^I was just about to say that. She might juts completely surprise us and do something crazy/out of the ordinary but it'll be awesome.

And I actually think Apple & Cinnamon was a really nice ballad.

Who gave this thread two stars? #hatersgon'hate

I also gave 5 stars to this thread. It's so disturbing to see this thread as a 3 star thread when it's usually always 5... -.-

It's also pretty cool that these Hikki threads stay alive even while she's on hiatus. I was scared that these will die in 4 months after that but no. This is so awesome. Seriously. :heart

Traveling PV has always been one of my favorite Hikki PVs. It's so colorful and funny to watch. Awesome~ :heart

kiriya trilogy is always my fav (even in the JPop mv universe). I love the concept and the arts are beautiful. I wish hikki will work with him again in the future...

I gave this thread a 5/5.
I kinda wanna listen to Hikki's English stuff, but I'm indifferent.

^You should listen. Hikki's English releases are great too. At least I really adore both albums (Exodus and This Is The One) so much. :heart

funy i just watched that pv and thought the same thing.

BUT the reason these threads stay alive is because nobody compares. :D im a little biased.

I miss her releasing new music. :/

Am I the only one who likes sanctuary more than passion?
It's just because of that bridge... thats a hot breakdown.
And in the closing version, we get some piano :)

^Yes.

I prefer the version she sang when I saw her in LA. All the great parts of Passion + the decent sections of Sanctuary.

I like the japanese version of sanctuary better. I cant stand the english versions.

I mean, the japanese opening...not original passion. It has the break and stuff.

But the original Passion is my favorite song ever.

Wait wait wait
How many versions of Passion/Sanctuary are there?
I know of 3:
1. 'Passion' on Ultra Blue/Singles collection
2. 'Sanctuary (Opening)' on This is the one /KH
3. 'Sanctuary (Closing)' on This is the one/KH

Did they use the Japanese version of passion for KH and include that breakdown thingy that's in the USA version?

Yeah, Passion was used in KH and it has that breakdown thing in the middle. Sanctuary has more of that backward sound thing though.

There are also:
-> Passion ~after the battle~ from Passion single/Kingdom Hearts II OST
-> Passion - KINGDOM Orchestra Instrumental Version from Kingdom Hearts II OST

After the Americans won 2-1 over Japan in Olympic women's soccer gold medal match, here's what Utada said, and this might be in favor of us in Seattle: :P

The Japanese version of KH uses all the japanese versions I think.

Passion -opening version- is in Japanese, but it has the breakdown that's in english.

and yep~ what Luna said. Sanctuary (closing) should be Passion ~after the battle~ in english.

Some fans did merge the single version with the KH version of Passion. The single version had the final part, while KH version had the breakdown but no final part. So the merged version sounds the best in reality :P.

So:

1. 'Passion' on Ultra Blue/Singles collection
2. 'Sanctuary (Opening)' on This is the one /KH
3. 'Sanctuary (Closing)' on This is the one/KH
+
4. "Passion ~opening version" on KHJPN
5. "Passion ~After the battle" on Passion Single/KHJPN

are these all the versions?

The breakdown in Passion is slightly different from Sanctuary. The first reversed line in Sanctuary is replaced by "Hito shirezu" ("Hidden away" if I'm not wrong) in the breakdown.

Woooo!!! Hikki has 986,000+ followers now on twitter. If I'm not mistaken (which I very well could be), she may be the first Japanese Artist to break the 1 million twitter followers mark.

Just release something already!!!!!!!

It's au-to-maaatic
This Is the One is growing on me.

^^Meh, one of my least favorite on TiTo.

I LOVE Dirty Desire so much. It's that perfect, "omg I'm in lust with this person why oh why" song lol

^^YES!! haha...really, the only songs I don't care for from that album are Automatic Part II and Poppin'.

^ Lol i was talking about the original "automatic"
I like "apple and cinnamon" though
and "come back to me"

^This One (Crying Like A Child) ;__; brilliant ;__;

Poppin' is so awesome omg that panty line, so amazing. The only song I don't really like is Taking My Money Back.

^naw. I liked that song.
Oo-oo-oo-ah-ah-ah takin' ma takin' ma money back lol

Actually, I pretty much liked the entire album XD it was a definite step up from Exodus.

^ I also think that it's a good album :P
It deserved to be a much bigger success in the USA and such.

^Agreed! I just don't think that cover helped with sales in the US haha

"Girls...you know I eat it better than the boys." LMAO @ Poppin'

Yes, I know that's not what she's really singing

Agreed. Poppin, taking my money back, automatic pt II all were really underproduced and not even funny they were so bad.

Poor taking my money back :( no love for you today haha

This Is The One is a perfect pop album imo. I love every song on it. :D

I do find myself not skipping On and On when it comes up on my ipod ahahaha touche. This One only scores like 50% as an album tho imo

Ultimately I liked This Is The One a great deal - first few spins I had the feeling nothing could really top the 'older' material tacked on near the end, but it grew on me, amazingly so. Dirty Desire and Poppin' always felt like a bit of weaker sequence (though I can stomach them alright) but elsewhere there's some outright brilliant material. Particularly partial to This One (Crying Like A Child). Right up there with my favourite Hikki tracks.

how dare you

There are good songs on that album. For me, it's On and On, Taking My Money Back, Me Meuro, FYI, and yeahh...I guess Apples and Cinammon but I got tired of that.

Since everyone's talkin' bout their favourite tracks on "This Is the One", here's mine:
- on and on
- apple and cinnamon
- this one (crying like a child)
- come back to me

... top 4 of 10 :P

Here are my favorites from This Is The One:
















































.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c1...ani-Crying.gif

holy crap... sxesven is back!!! :D

and i'm in agreement with you on This One (Crying Like A Child). that track is phenomenal.

Lol, I actually enjoyed This One (Crying Like A Child) for some time but overall I don't think the song is that great. When she starts belting out the chorus it just seems rather annoying. I love the composition and the opening melody most definitely, but the song as a whole... it's a little overkill. I have it on our iPod that plays in the lobby at my movie theater and a co-worker started imitating it and we just laugh about this song all the time now, lol.

I find TITO to be among her strongest albums...

Ultra Blue and Deep River are her best albums.

I never get tired of Poppin'. It's one of my favourite songs by her XD.

Just Deep River. And most of Heart Station.
Hikki sounded so bored for most of Ultra Blue, and some tracks are just filler fodder. There's like 4 good songs on it.

Interesting; for me Deep River and ULTRA BLUE are pretty much on the same level. For a while I preferred ULTRA BLUE, slightly, now I prefer Deep River. Both are genius. I seriously couldn't point out any filler material on ULTRA BLUE. I love the dream-poppy quality of it, it's like a pop version of shoegaze at times. So good. Heart Station though... such a love/hate album for me. I felt it carried on in the same direction ULTRA BLUE had taken, but that it took it too far. It's too clean, too polished. Mind, great material on it (Stay Gold is one of my fav Hikki songs ever; Fight the Blues plus everything from Gentle Beast interlude onward is also good) but the bad is SO bad. If Beautiful World were a person I'd punch it in the face.

How I'd rank Hikki's albums:

1. Deep River
2. ULTRA BLUE
3. Exodus
4. Distance
5. This Is the One
6. Heart Station
7. First Love

If Deep River got rid of the "Play Ball, ASAP, tokyo nights" songs, I'd rank it over Ultra Blue.

Maybe even Shiawase ni naro. Just too many bad songs for me. But the rest is brilliant.

Ha, seriously. Oh mang. Dat songs. Love them! Stylistically I think Deep River is where Hikki hit her artistic high. A song like Tokyo Nights has a dreamy, (shoe)gazy quality to it that was expounded upon for ULTRA BLUE, I think. Yet Deep River got it just right. So right.

Both UB and DR sound like single collections... Utada's first album that really works a whole body of work from begining to end is Heart Station... And if u punch BW in the face, I would chase you and kick u right in the ass u.ú

I think it's rather that both Deep River and ULTRA BLUE are so strong that every song had the potential of being a single in addition to their contributing to the overall album (no wonder so many singles were culled from them).

Heart Station, sorry, no. I'd punch Beautiful World in the face and laugh, too. And steal Kiss & Cry's lunch money. And use it to buy a gazillion rolls of toilet paper which I'd throw all over Heart Station's, the song's, house and all over the tree on its tidy and boring lawn.

I think Ultra Blue sounds significantly less like a singles collection than Deep River :/

With the exception of Colors lol

Even dareka and be my last work because of the key work in the other songs.


Kuma is going to come after you sven lol

You are just plain evil and deserves no cookies...

wait wait
Somebody doesn't like Beautiful World? *gasp*
That's like Sakura Drops' more fun cousin.

Is everyone talkin' bout their fav hikki songs?
Here's mine (in no order):
- sakura drops
- take 5:heart
- beautiful world:heart
- on and on
- devil inside
- distance:heart
- automatic
- colors:heart
- fight the blues:heart
- celebrate
- goodbye happiness
- heart station

beautiful world was my happy song when I was 16 lol

Passion is my favorite song of all time...
then...take 5...then...WINGS...then is gets fuzzy.

bwahahahah utada fans are always the most colorful <3

1. Passion
2. Stay Gold
3. Take 5
4. BLUE
5. Goodbye Happiness

Those are the epic ones, i have a really hard time trying to rank the rest, she has many too amazing songs. And the album ranking would be:

1. Deep River
Best single track: Sakura Drops
Best Album Track: Uso Mitai na I Love You

2. HEART STATION
Best single track: Stay Gold
Best album track: Take 5

3. ULTRA BLUE
Best single track: Passion
Best album track: Nichiyou no Asa

4. Distance
Best single track: Can You Keep a Secret?
Best album track: Distance

5. First Love
Best single track: time will tell
Best album track: Amai Wana

Why do people say UB and DR sound like single collections? To me they work well as albums. And there is no filler on UB imo

Beautiful World is absolute pop perfection, how can anyone possibly hate it? it's my favorite Hikki song along with Heart Station :luv2
The album in general is just too flawless to handle, it's so underrated and always gets in the shadow of Ultra Blue and Deep River. Imo it's one of the best Jpop releases ever and her best album.

I love Beautiful World so much

I think that's what they meant - that all songs on those albums sound like they could be singles (no filler).

and Beautiful World is boring. Took forever to grow on me but I can handle it now. Nothing I crave to listen to though. Better than HEART STATION (the song) trash though.

Because the tracks don't really flow one into another, there's no core theme or sound on those albums and they fail as concepts...

The tracks are really good, on both albums, IMO Hikki stoped relesing bad songs back in 2001, but as a sole piece of work, as a package, those albums lack, even if they have only strong tracks. HS is her only album were you have a sound and an aesthetic flowing from begining to end... All the tracks are pretty strong IMO and would be good singles, but more than that, they comunicate with each other on the album context.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lb0kzpkj3X1qam0cl.gif

Maybe this is what it seems like if you don't listen closely. I understand HS is the end all be all for some/many people here, and while I would agree it has a certain uniformity in sound, it is - in places! - dull and flat. I cannot, never could, understand the appeal of songs like Beautiful World and Heart Station. I despise both for their polished, unchallenging soullessness. I don't care you love it so much you want to have its babies, for me it's the worst material Hikki has recorded, and, as a fan, I was severely disappointed with Heart Station.

If you don't perceive core themes and sounds on Deep River and ULTRA BLUE that's all good and well, deny it all you want. For me, and for many others, they represent Hikki at her musical and artistic peak. You can observe a clear direction in Hikki's discography, from plain R&B through a more experimental take on it to R&B-infused dream pop, and if you wish to misdefine these gutsy and successful explorations as 'lacking x' then too bad for you, brah. Deep River and ULTRA BLUE are the journey, Heart Station the destination. For me, the treasure is all in the journey.

I agree with everything I bolded... But does that mean Deep River, Exodus or Ultra Blue have themes as albums? No. Does it mean the songs are bad? No. Actually, some of my favorite Hikki (and pop music) tracks are from those albums. If by your parameters what makes a good album is a lot of strong tracks, I can understand you find those to be masterpieces, cuz they are filled with amazing tracks. By my parameters, a good album will have a theme, a direction, a flow and will propose an aesthetic. The only Hikki albums that reunites all of those are Heart Station and Exodus is close to this.

Also, I love how for the first time ever, Heart Station's Hikki seemed to learn that you don't have to scream on every track to make it emotional, and I love how her singing on songs like Beautiful World and Heart Station (and Stay Gold, Celebrate, Niji-ru Bus, etc.) are more subtle and more delicate than her usual.

I think what we perceive as thematic (and sonic) unity is different - since I do feel, hear and see Deep River and ULTRA BLUE as consistent larger works in which all of the individual, excellent songs play their part. There's probably a lot we agree on, except for our opinion re: these albums - which in part is due to our different perception of what constitutes a theme, and consequently whether any or all of Hikki's albums exhibit one. Like I said, I see Heart Station as the conclusion of a journey, but I think the thrill of adventure was subsequently lost in it. For both Deep River and ULTRA BLUE, I'd say that - superficially - both maturing and adventure are important themes, reflected in both the sound and the subject matter at hand - which is not to say no other themes are explored. I could probably write a few thousand words, too, about how the sound and experiments therein both unify and define each album's identity, but alright, maybe another time.

We're getting somewhere. This is good. You're not bad, kid.

http://www.unbrokensky.sweet-redempt...ld-pleased.gif

Everything she released from Deep River till Heart Station was flawless, and ya'll are gonna have to deal.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrg8ekgysS1qdlkgg.gif

But no seriously, i think UB, DR and HS all has different aspects to them which makes Hikki's discography more diverse and interesting. I'm glad she decided to do such an relaxing and more "back to basics" record as Heart Station after two rather experimental albums. It was a step in the right direction imo. I can't wait to see what she'll bring to the table after her Hiatus.

I always felt like her discography is a journey... I remember the first time I listened First Love (the album, wich I really dislike) after started paying attention to this stuff, and how shocked I was to notice how "similar" it was to her later releases... It was less experiemental, it was less mature, It was very focused on the mainstream music from the end of the 90s/early 00s, but the "soul" over there was the same.

You seen to like transitional albums more, I tend to like the ones who embodies the end of the road. ^^ In the end of the day, when it's about pop MUSIC (composition, arragment, lyrics, etc) , I do believe nobody really tops Hikki... not in Japan, not everywhere else.

Hells yeahs. Case closed. :cool

For pop music this is probably more or less true, but for so much else it doesn't at all apply.

Plus, by coherence, unity etc. most people don't mean that the songs sound like they are 'sewn' together in a sort of megamix fashion but rather that they contribute to an overall mood, feeling, etc the album is trying to capture. Which is why many people, myself included, dislike greatest hits albums or single collections. Dragged out of context, many songs lose the additional power they received in the original (album) context. Sure, a good single can stand alone. But if that is all the song can do, and you throw a bunch of them together, you don't have a good album. Which is also why an album full of 10/10 songs need not be a 10/10 album. And why albums with weaker cuts can be.

If by music you mean the superlimited subset of pop music that you listen to, you're probably right. God bless your limited frame of reference.

Madonna classics Like a Prayer, Ray of Light and Music (plus my personal favorite, Erotica) are perfect examples of pop albums with a good variety on sound and theme without sounding like a bunch of songs threw together. They work as a concept and as a whole, and one song makes the other stronger at the same time it helps developing the concept and feeling deeper on the creative vision of the artist.

Of course... most pop artists, being them from Jpop or everywhere else, aren't that careful about their creative efforts and tend to just group as many generic catchy tracks as they can... But top pop acts don't go on that way... and that's what makes them top acts.

lol you did not just bring up Madonna :P


Anyway. I really don't care about any of her albums except Ultra Blue. And if that album isn't musically coherent...then no album is lol

Lyrics, concept, etc, meh. I couldn't care less about them.

Hmm, gotta agree :innocent

Also I agree with what people have been saying about not caring about the concept and using track navigation.

For me, I never really pay any mind to the concept of an album unless an artist won't shut up about it (ie: Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' album - no hate cause I love her - and Ayu's Party Queen, which she pretty much screamed about the concept every chance she got - whether in MVs, on twitter, or in interviews).

For me it's more a matter of what mood I'm in. If I'm feeling down or if it's a rainy day, then I take all of Utada's sadish songs, lump them together in a playlist and hit 'play'. I don't group them based on concepts, rather I choose them because the melody is close to how I'm feeling. I don't really care about the 'vision' the artist was trying to create with that particular track.

I feel like Utada and Namie are the same way. Utada even said as much with her interview for TITO. She said she just wanted to create good pop music. Namie has said before that she just likes to sing songs that are 'cool' and that she 'likes'.

I don't think everything needs to involve a concept, imho.

I must say I really laughed hard at this one.

That .gif is freaking hilarious! One of the only times I have actually "laughed out loud" at a .gif, lol.
If you have any idea what episode that is (what season) so I can download the video and rip that portion, I would be so grateful!

Um.....

kay.

I thought she comes back while everyone keep replying this thread.

Ok I am leaving now.

Iiiiiii wanna be with you now
Futari de distance Chijimete
Yada yada happy pop sound

Thought I'd share this Utada meme! lol
http://friedrice.la/post/2161

^So true UHAHUAHAUHAUHAUAUHAA and so sad as well!

Distance is a perfect song imo. To me it sounds R&Bish more than pop lol. :D

okay Hikki's new tweets in engrish are hilarious once again. I will forgive her for not coming up with new music, if she keeps releasing new tweets like this to make my day :P

I keep reading your nick as "Delicious in Bed".

^ LOL there's nothing wrong with that:banana2

^ lol in that case: :glomped

Sorry hikki no speak Engrish. Engrish honor reserved for those of the Hamasaki and the BoA. Kodar Kumi especially good. Thanks much!