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

[ahtka-chan]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

I hate it when people get so butthurt over comparisons.

And I hate when comparisons turn into a "my diva is better than yours and your opinion doesn't matter", as it always turns.

[lizzylovesongaku]

It's okay to compare and share opinions, but is it necessary to use mean, derogatory terms towards other artists or other forum members? What's really the point of being nasty? You can share opinions without insulting people.

Anyway, I'm so excited for her to come back. I'm really interested in seeing which direction her new music is going to go. If Sakura Nagashi is any indication, she might be stepping away from synth heavy stuff. I loved that song's arrangement, so if any of her new songs are like that, I'll be happy. But that song is almost 4 years old, so who knows? All I know is that I'm unbelievably excited!!

[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."

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by ahtka-chan

And I hate when comparisons turn into a "my diva is better than yours and your opinion doesn't matter", as it always turns.

I hope that's not the impression, because I certainly did not say Utada or Ayu are any more my diva than the other. If anything, Ayu would win out there. But I gotta be honest: Utada has evolved and matured in ways I'm not sure Ayu could, but am definitely sure Ayu has not up to this point.

So, when I say Ayu is like the dumb blond here, I mean that it's significantly likely that Utada's new music (as most of her music since ULTRA BLUE) will be better written, more diverse, and more mature than what we get from Ayu. I don't think it's any secret that Ayu's writing has nosedived... Her songs are less memorable, the messages are more cryptic or generic, and she usually writes about the same one or two subjects: relationships and love. And while Sakura Nagashi may be about a relationship, it's a subject Utada doesn't sing about very often, and certainly not for almost every song on a record.

Maybe the more appropriate analogy is that Ayu is like a broken record, but I used "dumb blond" because Ayu is pretty much in her own little world doing what she wants and getting attention because she's popular, not because she's doing anything particularly worth paying attention to. Maybe the next album will be a step up from the likes of La / C / and AO, but to be honest, I can expect something memorable and mature and different and thought-provoking from Utada. I can't say the same for Ayu.

Originally Posted by primavera♥

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'm talking about the fact that Utada has only five songs out of the 13 on ULTRA BLUE that are even remotely about love and relationships. The rest are largely self-reflective.

HEART STATION itself has only four songs out of its 13 tracks that are about love and relationships. The rest are about hopefulness and again, more self-reflection.

I don't think 9 songs out of 24 is "like most of them". And I'm not sure if you're actually reading the lyrics? There are significant differences in both content and writing style between Utada and Ayu. For crying out loud, Utada rhymes CUP NOODLE, writes about her lungs being covered in gold, and wrote an entire song describing the breakdown of her relationship in colors... I'm not sure how you see the similarity there.

[koumori]

Keep it nice, yadda yadda. Calling someone/something 'dumb' is not going to get across anyone's point well, just like telling someone to 'fuck off' isn't good either. Compare artists all you like, just be mature about it. I don't want to move a perfectly appropriate discussion just because people throw in provoking terms among the debate points.

-
Anyway, I'm really excited for Utada's return. I don't envy how much pressure she has on her to bring out something good.

[Zeke.]

I'm curious if the Utada threads are the threads that have had the most comments trashed by mods, lol

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by Koumori

Keep it nice, yadda yadda. Calling someone/something 'dumb' is not going to get across anyone's point well, just like telling someone to 'fuck off' isn't good either. Compare artists all you like, just be mature about it. I don't want to move a perfectly appropriate discussion just because people throw in provoking terms among the debate points.

-
Anyway, I'm really excited for Utada's return. I don't envy how much pressure she has on her to bring out something good.

You're right. My apologies for those I offended. But I stand by my comparisons. The content and diversity of Utada's writing and music since 2006 well contrasts Ayu's more narrow focus on love, relationships, and more generic sounding songs. That "intellectual pop" is what I'm looking forward to, as I think the only real trailblazer has been Namie in terms of maturing and evolving as an artist. My interest is piqued for Utada because I believe she will add some substance to a comparatively diluted solo female J-Pop scene since she went on hiatus in 2010.

[koumori]

Thanks for being cool about it. The discussion itself is quite interesting, and naturally when it comes to lyrics, it's all down to personal interpretation so there's a lot of different opinions there.

Originally Posted by Zeke.

I'm curious if the Utada threads are the threads that have had the most comments trashed by mods, lol

There's been some interesting times. I think moderating the Utada thread was one of my first trials of fire

[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.

[bluegie]

I think we really should drop hikki and ayu debate. Let's focus on her upcoming release instead.

[hayasaki]

Ayu and Hikki debate is soooooo 2000's and i'm loving it. It feels JPOP is being alive again lol. I wonder if hikki will Beyonce us and drop the two a-side single the same day A Best -15th Anniv version comes out.

[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?

[primavera♥]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

I hope that's not the impression, because I certainly did not say Utada or Ayu are any more my diva than the other. If anything, Ayu would win out there. But I gotta be honest: Utada has evolved and matured in ways I'm not sure Ayu could, but am definitely sure Ayu has not up to this point.

So, when I say Ayu is like the dumb blond here, I mean that it's significantly likely that Utada's new music (as most of her music since ULTRA BLUE) will be better written, more diverse, and more mature than what we get from Ayu. I don't think it's any secret that Ayu's writing has nosedived... Her songs are less memorable, the messages are more cryptic or generic, and she usually writes about the same one or two subjects: relationships and love. And while Sakura Nagashi may be about a relationship, it's a subject Utada doesn't sing about very often, and certainly not for almost every song on a record.

Maybe the more appropriate analogy is that Ayu is like a broken record, but I used "dumb blond" because Ayu is pretty much in her own little world doing what she wants and getting attention because she's popular, not because she's doing anything particularly worth paying attention to. Maybe the next album will be a step up from the likes of La / C / and AO, but to be honest, I can expect something memorable and mature and different and thought-provoking from Utada. I can't say the same for Ayu.



I'm talking about the fact that Utada has only five songs out of the 13 on ULTRA BLUE that are even remotely about love and relationships. The rest are largely self-reflective.

HEART STATION itself has only four songs out of its 13 tracks that are about love and relationships. The rest are about hopefulness and again, more self-reflection.

I don't think 9 songs out of 24 is "like most of them". And I'm not sure if you're actually reading the lyrics? There are significant differences in both content and writing style between Utada and Ayu. For crying out loud, Utada rhymes CUP NOODLE, writes about her lungs being covered in gold, and wrote an entire song describing the breakdown of her relationship in colors... I'm not sure how you see the similarity there.

Lol I don't know what you classify as talking about love and relationships but apparently it's not the same as what I think. Because quite literally most of them are. Obviously they have differences in their writing styles as all lyricists do, but they also have similarities. I'm glad you pointed out some of the gems in hikki's lyrics though. But you're truly over-exaggerating or perhaps just interpret her lyrics extremely differently. As far as sound goes, that's a totally different thing.

Hikki's background, education, etc naturally fosters different things from her, and I do think the upcoming work will be very mature.

[JackieRos]

Get over yourselves and be happy that she's releasing new music

[Andrenekoi]

Lol, Utada sings about love quite a lot, and mostly romantic love, while someone must have a very limited view on what love is to believe Ayu is always singing about it.

Utada is an amazing songwriter, far better than Ayu, when we talk about text structure. She could easily be writing poetry. But her subjects are always on the boring side... IMO this is what make her great, actually, her ability to make mundane stuff sounds beautiful when she writes about them. Ayu on the other side is far less afraid of taking complicated subjects, but her approach is far more straightforward.

Now, we get it. You don't like Ayu anymore, your message is crystal clear. This doesn't mean it's cool to see you bringing this to every single thread of the forum and calling people names when they disagree with you. People are not dumb or "assholes" because they don't agree with whatever you think it's good or bad.

That being said, a world where Utada is producing music is a very good world, and I'm happy I will be on it again.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

Well, on average, I think it was always believed that Ayu had more of a natural talent for writing as opposed to Utada. I think Utada has to put more effort into it. I actually remember reading in a few places that one of Utada's weaker points was her lyrics, which were said to be very general and less metaphorical.

And really, there is nothing wrong with comparing their lyrics. There are brands over 100 years old that people still draw comparisons between, so I see nothing wrong with discussing artists who compete within similar categories in a similar manner. I hate it when people get so butthurt over comparisons.

They both are highly praised by their lyrics, to the point both of them have lyrics used on school textbooks... As you can read here

[ahtka-chan]

^In love with your sign. Ga-In is love <3

[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.

[blackmage]

I just excited that Utada is finally and officially coming back!

[bluegie]

Sigh we should really stop the debate between hikki and ayu. It's getting worse...