I dunno what's the big deal with "First love".... for me RAINBOW or MY STORY are way better than it, without counting L'arc en ciel's AWAKE , but hey! That's just my personal taste, I dunno what's the big deal with Love destiny either, I'd rather Love refrain all the way!

Like Dustie said, it was probably the novelty that her R&B-tinged sound had at that time, since Japan hadn't been exposed to it much before.

Indeed, and when something is new and fresh, and catchy, everyone catches on and when you're caught in the storm, there's nothing stopping anything from happening. I wonder what the next big boom in Japan will be.

You guys are crazy. Ever since the start of the year I've been ripping at 128kbps. You can't really use the 320kbps files unless your hearing is still exceptional or the songs are utilizing hgh frequencies. I only can tell a little difference (crispness mostly). Plus I have a portable CD player I use 75% of the time, so... heh.

320kbps files are just too big for me to store with my 20GB + 20GB computer storage.

Yeah, that's true and I can see why. I think too much pop was produced at that time and I think the pretty pony~pretty pony~pretty pony~'s needed a change in music. IMO, Hikki came at the right time. I love listen to every single track on First Love.:D I'm not surprised that her record hasn't been broken yet and I think it probably never will be broken.:P

I consider First Love and Distance to be the best Hikki albums. In my opinion, she has yet to achieve something like those two works of art. Although I'm liking Deep River a little more every... month? (I really dislike ASAP, though.)

Personally, I don't think Hikki's early songs were THAT R&B. Sure, they have R&B influences, but they're pure pop for me. Several artists had already begun dabbling in R&B before Hikki. She was simply the one who popularized it.

Before Hikki's R&B pop, Eurodance pop was the most popular.

I'm supposedly a Hikki fan, yet I have never listened tothe album tracks of First Love or Distance. I really need to get on that. It's going to be hard to beat "Deep River" though. That album was crazy good. CRAZY GOOD!

Yeah I totally agree. Deep River is my second favorite Hikki album. I think Final Distance was best track on there. You should really listen to First Love and Distance though. I consider First Love the best of her albums because of the R&B/pop tune it had to the album (I love listening to J-R&B).

Uemarasan: I think that ASAP was her second best R&B song she's ever made:yes