Only true heads will understand why, lol.

I've recently taken to listening to J-Pop while working on my graphic novel as inspirational theme music like so many animes i watch.

one particular artist has continuously gotten me out of my hump creatively and its always Ms. Utada HIkaru. She's kinda like the japanese Janet Jackson to me. Born and raised in New York City, she eventually moved to japan (japanese apparently is her second language) at 16 years old and sold 10 million of her first album making it the highest selling album in japan ever. Pretty crazy. since then, she has sold over 41 million records worldwide (with over 34 million in Japan alone) and she's only 25 years old now i believe. She's got this small voice, but its so strong in it's range and her vocal arrangements, even though in japanese and obviously influenced by american pop and hints of other western music, are clearly impressive.

TOP 3 FAVORITE UTADA HIKARU songs that get me through a page lately are:

1) HIKARI ( LIGHT )- *ALSO USED AS THE THEME SONG FOR KINGDOM HEARTS 1 VIDEO GAME WHICH WAS TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH CALLED "SIMPLE AND CLEAN" *-one of my favorite Utada singles of all her albums. I always think of Cannonbusters (as Samberry and Prince Toji's theme song) and this song being one of the series character themes if there was a japanese anime series of CB.

She's got this weird-ass video, featuring her just washing dishes, lol.

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2) PASSION- *ALSO USED AS THE THEME MUSIC FOR KINGDOM HEARTS 2 VIDEO GAME WHICH WAS TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH AS " SANCTUARY" * - Another of my favorite Utada's singles. So different and beautiful. its such an unorthodox arrangement but has this sorta futuristic Trip hop/ drum and bass back drop to it. its pretty ill. the video is just as dope, sporting amazing animation from KOJI MORIMOTO's STUDIO 4c. i think of this track as an opening title to a cannonbusters OVA if there ever was one, lol.

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3) KEEP TRYING- Another unorthodox song. i didnt like this one at first, but the more i listened to it , it eventually turned out to be one of my favorites.

[link]

j-pop, like pop in the states has always been kinda weak (especially since Michael Jacksons' THRILLER). And for the most part, i cant get too into J-Pop because of the language barrier obviously, but since i watch anime so much and some of my favorite j-pop songs are songs in some of my favorite animes (The PILLOWS from FLCL, YOKO KANNO FROM MACROSS PLUS AND BEBOP etc) , I'm sure there are more hard core J-Poppers out there who totally thinks UTADA is considered "old school" but man, she's got some bangers, lol. can't wait to hit japan later this year......


* ANYBODY ELSE INTO J-POP? if so, can you recommend any that has the same awesome feel of the songs above?*