Distance is the third studio album by Japanese singer Hikaru Utada. Toshiba EMI released it on March 28, 2001, making it her second release with the label. Utada wrote and co-produced the majority of the album, alongside previous collaborators Akira Miyake and her father Teruzane Utada, as well as new collaborations with American producers Rodney Jerkins and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. Distance, like its predecessor First Love (1999), is influenced by pop music and R&B, with additional hip-hop, rock, reggae, and techno influences from Western music.
To promote the album, Utada released four singles: "Addicted to You," "Wait & See (Risk)," "For You / Time Limit" and "Can You Keep a Secret?." All four releases were successful in the Japanese market, selling over a million copies and becoming best-sellers. She promoted the album by performing two shows in Japan: Bohemian Summer 2000 and a special Unplugged event, both of which resulted in live releases. Furthermore, a video collection titled Utada Hikaru Single Clip Collection Vol. 2 was released, which included all of the album's music videos.
Background and recording
First Love, Utada's major-label debut studio album, was released in March 1999 via Toshiba EMI.[1]First Love, which she co-wrote and produced with her father Teruzane Utada and Akira Miyake, was a commercial success throughout the year, becoming the best-selling album in Japanese music history.[2] With a string of successful singles, Utada quickly rose to prominence in Japan, where she was ranked fifth on the Tokyo Hot 100's Top 100 Artists of the 20th Century, as voted on by stations and listeners.[3] During the summer of 1999, her final summer vacation as a high school student, she performed a video concert called LUV LIVE REMIX ~hello from new york~,[4] a charity concert called Soukenbicha Natural Breeze Concert '99 with TLC and Monica,[5] made her first TV commercial appearance,[6] and recorded a new song that was called “Addicted To You.”[7]
Distance contains songs recorded between 1999 and 2001.[8] During her last summer vacation as a high school student in 1999, Utada flew to Minneapolis and produced "Addicted To You" with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, the production team that has worked with artists such as TLC and Janet Jackson.[8] In both the United States and Japan, the producer's influence is often more prominent than that of the artist, but in Minneapolis, Utada said that the production with them was on an equal footing, and that it was a "ball of ideas."[9] The follow-up, “Wait & See (Risk),” was also produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, but this time Utada was unable to make it to Minneapolis due to schoolwork; however, Utada even made an arrangement track for the song in the demo tape stage, which was retained in the actual arrangement, and Utada's name was added to the arranger's credits for the first time.[10] Before her first national tour in 2000, she produced “Time Limit” with top producer Rodney Jerkins, one of the R&B scene's leading producers at the time.[8] "For You,” for which the melody was created before her debut, was also completed around this time.[8] In addition, several of the recorded songs were created during the same tour. Utada said that live performances are not R&B but rock, and those songs were also arranged with a rock flavor.[9] The rest of the album's songs were written and recorded in November of the same year, after her university exams were over, and were recorded over the New Years when her university was on winter vacation. When asked why she was not appearing on Kōhaku Uta Gassen at the time, Utada replied: "Because I want to make an album."[11]
On January 26, 2001, Utada announced on her official website that recording for the album Distance had been completed.[12] Akira Miyake, who has been Utada's producer since her debut, wrote a "Post-Recording Notes" on Utada's official website on February 2, 2001, saying: "We wrote the songs, wrote the lyrics, made demos, made arrangement demos, and then redid them over and over again, through trial and error, singing in the studio, and doing the chorus dozens of times (in some places it's layered about 40 times. It wasn't done by machine). I honestly thought it would be hard because Hikaru was doing it herself, but it was a year and eight months of coldly working and giving deadlines. But Hikaru always struggled, but she always lived up to our expectations by demonstrating her magician-like nature."[13]
Composition
Musically, Distance expands on her previous studio album's R&B-influenced sound while also incorporating jazz, pop music, hip-hop, and rock elements.[14][15] According to Ian Martin, writing for AllMusic, the tracks produced by Jerkins, Jam, and Lewis had a "rich production" as opposed to the "cheap, tinny" sound of Japanese pop at the time.[14] "Wait & See (Risk)" is a genuine US-style R&B number with a sprinkling of funk and soul flavors.[16] "Can You Keep a Secret?" was billed as a J-pop song with "sophisticated" songwriting and production standards.[14] The album's title track is a pop song that features twinkling beats, topped with a 90s-like piano melody and filled with breathy background vocals.[17] "Sunglasses" is a medium-slow number that features an ensemble that intersects with a falsetto.[17] "Drama" is a song that was written in collaboration with Takuro from Glay; it features brazenly strummed distortion guitars.[17]
The album title was chosen because it was something Utada felt when interacting with others . Utada said she realized that her songs were about various types of " distance," such as "relationships between people, ways of interacting, ways of relating, and emotional distance." She also said that the word "distance" was a perfect fit, given that she had visited and been involved in the production of the album in a variety of places, from Tokyo to Osaka, Atlantic City, Minneapolis, New York, Miami, London, and Hong Kong.[19] Utada also said the following about the title in an interview:[19]
Distance. Distance and time are very similar... or rather, isn't distance a unit that is closely related to time? And in a sense it includes time, so I really feel that distance is something that exists in a world that exists within time... So, when I think about each song on this album, I feel that the lyrics are the result of thinking about things like time or distance. So, I think that these past two years have been two years in which I've thought about all kinds of distances and time.
Utada says that the title track "Distance" brings together and connects all the themes of the lyrics of the other songs on the album. Utada believes that no matter how close you are to someone, even if they are your parents or lovers, no matter how much you understand each other, no matter how much you trust each other and how close you get to each other, "in the end, you can't become one," "distance will always be created," and that "it's something that can't be helped." In "Distance," Utada said she wanted to portray the idea that "you really need to acknowledge that distance and cherish it."[19]
Promotion
On November 10, 1999, Toshiba EMI released the album's lead single, "Addicted to You".[7] Two versions of the song were on the single: the "Up-In-Heaven Mix" and the "Underwater Mix," though only the "Up-In-Heaven Mix" received radio airplay and its own music video.[7] The song received high marks for its production quality and sound, with praise towards its producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. Commercially, it reached number one on the Oricon Singles Chart and was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of over 1.6 million.[a][20][21] It is Utada's second best-selling physical single behind "Automatic/Time Will Tell," which sold a combined 2.06 million copies.[22] The album's second single, "Wait & See (Risk)", was released on April 19, 2000, with a physical edition that included a few B-side tracks and remixes.[10][23] Critics also praised the single's sound and production value. It reached number one on the Oricon Singles Chart and was the album's second single to receive a quadruple RIAJ certification.[24][25][a]
On June 30, 2000, the songs "For You" and "Time Limit" were packaged together and released as double A-side single.[26] Both tracks had music videos, with Utada performing the song live. It received positive reviews from critics and debuted at number one on the Oricon Singles Chart.[27] The single was certified triple platinum by the RIAJ after shipping over 1.2 million units in Japan.[28][b] The fourth and final single from the album, "Can You Keep a Secret?" debuted on February 16, 2001.[29] "Can You Keep a Secret?" served as the theme song to the 2001 doramaHero, in which Utada appeared as an actor.[30] The song received positive reviews from publications and debuted at number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, earning her final triple platinum certification from the RIAJ.[31][32][b] It also received platinum and gold certifications for exceeding 250,000 digital downloads and 50 million streams, respectively.[33][34]
The song "Distance" was originally planned to be a single without any alterations, but it was instead released in a rearranged ballad form called "Final Distance" in memory of a fan who died in the June 2001 Ikeda school massacre;[35] this new version would appear in her next album, Deep River.[36] Utada performed two shows in Japan to promote the album. The first was the Bohemian Summer 2000 show, which was released live on December 9, 2000, several months before Distance.[37] A special event called utada Hikaru Unplugged began in 2001, followed by a live release on November 28, 2001.[38] This footage was taken from the unplugged live performance that aired on MTV Japan on August 12, 2001, in front of an audience of about 120 people at Tennoz Studio.[39] Furthermore, a video collection titled Utada Hikaru Single Clip Collection Vol. 2 was released on September 27, 2001, which included all of the album's music videos as well as behind-the-scenes footage for each video.[40]
Ian Wade of AllMusic rated the album four stars. He praised the record's production and songwriting, writing, "Distance stands as one of Hikaru's most consistent and inventive albums, and comes across as a far more convincing example of R&B by a Japanese artist than their later attempts to crack the U.S. market."[14] Music writer Tetsuo Hiraga of Hot Express praised Distance as “a work that expresses the dramatic ‘growth’ from First Love with the whole body,” and also pointed out the expansion of her musicality compared to her previous work.[41] In his review of this album in Rockin'On Japan, Jun Shikano said, “Hikaru Utada's music is soulful and reflects the heart. It is both universal and primal."[42]
Distance was released alongside A Best by Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki (pictured), which generated huge significance in Japanese and Western music media.
Toshiba EMI released Distance on March 28, 2001, marking her second release with the label. In Japan, it was initially available on CD, double vinyl, and cassette, each with thirteen tracks.[8]EMI Music later released the album in several Asian countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.[c]Distance was re-released worldwide on January 23, 2019, via digital and streaming services, with a double vinyl edition re-issued in Japan by Universal Music on March 10, 2022.[55][56]
Toshiba EMI had scheduled the album's release date for March 28. At the same time, Japanese record label Avex Trax planned to release A Best, the greatest hits album by Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki.[57][58] Avex's strategy was to compete with Utada's album, as both Hamasaki and Utada were at the peak of their popularity at the time. The announcement of both album release dates sparked widespread controversy in Japanese and Western media, with claims that the two singers were "rivals" in professional as well as personal circumstances.[59][60][61] Both singers claimed it was a label-sponsored campaign, with Hamasaki expressing her displeasure over a lack of material and creative control of A Best.[62]
Both albums received extensive promotion prior to their release on March 28, but both were extremely successful in terms of first-week sales.[63] In Japan, Distance ascended to number one on the Oricon Albums Chart, while A Best debuted at number two.[64]Distance sold 3,002,720 copies in its first week and became the fastest-selling album in music history,[65] a record it held until 2015, when Adele's third album 25 sold 3.4 million copies in its first week in the United States.[66] It topped the charts for two nonconsecutive weeks while being dethroned by A Best in the second week.[67]Distance had sold 4,404,290 units by the end of 2001, making it the best-selling album of the year, with A Best coming in second.[68] Utada also topped the annual singles chart that year with “Can You Keep A Secret?” and dominated the singles and albums charts for the year.[69]
First Love is the debut Japanese-language studio album by Japanese-American recording artist Hikaru Utada, released on March 10, 1999, by Eastworld.
Deep River is the fourth studio album by Japanese-American singer Hikaru Utada. It was released via Toshiba EMI on June 19, 2002. The title of the album, as well as its title track, was inspired by the novel Deep River by Shusaku Endo. Utada wrote and co-produced the majority of the record, and unlike her previous album Distance (2001), she worked primarily with Japanese collaborator Akira Miyake and her father Teruzane Utada. Musically, Deep River is widely noted by fans and critics as the transition state from Utada's earlier style, R&B, to ethereal pop.
"Passion" is a song recorded by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada, taken as the fourth single from her studio album Ultra Blue (2006). It premiered on December 14, 2005, in two physical formats and for digital consumption, distributed by EMI Japan and EastWorld. "Passion", alongside its English counterpart "Sanctuary", were used as the national and international theme songs to the Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II (2005); the tracks serve as the successors to "Hikari" and its English counterpart, "Simple and Clean", which are found on Kingdom Hearts.
"Hikari" is a song recorded by Japanese–American recording artist Hikaru Utada for her fourth studio and third Japanese language album, Deep River (2002). It premiered on March 20, 2002, as the third single from the album in Japan. It was written and composed by Utada, whilst production and arrangement was handled by Utada, her father Teruzane Utada, and long-time collaborator Miyake Akira. The single, and a remix by Russell McNamara, was used as the official Japanese theme song for the 2002 action role-playing video game Kingdom Hearts, and appeared on its original soundtrack respectively. Musically, "Hikari" is a pop folk song. Lyrically, it is about mysteries in life and human activities.
"Traveling" is a song recorded by Japanese–American recording artist Hikaru Utada. It was released as the second single from her fourth studio and third Japanese language album, Deep River (2002). The track was written and composed by Utada, whilst production was handled by Utada, her father Teruzane Utada, and long-time collaborator Akira Miyake. Musically, "Traveling" is a dance-pop song, influenced by house music. Lyrically, it discusses human activities and dreams.
"For You" is a song by Japanese-American musician Hikaru Utada. It was released as a double A-side single with the song "Time Limit" on June 30, 2000.
"Wait & See (Risk)" is a song recorded by Japanese–American singer Hikaru Utada for her third studio and second Japanese language album, Distance (2001). It was released on April 19, 2000 as the second single from the album in Japan. It was written and composed by Utada, whilst production and arrangement was handled by Utada and American duo Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. The single also included the two B-side tracks, "Hayatochiri" and "Fly Me to the Moon ", with the former song appearing on the parent album. Musically, "Wait & See (Risk)" is an R&B song, influenced by dance-pop and rock.
"Addicted to You" is a song by Japanese-American recording artist Hikaru Utada from her second studio album Distance (2001). It was released as the album's lead single on November 10, 1999, by EMI Music Japan. "Addicted to You" was written by Utada and produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis; this is Utada's first collaboration with American producers and composers. The single artwork was shot by American photographer Richard Avedon and features two black-and-white figures of Utada. Musically, "Addicted to You" is an R&B song.
"Movin' On Without You" is the second single by Japanese–American singer and producer Hikaru Utada. It serves as the second single from her debut studio album First Love (1999). The song was the first song that Utada had written and composed by herself. "Movin' On Without You" was incepted while Utada was attending high school in Tokyo, Japan, during 1997. Utada, who received a recording contract by Toshiba-EMI, had written an English-language version of the song, which remains unreleased to this day.
"Keep Tryin'" is a song recorded by Japanese American recording artist Hikaru Utada for her sixth studio and fourth Japanese album, Ultra Blue (2006). It premiered on February 22, 2006 as the fifth single from the album in Japan. It was written and composed by Utada, whilst production was handled by Utada, her father Teruzane Utada, and Miyake Akira. It included the B-side track "Wings", which also appeared on the parent album. Musically, "Keep Tryin'" is a pop song with lyrics that contain self-empowerment themes. Upon its release, the track received generally mixed reviews from music critics.
Ultra Blue is the sixth album by Japanese–American singer Hikaru Utada, released on June 14, 2006, by Eastworld. It is the first original Japanese language album under Hikaru Utada's name in four years since her third album Deep River (2002). Ultra Blue contains thirteen songs, including six singles released between 2003 and 2006. While the arrangements for her album Deep River were done collaboratively, all but one of the songs on Ultra Blue were written, composed, and arranged solely by Utada, who also did the programming herself. In this album, the R&B elements that have been present since her debut are further diminished, and the majority of the songs have an electronic flavor with an emphasis on synth sounds.
"Final Distance" is a song by Japanese recording artist Hikaru Utada for her third studio album Deep River (2002). Written by Utada herself, the song was produced and composed by long-time collaborators Akira Miyake, Utada's father Teruzane Utada and herself. "Final Distance" was originally recorded as "Distance" which was taken from the album with the same name, despite not being a single. The song was re-recorded, re-arranged, and dedicated to Rena Yamashita, a six-year-old victim of the Ikeda school massacre who had written an essay about being inspired by Utada. Utada had stated that the meaning of the word "final" for the song "Final Distance" is "most important" rather than "last."
"Beautiful World" is a song by Japanese American musician Hikaru Utada. It served as the theme song for Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, the 2007 film reboot of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was released as a double A-side single on August 29, 2007 along with her song "Kiss & Cry", which had been released digitally three months earlier. The song was written and co-produced by Utada, while Akira Miyake and the singer's father Teruzane Utada served as producers. In 2009, a remix of the song, "Beautiful World " served as the theme song of the second film in the series, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.
"Kiss & Cry" is a song recorded by Japanese American recording artist Hikaru Utada for her seventh studio and fifth Japanese album, Heart Station (2007). It was written, composed, and arranged by Utada, whilst production was handled by Utada, her father Teruzane Utada, and Akira Miyake. The single premiered on May 31, 2007 as the third single from the album in Japan. It was re-released as a double A-side single with "Beautiful World", which also appeared on the parent album on August 29 in Japan, and digitally worldwide. Musically, "Kiss & Cry" is an R&B song, influenced by pop and hip-hop music. Lyrically, it discusses both Utada's upbringing and social beliefs between both Western and oriental regions.
Heart Station is the seventh studio and fifth Japanese-language album by Japanese–American recording artist Hikaru Utada. It was released on March 19, 2008, by EMI Music Japan sublabel Eastworld, and globally on March 26, 2008. It is Utada's eighth consecutive studio album to be fully written and produced by her, with the help of her father Teruzane Utada and long-time collaborator Miyake Akira through the production. Recorded between 2006 and 2008, it was worked on whilst she was recording her ninth studio and second English-language studio album, This Is the One (2009). With the album artwork photographed by Japanese photographer Mitsuo, Heart Station was released in two formats: a physical CD, and as a digital download.
"Automatic" is a song recorded by Japanese–American singer Hikaru Utada, taken as the lead single from her debut album First Love (1999). It was released on December 9, 1998, through Toshiba-EMI in three physical formats: mini CD single, standard-size CD single and 12" vinyl. Additionally, the single included the A-side "Time Will Tell", which originally served as the B-side for these versions. The song was written and co-produced by Utada, while Akira Miyake and the singer's father Teruzane Utada served as producers. Despite recording in English under the name Cubic U, "Automatic" is Utada's first Japanese recording, and was released after she enrolled into high school in Japan.
"Time Limit" is a song by Japanese musician Hikaru Utada. It was released as a double A-side single with the song "For You" on June 30, 2000.
"Time Will Tell" is a song recorded by Japanese–American singer Hikaru Utada, taken as the lead single from her debut album First Love (1999). It was released on December 9, 1998, through Toshiba-EMI in three physical formats: mini CD single, standard CD single and 12" vinyl. Additionally, the single was originally served as a B-side to "Automatic", but was changed into an A-side. The song was written and co-produced by Utada herself, while Akira Miyake and the singer's father Teruzane Utada served as producers. Despite working recording in English under the name Cubic U, "Time Will Tell" is Utada's first Japanese recording, and was released after she enrolled into high school in Japan.
"Letters" is a song by Japanese American musician Hikaru Utada. It was released as a double A-side single with the song "Sakura Drops" on May 9, 2002.
"Sakura Drops" is a song by Japanese-American musician Hikaru Utada. It was released as a double A-side single with the song "Letters" on May 9, 2002.
References
Notes
1 2 Initially received a 4× Platinum certification for 1,600,000 copies shipped, however the 4× Platinum threshold was retired in 2003.
1 2 Initially received a 3× Platinum certification for 1,200,000 copies shipped, however the 3× Platinum threshold was retired in 2003.
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