The James Logan Courier

By Carmen Shiu, Courier Entertainment Editor

For about 9 years, Japan's music scene has been listening to one of their hottest pop acts, Utada Hikki Hikaru. This Japanese-American singer is only 23 years old and has sold a total of 32 million records by the end of 2006 in Japan. After listening to her latest album, Ultra Blue, it is clear why Utada is so popular and why the album easily reached to the top of the charts.

Ultra Blue is Utada's fourth mostly Japanese-language album, and sixth album overall, two English-language albums. This album contains twelve tracks and one interlude. Although most of the album is in Japanese, a majority of the songs have English titles and even a few English verses. There are six singles released from this album with the first one dating back to 2003: COLORS, Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro, Be My Last, Passion, Keep Tryin', and This Is Love.

This album starts off with a quick dance track entitled This Is Love. After dancing to it, Utada slows down just a little bit with Keep Tryin' . It is a mid-tempo song that is easy to consider a favorite.

The literal meaning of Nichiyo no Asa is Sunday Morning. For anyone that is not too high up on the dance songs, this one is an easy one to get into. Utada slowed down a bit with this one, but not too much ,so that it is just right.

Although Ultra Blue is mainly a Japanese album, listeners do not necessarily have to understand the language to enjoy this album. It would be a definite bonus, but Utada's latest album is excellent either way. Most of the tracks are not difficult to get into because of her beautiful voice and music blending together. With so much success already accomplished, Utada will more than likely have so many more years ahead of her.

Utada showed to Japan and the rest of the world what she is all about at age 14-15 and 8 years later, she is still going strong at 23 and will be in the musical spotlight for a long time.