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JETAA NY Magazine Editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) has apparently just landed a phone interview with Hikaru Utada to run in a future issue, and he’s looking for good questions to ask her. E-mail responses to Justin at magazine /atto/ jetaaany /dotto/ org.
Hi everyone,
I just received an e-mail saying that Utada Hikaru will call me tomorrow (Fri. 1/30) afternoon to do an interview with JETAA NY Quarterly about her forthcoming English studio album, which will be released in the U.S. at the end of March.
I thought it would be cool to put out a request to the JET Alumni community for any questions you’d like to ask her. I’ll do my best to include as many as I can.
Please e-mail your questions to Justin Tedaldi at magazine /atto/ jetaany /dotto/ org no later than 1:00 p.m. this Friday.
Official release info for the new album appears below. Yoroshiku!
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ISLAND DEF JAM RECORDING ARTIST
UTADA
TO UNVEIL NEW SINGLE “COME BACK TO ME”
New York, NY — In the small world of pop artists who write their own music enters the big voice of artist/songwriter Utada who is set to reveal her new single “Come Back to Me” this month. Utada, already one of the world’s biggest recording artists, will release her new album on March 24, 2009 on The Island Def Jam Music Group.
“Come Back to Me”, the soulful yet energetic ballad produced by the hitmaking team Stargate (Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Beyonce), will officially debut on pop radio on February 9th and be available via iTunes. The sparkling, mid-tempo hit showcases the 26-year-old singer’s powerful husky-sweet vocals and natural effervescence, placing her indisputably into the landscape with major female artists like Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna and Mariah Carey.
Utada’s forthcoming album is comprised of 10 self-penned songs recorded with top producers Stargate and Tricky (Britney Spears, Madonna, Mariah Carey). Recording took place in New York, Atlanta and Tokyo.
On creating the album Utada comments, “I like to make music that’s multi-layered. You might just want to dance, without really diving into the lyrics. And then if you like words, you might notice the references I make to Captain Picard or Winona Ryder. Both things are equally important to me-to be catchy, so when you hear it on the radio it sticks out, and to have that depth. ”
Producer Stargate comments, “Working with Utada was great. She walks in, has confidence about her, integrity, and a voice that you can’t believe. We were really blown away.”
Born and raised in Manhattan and educated at Columbia University, Hikaru Utada had strong ties to Japan as her father, Utada Teruzane, was an accomplished musician and producer and her mother, Keiko Fuji, was a successful Japanese enka (ballad) singer. With such a musically prolific family, Utada would reside between New York City and Tokyo and the recording studio literally became her second home. By age 11, Utada had written and recorded her first song. By the time she graduated from junior high school, the bi-lingual singer had signed onto a major record label EMI and released her first Japanese album. With a number of album and single releases over the last ten years in Japan, the young star has become one of the most successful and acclaimed pop singers in Japanese music history with record sales of over 52 million.
4 comments so far...
1. Your English music is very different to your music in Japanese. You have said before that writing lyrics in English is more about the sound that is makes whilst Japanese lyrics have to make sense. But other than this, do you tackle writing songs in English and Japanese differently?
2. You said that you wrote Exodus with a different market in mind, but the sound of the album is extremely experimental and ‘un-mainstream’. Would you ever consider releasing material in the west with a more jpop sound you have in your Japanese releases?
3. Your lead single ‘Come Back To Me’ has a much more mainstream sound to it. Is this a point that your music has naturally reached or do you intend to experiment more with the kind of music you create?
4. Your music is incredibly synth based recently, would you ever consider leaving that behind and doing some production work based more on real instruments?
Do you read through the comments on your myspace?
If you were to become successful in America, would you consider doing a national tour?
How much of your life do you pour into your songs?
You said that in one of your interviews for the promotion of Exodus that you like to go for a drive whenever you are in NYC….do you have a driver license and what car does a superstar like yourself drive?
[…] and asking her various questions he had requested and collected from readers via the “Ask Hikaru a Question!” JetWit post that ran on Thursday. Utada’s parents even showed up at the end giving Justin a chance to […]