu is going to have a lot more love songs or repeated themes in her hundred songs than Utada in a few. And what's wrong with love theme? Its not like Utada is some highly experimental new age artist. Like someone else already said, she also sings very often about relationships. Ayu only started putting accent on this theme after 2010 when Utada started her hiatus. And how can you say that she's a better and diverse songwriter today, when she hasn't released a full Japanese effort in over 8 years.

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by Surreal17

Ok, first of all your point isn't valide. The questions should be like : How many Japanese albums (to exclude her English attrocity, lyrically speaking) has Utada released since 2006? 2 plus mini album. So this equals less then 30 songs. And how many albums has ayu released since 2006? 10 plus 2 mini, so over 100 songs at least. Of course ayu is going to have a lot more love songs or repeated themes in her hundred songs than Utada in a few. And what's wrong with love theme? Its not like Utada is some highly experimental new age artist. Like someone else already said, she also sings very often about relationships. Ayu only started putting accent on this theme after 2010 when Utada started her hiatus. And how can you say that she's a better and diverse songwriter today, when she hasn't released a full Japanese effort in over 8 years.

Well, you bring up some valid points of debate. Utada has released, including ULTRA BLUE, exactly 30 songs since 2006. Of those, 11 total are about love and relationships. The rest have talked about growing up, her mother, her mother again, death, childhood, depression, and a few songs have literally been about things she thinks are fun.

Now, my count for Ayumi is 110 songs in the same time period, 63 of which are specifically about love, a relationship, a breakup, or missing a former love. By my count, starting with Love songs, Ayumi focused most of her records on songs about intimate love, whereas every record up to RnRC was at most half about intimate love.

[# of songs] - [# of songs about love]
Secret: [10] - [4]
GUILTY: [10] - [5]
NEXT LEVEL: [10] - [3]
RnRC: [12] - [3]
Love songs: [13] - [7] <-- BIG change.
FIVE: [5] - [4]
Party Queen: [11] - [6]
LOVE again: [13] - [12] <-- Peak.
Colours: [10] - [7]
A ONE: [10] - [8]
sixxxxxx: [6] - [4]

Out of 110 songs since Secret, 57% are about finding, losing, or missing intimate love. Compared to Utada, whose 11 songs on the same subject account for only 36% of her total output in the same timeframe.

BUT!

There's that big change starting at Love songs. Starting with Love songs, Ayu has released 68 songs, of which 48, or 70% are about intimate love. It's also worth noting that more than 60% of her songs since Love songs have been ballads and midtempo tracks.

Ayumi's music has changed significantly, and it's become much less diverse than Utada's output in the same timeframe, but more so, it's become undeniably less diverse in the last five years.

Now, when I say that Utada is a more mature and diverse songwriter, I mean that only 9 of the 24 songs, or 37%, she released on ULTRA BLUE and HEART STATION were about intimate love. That may not seem like a big difference when you look at those comparisons, but if I applied Utada's proportion to Ayu's total number of releases, you're looking at 41 songs vs. Ayumi's 63 songs. That's a difference of 22 songs, or two whole albums. You would have to replace every song on LOVE again, then replace all the love songs on Party Queen, and all the love songs on FIVE, with ANYTHING but songs about intimate love to proportionally even them out.

For Utada to proportionally equal Ayumi, she would have had to replace 8 songs she's released since 2006 with love songs.

And I think it's important to look at how heavy Ayu has loaded her recent albums. Even when she's experimented, she's put out records oversaturated with songs about intimate love. Love songs was a throwback, Party Queen was a smorgasbord, LOVE again was LOVE...again, Colours was an EDM-flavored album, and A ONE was her "return to herself"... for each, 50%+ of the songs were love songs.

While this is very topical, again, I implore you to think of memorable lyrics from any of these songs... lyrics that stick out to you more than lyrics from similar-theme songs from pre-2006. Are there any concepts she used that you thought were brilliant or creative? Was there any lyric she wrote that seemed like such a fresh way to describe her feelings? Or do they sound more like rehashes of ideas she used in songs before?

I have to be honest with you. I've listened to every Ayu album several dozen times, and I can't recall anything significant from the last five years that catches me like a line from CAROLS or Moments, or rainy day, or even as far back as SEASONS.

I don't think that has anything to do with the overall number of songs Ayu has written, but a lot to do with the proportion of new songs she's released which are about a similar subject, sound similar, and share a very similar writing style.

EDIT: Me do numbers wrong. 6am no sleep.

EDIT 2: On the memorable lyrics part, compare Ayu's lyrics since 2006 with lyrics and ideas used in similar-themed songs from Utada. I remember C.O.L.O.R.S. because Utada described all the various emotions of a dissolving relationship by colors. I remember This Is Love because she's literally listing off event after event joyously adding them up to the idea that they must mean she's fallen in love. I loved how HEART STATION related tuning into her like a radio. Or maybe like what was described with Beautiful World, where Utada describes her love for someone as a world of its own, with lines like "I don't need the newspaper... how are you doing?". And Sakura Nagashi, where Utada reflects on who she is long after being separate from someone, and relates the events of a popular festival for the deceased to her experience of returning to places where she once was with this other person, thinking about how they might be different then and not the person she once knew too.

I mean, Ayu wrote about whether love is shaped like a circle?

[Zahara]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

Well, you can screw off in your own right too. Since 2006, any Utada track has been significantly better written than almost anything Ayumi has put on a record since Secret. You can't discount Utada's Japanese works for what she did on a very experimental English record. Ayu's talent as a songwriter has gotten worse, whereas Utada has significantly improved.

And to hammer this point home: How many of Utada's songs since ULTRA BLUE have been about love or relationships or breakups? ...Now, how many of Ayumi's songs since Secret have been about love, relationships, breakups, missing someone? My point is that Utada is not only a better songwriter today, but she's also a more diverse songwriter.

Utada hasn't recorded nearly as much as Ayumi has. Ayumi also hasn't taken a hiatus, let alone two. Of course Ayumi might be in a dry spell lyrically speaking, but that doesn't mean she's a horrible lyricist.

I say this as an Utada fan, but you're really reaching for some of these comparisons. Utada has her fair share of love songs, and there's nothing wrong with that.

@Andrenekoi at everything you said.