[News] Utada Hikaru named the most influencial artist of the decade by Japan Times

[CoriKaru]

I'm so happy to see that highly regarded Journalists and Publications still have their finger on the pulse of the Japanese Music Industry and are able to pick out the gems and acknowledge history being made, causing all else to be irrelevant.

Of course the news of Utada being given such a prestigious title of honor by such a prestigious people is going to cause uproar and Utada bashing on an Ayumi forum. That doesn't take away from this moment though so just smile and nod and be happy and enjoy it. Nothing has changed since the first opening post.

Utada is still "The Most Influential Artist of The Decade" and I just can't contain myself. :p

[Yumsushi]

Originally Posted by CoriKaru

I'm so happy to see that highly regarded Journalists and Publications still have their finger on the pulse of the Japanese Music Industry and are able to pick out the gems and acknowledge history being made, causing all else to be irrelevant.

Of course the news of Utada being given such a prestigious title of honor by such a prestigious people is going to cause uproar and Utada bashing on an Ayumi forum. That doesn't take away from this moment though so just smile and nod and be happy and enjoy it. Nothing has changed since the first opening post.

Utada is still "The Most Influential Artist of The Decade" and I just can't contain myself. :p

I don't see anyone bashing Utada. I just see you rubbing it in everyone's face over and over.

[emi♡]

Originally Posted by CoriKaru

I'm so happy to see that highly regarded Journalists and Publications still have their finger on the pulse of the Japanese Music Industry and are able to pick out the gems and acknowledge history being made, causing all else to be irrelevant.

Of course the news of Utada being given such a prestigious title of honor by such a prestigious people is going to cause uproar and Utada bashing on an Ayumi forum. That doesn't take away from this moment though so just smile and nod and be happy and enjoy it. Nothing has changed since the first opening post.

Utada is still "The Most Influential Artist of The Decade" and I just can't contain myself. :p

Of course!

[jbrat2219]

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

I highly disagree with this. Hikki's lyrics seem like "poetry" on a superficial level because they are "pretty" and use "colorful metaphors", but when you employ close reading you come to realize that her lyrics are closer to children's songs and nursery rhymes than actual poetry for adults. Her lyrics lack the depth of emotion or wisdom that is found in true poetry. It is all surface prettiness. In contrast to that, I find Ayu's lyrics much closer to poetry. They echo a depth of feeling and a heightened intelligence beyond that which Hikki is capable of.

Sorry, but I really dislike it when the word "poetry" is used for something so unqualified for the term. This is true poetry:

http://www.sylviaplath.de/plath/ariel.html

Hikki isn't even close.

I agree, I never understood why some feel her lyrics are so deep and profound. Whether in English or Japanese most of them sound like nonsense to me

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by CoriKaru

I'm so happy to see that highly regarded Journalists and Publications still have their finger on the pulse of the Japanese Music Industry and are able to pick out the gems and acknowledge history being made, causing all else to be irrelevant.

Of course the news of Utada being given such a prestigious title of honor by such a prestigious people is going to cause uproar and Utada bashing on an Ayumi forum. That doesn't take away from this moment though so just smile and nod and be happy and enjoy it. Nothing has changed since the first opening post.

Utada is still "The Most Influential Artist of The Decade" and I just can't contain myself. :p

lol. Who can argue with logic like that?

[Uemarasan]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

^I'm pretty sure u just atacked my opinion with another opinion

If you want to go on and argue what poetry is, then by all means let us do so. What is poetry to you? If you call what Hikki writes "poetry", then poetry equals pretty words strung together that are all flash and empty of meaning or intelligent awareness. The song "Colors" is one such example. There is considerable craft involved in writing poetry that go beyond mere "opinion" (the argument of the lazy). It has objective, identifiable virtues.

Here's one line of poetry from "Colors":

"On the black and white of the chessboard, we met by chance"

Failure of logic. Misuse of metaphor. Hikki is comparing life as we know it to a chessboard, but then she introduces the idea of meeting by chance. Chess is not a game of chance but of strategic, conscious, and deliberate movements towards a foreseen goal. It is a game of the fate of its pieces as determined by its players. Someone may argue that Hikki is trying to subvert the prevailing idea that our lives are determined by fate, that we can move beyond the black and white demarcations of a chessboard but 1) there are no other lyrics in the song that say this was her intent, the line before actually reinforces that she just chose the metaphor "just because it's cute", and 2) the construction of this sentence (in English and Japanese) betrays her lack of skillful use of words.

The only reason she uses the image of a chessboard is because she wants to use "black and white" to conform to the title of the song and because the metaphor "life is a chessboard" (blatant cliche, it has been used so many times in literature) sounds pretty.

[Andrenekoi]

Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making") is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry.

Poetry, and discussions of it, have a long history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy.[1] Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose.[2] From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using language

Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to suggest alternative meanings in the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony, and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor, simile, and metonymy[4] create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

po⋅et⋅ry
  /ˈpoʊɪtri/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [poh-i-tree] Show IPA
Use poetry in a Sentence
See web results for poetry
See images of poetry
–noun
1. the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.

IMO Utada does this. If it is deep or not, it's up to personal opinion, while IMO her work can be really deep or really dull depending on the song... She is not on japanese school books by accident... If I offended u with what I said abou Ayu's lyrics, sorry, it wan't my intention, and as I said, that was an opinion.
But still... IMO the biggest point on Ayu's lyrics is that it's very easy to relate to them, what IMO and ON THE WAY I SEE BOTH AYU'S AND HIKKI'S WORK doesn't mean that one is a better songwritter than the other, just that they have different focus, and good enough for them, both archieve sucess

[Uemarasan]

^See above. I edited my post.

I'm not saying that Hikki is a bad lyricist, but using the term "poetry" to describe her lyrics is misguided. They seem poetic, but are ,in fact, not when you read them closely. I'd rather say that Hikki's lyrics are more "playful" as opposed to Ayu's more "introspective" lyrics.

[emi♡]

@uemarasan: I really don't pick up this heighted awareness and intelligence you find in Ayu's lyrics...would you mind explaining a little more?

Because, while I do feel that Ayu's lyrics are deep, and show profound emotion, I always saw them more as from the heart, and more...simply her trying to put down her feelings, and putting it together in the form of verses.

I don't really see any hints of poetry in her lyrics...except that it's her feelings put down on paper...which any emo can do (no disrespect meant by that)....is this something that is lost in translation? Are there hints of Japanese styled poetry in her works?


tbh, I never really looked at hikki's lyrics, except for passion...so..meh about that lol her music was always more important for me...as with ayu...her lyrics were quite big for me back in the day...so it's interesting.

[Uemarasan]

Uh, you just said it yourself: "I do feel that Ayu's lyrics are deep, and show profound emotion." Why should there be a clear distinction between what comes from the heart and what comes from the brain? It takes a heightened awareness and intelligence to express deep and profound emotion in writing that, in the first place, makes sense (which most emo music fails to achieve). I think you're referring to cerebralism, and Ayu is not a cerebral lyricist. If you really want me to argue for the sake of Ayu's intelligence, this might take a while:

From "Marionette":

First of all, the song is about the consideration of our life experience:

Memories are always beautiful
In the eyes of everyone
In the same way
...

We can look back on the past
Because we passed there
We stopped and stepped forward again

Our tendency is to make sense of our life experience, to rearrange it in a way that is pleasing to us. We always transform our lives into some form of beautiful story (memory), and so Ayu compares this to staging a marionette play. The past has been romanticized and elevated (Memories are beautiful...), life has been transformed into a drama that we stage for our own reasons. But:

But, yes
We actually know
That there is more

...

We were not born to live
Just putting on a front
And hiding a face
Like the dead

She argues against trivializing life as such. We have unwittingly turned ourselves into the marionettes of our own play, our true selves sublimated into the facade of beautiful memories, beautiful stories. In a sense, it is a kind of death. A denial of life. She skillfully introduces a metaphor here: the idea of a death mask is equated with the face of a marionette, which is, in a sense, a mask in itself.

Now, let's stand up without fear
For the sake of no one else

And rip off the masks
With our own hands

A death mask is used as a presentable face and in fact serves to disguise the dead face beneath it. When we stage our lives carefully like a marionette play, we are depriving it of the messiness, even the ugliness, that life should possess. Life becomes carefully determined, and we manipulate ourselves like marionettes, animated by something resembling a life force but is really not. So she says: stand up without fear, deface our marionette selves, rip off the masks we make for ourselves, that render us dead, and present our true living faces for all to see.

That, I believe, is as close as it gets to poetry.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

^See above. I edited my post.

I'm not saying that Hikki is a bad lyricist, but using the term "poetry" to describe her lyrics is misguided. They seem poetic, but are ,in fact, not when you read them closely. I'd rather say that Hikki's lyrics are more "playful" as opposed to Ayu's more "introspective" lyrics.

She still is awesome at using rhymes, rhythm, metaphors and neologisms... her use of english on her japanese lyrics, where the english lines contrast with the japanese ones making some of her sweeter lyrics sarcastic or bittersweet... and the stuff Sunshine Slayer said that are missed on translation that i had no idea until this topic. her lyrics are playful and most of the time make room for more than one understanding... As far as I know, poetry is not about what is being said, it's about how is it down on paper... it's the aesthetic use of the words...

about the Colors line: u read it on the most straightfoward way... What if she was using the chessboard image to say that against all possibilities they just met by chance (as u said, chess isn't a game where u get things by chance)? I'm not saying that ur reading is wrong and mine is right (we don't have Utada's number in the end of the day, so we can't ask her in person ), but.. there are more than one way to read everything...

As I said before: IMO Utada lyrics are close to poetry, and far closer than Ayu's, u can desagree with me, we obviously expect different things from our poetry and depending on the way u read the same text, u can or can't find the same quality others didn't... Does that mean that Ayu is a bad songwritter? Not at all... Cuz I can relate to some of her lyrics on a level I can't with Hikki's...

[andre2907]

Originally Posted by aloopy

yeah definitely, just look at what they wrote about Koda Kumi:

"more significantly, Kumi Koda, whose success proved the theory that the only talent you really need to become a superstar singer is one for marketing."

harsh

It's absolutely true though. Koda Kumi CAN sing, but what made her tremendously popular was good marketing. That's a fact, it's not up to discussion: what made her huge was Avex huge marketing blitz, not her talent.

[Uemarasan]

^Yes, poetry is about the words, but the words have to make sense on a fundamental level before they are considered on a metaphorical plane. That is why I gave the most straightforward reading of that line in Colors. If something doesn't work on the basic level of sense, then I don't see any point in trying to locate some sort of profound meaning from them on some vague, mysterious, abstract level.

You said: "What if she was using the chessboard image to say that against all possibilities they just met by chance (as u said, chess isn't a game where u get things by chance)?" That's exactly what I said in my above post: "Someone may argue that Hikki is trying to subvert the prevailing idea that our lives are determined by fate, that we can move beyond the black and white demarcations of a chessboard". And then I argued that nothing else in her song says that she is trying to do that. There is no evidence that she is thinking that way. I disagree on the idea of multiple readings on a fundamental, basic, and grammatical level. It can be allowed when we're arguing metaphors, but we're talking about the most straightforward reading of a line, and the line is illogical.

Also, when reading poetry, I couldn't care less about the author's intentions. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that matters is the text before me. The text is only enriched further when considering intention, biography, etc; the true and core value of the work lies in itself alone.

I can read Japanese, and there are barely any nuances lost in translation when it comes to her lyrics (as Sunshine Slayer suggests). She composes at face value most of the time.

Show me a great Hikki neologism. I like her musical compositions. I am very fond her music until Ultra Blue and excepting her American work, but her lyrics remain mediocre.

You said: "As far as I know, poetry is not about what is being said, it's about how is it down on paper... it's the aesthetic use of the words..."

You can use that to describe effective advertising slogans. And that's why it's so easy to write faux poetry. Poetry is more than the aesthetic use of words. It is a heightened process of communication of meaning via literary tropes.

"Summer rain that began to fall
passed by beside the tears, quietly
The images overlapped with memories
A rerun of the autumn drama"

"Rain of summer has fallen
Passing through my tears in silence
Images weaving in my mind
Dramas of autumn have repeated"

Rain! Tears! Autumn! One after the other. Ew. Trite images, trite sentiment. She's basically saying "I am sad and crying. AGAIN." And it took her four damn lines to say the damn thing, using pretty words without a hint of nuance or subtext or even enriched meaning within the context of the rest of the song. This is not poetry.

[andre2907]

Really, I don't get why everyone is so touchy feely about Koda Kumi. You guys seem much more biased than whoever wrote the article. Let's think for a minute: what made Koda Kumi go from an unknown Avex artist to one of the biggest artists in Japan? Was it her talent? No, she has a very good voice and that was probably the reason she was signed but it didn't help her at all. Was her dancing skills? No, it wasn't either. Her songwriting ability? Nope.

The ero-kakoii style? Yes. The humongous promotional campaign for her BEST ~First Things~? Yes. The "controversial" album cover? Yes. Her "controversial" statements? Yes (let me remind you she was the highest-rated performance in Kouhaku 2006 after saying her outfit was so tight she couldn't even wear underwear undernath it). Her 12 week releases? Yes.

So the person who wrote the article is completely right in saying what made her tremendously popular was PROMOTION, not actual talent (and yes, she is a very good vocalist and has a nice voice but this was meaningless until Avex started pushing her hardcore based on her risky image).

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

Exactly. I agree with the assessment that Utada is ONE OF the most influential artists, but it is completely obvious that this writer has serious biases. I also can't really take it seriously when he elevates such a little known band like MONGOL800 so much - as if they were actually on the same level as the other people in the article.

They ARE on much higher level than plenty of other huge artists. In Jpop world, it's VITAL to have a huge agency backing you up and promotion is everything. The fact they sold 2 million copies of one of their albums without no promotion, being an indie band, put them on a much higher level than Arashi, for example, who are absolutely huge but doesn't bring nothing new to the scene and who are from Johnny's, an agency that have the entire Japanese entertainment industry in their hands.

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

the article make it sounds like Ayu is some pretty one hit wonder...

Really? "(...)evidenced not just by Amuro's enduring popularity but by the royalty status of Ayumi Hamasaki". I don't think so.

Originally Posted by emiko

^maybe musically...but as far as stuff that average people care about...like fashion and trends...no, I dont think so.

Are you seriously? Yes, I think the average person care about the fact Ayu made attaching fake tail to your jeans extremely popular in 2001. But the fact EXILE, Thelma Aoyama, AI, Mai Kuraki, MISIA and other 384778473 extremely popular artists are part of a trend that was kick started by Utada is completely insignificant. Yes, she didn't create R&B but we can't ignore the fact NO ONE in the Japanese music scene had that style before her (and Mariah Carey popularity in Japan showed there was appetite for this type of music but no local artist dared to try it anyway until Hikaru).

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

Possibly true. But the difference is, we are not journalists.

Thing is, I don't think the author is biased. I think we're seeing a bias because we're biased (lol, confusing) but there isn't much in the article at all. I'm not even an Utada Hikaru fan but everything he says in the article is very true. And I don't get why so many people think Ayu is "tied" with Utada Hikaru. I don't think so AT ALL. Yes, Ayu had a huge impact when it came to fashion back in 2000/2001/2002. But can someone pinpoint, in Japanese fashion today (2009), something that was directly influenced by Ayu? Not really (OK, MAYBE the nails. But that's pretty much it). Besides, Utada Hikaru sales are extremely consistent, she still has huge hits, she has ALWAYS outsold Ayu (even when Ayu was at her peak) and she has much more credibility with the Japanese public. And btw I prefer Ayu over Hikki so I don't think I'm biased at all.

Originally Posted by Crystal_Ageha

1. Did Hikaru work her way up from the bottom, or even just get a lucky break as a nobody like Ayu did? No, not at all. Even if she was talentless and hardly anybody liked her, she still would have made it into the business, because her parents are a huge part of the music industry. So she's not influential in working to make your dreams come true, or to not give up and good things will come, or whatever.

OK, your entire post was a little "WTF" but this one in particular seemed a little odd. I think you need to look "influential" up in the dictionary because it does not mean what you think it means.

Originally Posted by keikeiaznqueen

but to say she changed the landscape of the Jpop industry is really overstating her influence because there are many many other influential people in the last decade who changed the industry and helped morph it into the way it is today. (For example, individuals like Tetsuya Komoro paved the shape of the stage in the 21st century. After all, the last decade of the 20th century was pretty much his. I would even argue that Ayu has had a huge musical influence because, who could deny Ayu's ties with the popularity of eurobeat in Japan in the beginning of the 21st century

But that's the thing, the article is about being the most influential artist of the DECADE, not from ALL-TIME. You mention Tetsuya Komuro for example. And, if it was an article about the most influential artist from the 90s, the position would undoubtedly go to TK.

[Uemarasan]

Influence is not equal to talent, anyway. Or greatness.

So, yeah, Hikki is probably the most influential J-pop artist of the decade.

I do think that Ayu's influence is still felt in one aspect of Japanese fashion to this day: double eyelid surgery to make eyes wider. The current standard of Asian beauty.

[andre2907]

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

Influence is not equal to talent, anyway. Or greatness.

So, yeah, Hikki is probably the most influential J-pop artist of the decade.

Exactly. The most "talented" Japanese artist (who can play instruments, sing extremely well, etc) is probably not even a part of the mainstream Jpop scene. And anyway, to debate who is more talented is kind of dumb since it's a subjective thing anyway.

[Kingdom]

hikki could write children's books for a living maybe? like that bear song?

[Andrenekoi]

So, from "the other artists bashing thread to make hikki look good" it turned into "the hikki bashing thread"?

And Uemarasan... I'm sorry, but u said nothing that can be taken as a fact, just as the way u like ur poetry...

[Crystal_Ageha]

^ I don't see any Hikki bashing, just people saying it like it is, whether it be complete truth or their opinions--which are NOT wrong (that this article is biased, that Hikaru's lyrics will more often than not be seen as inferior to certain others' with more "deep" or "emotional" lyrics, that Hikaru is only one of the most influential and not THE most influential), and then a bunch of Hikki-stans raging over the criticisms of their Queen. :\

Originally Posted by andre2907

...OK, your entire post was a little "WTF" but this one in particular seemed a little odd. I think you need to look "influential" up in the dictionary because it does not mean what you think it means...

I assume you're talking about the fact that I used the word "influential" slightly outside of the norm. Did you know, that influence and motivation go hand in hand? Whenever you are influenced by somebody, they usually motivate you to do something. They are NOT synonyms, of course, but it's a case of cause and effect, so I was not wrong. But just to humour you, I'll pick the definition that resembles closest, to me, what "influence" is :
the act or power of producing an effect without apparent force or direct exercise of command

And, since you may not know, here is the definition of "motive:"
something (as a need or desire) that causes a person to act

Now, let's use them in a few sentences, shall we?
Hikaru Utada has never really influenced me in any of my decisions regarded my singing career. I feel other people have been much more influential, at least to me personally, because they (specifically Ayumi and Kumi) have inspired and motivated me to pursue my dreams.

Learn something new everyday, huh, Andre? (Which reminds me, you are suspiciously similar to the other Andre, lol...)

[AyUta]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

And Uemarasan... I'm sorry, but u said nothing that can be taken as a fact, just as the way u like ur poetry...

After reading countless posts, I agree with you on this strongly. We all have a different definition of poetry, some might be trash to us, while others might be grand.