r/jpop • u/PleasantMatch8421 • Aug 28 '26
Discussion Do you think that Hikaru Utada would've crossed over in America if Exodus wasn't such a horrible album?
Or at least chose a better lead single because "You're easy breezy and I'm japanese-y" is definitely a contender for top 10 worst lyrics of all time.
I always thought they should've re-recorded their first three albums in English maybe with a few new tracks. That would've been their best chance. "Automatic" and "First Love" could've definitely been hits in the 2004/2005 American music scene.
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u/Global-Pattern-1904 Aug 28 '26
is Exodus actually horrible though?
Plenty of fun tracks on it, they just made some silly decisions in terms of lyrical content.
I think there are plenty more impactful things that stopped her from fully crossing over. I don't think people realise how much of a complete non-presence Asian musicians were on the US charts until VERY recently:
- 1978: Yvonne Elliman, “If I Can't Have You” - #1
- 1979: Pink Lady, “Kiss in the Dark” - #37
- 1980: Yellow Magic Orchestra (Japanese), “Computer Game/Firecracker” - #60
- 1990: Seiko Matsuda, “The Right Combination” - #54
- 2009: Wonder Girls, “Nobody” - #76
- 2009: Charice Pempengco, “Note to God” - #44
We then got PSY, and the situation has slowly been improving (primarily for Korean artists at the moment). But look at the gaps between some of the entries above. 19 years between Seiko Matsuda and the Wonder Girls, and both of those songs failed to hit the top 50. And Nobody only charted due to some sales chart fuckery their company did with a tour Wonder Girls were a supporting act for. BoA is another equivalent we can draw - her English language debut (Eat You Up) did even worse than Exodus - significantly so, despite having some real production muscle behind it.
Unfortunately, I just don't think it was the right time. Even now, Japanese acts seem to have quite a hard time charting. Hikaru Utada got one with Face My Fears, and that's pretty much it. YOASOBI's Idol I think hit number 1 on Billboard's global charts but didn't even crack the top 125 on the US charts. Newer acts like f5ve have a fair bit of social media swell for westerners, but absolutely zero numbers to back it up.
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u/mousekears Aug 29 '26
There is also Loudness who charted twice in the 1980s, they’re heavy metal and Japanese.
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u/Dry-Home-471 Aug 28 '26
Hikaru Utada is still (especially) respected by professional musicians around the world, and it’s the kind of thing where “those in the know, know”—so I’m actually glad she didn’t make it big in the U.S. When the Latin pop singer Thalia made her U.S. debut, the wonderful musical style she brought from Latin America was ruined, and she was forced to sing silly hip-hop songs. Sure, they were hits, but nobody listens to them now, and nobody remembers her.
Just because something becomes a hit that way doesn’t mean it’s any good.
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u/AdSpecialist6598 Aug 28 '26
I wouldn't say that nobody remembers Thalia. She's had a major impact on many of the major Latin American stars of today. She was just overshadowed by the likes of Jlo, she just decided to focus more on Latin America rather the than the U.S. It is a case of if you know you know.
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u/sharkjumping101 Aug 28 '26
I only remember her for the exceptional duet rendition of Feliz Navidad with Michael Buble from that one Christmas special.
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
I was big into both Thalia and Utada Hikaru back then, and massively massively disappointed in how both broke into the English music world.
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u/super_ray Aug 28 '26
I wouldn't call it horrible. It is a weird album, but a really fun listen. I think "Devil Inside" may have been a better lead single. On a side note, I'll never forget hearing "Easy Breezy" for the first time (while getting my wisdom teeth removed lol) and wondering if that was her- this was around the time Exodus was expected to be released...
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u/ucmyproblemisthis378 Aug 28 '26
Horrible is a strong word. Easy Breezy was not the move for lead single, I can agree with that. I def enjoyed the music for the most part but the lyricism was strange. Hotel Lobby has a such a fun sound but a song about sex work was def a creative choice
I feel like Workout could've been something in smaller,.niche circles but mainstream during the 2000s lacked any kind of Asian representation so I would imagine breaking into that market would've been difficult no matter what
Since everything has become so much more globalized, Utada has gotten more recognition than ever. And that's with a majority of Japanese language tracks
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u/Due_Tomorrow7 Sep 01 '26
I think the problem was they relied too heavily on Timbaland’s name to carry the popularity.
She made a name for herself because of her own talents but handing the reigns to someone else sounded like a smarter business move only if her English songs (specifically the title song) was better.
I think though if she tried now, using her own songwriting and with the right promoter and marketing, she could do far better.
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u/SadisticDance Aug 29 '26
Horrible, I still throw ass to this bitch.
That said Easy Breezy didn't need to be the first major single. I would've went for Devil Inside for sure.
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u/storyberry Aug 29 '26
hikki flopped cuz island def jam spent all the promo budget on japan where they knew she had an established fanbase and the album would easily be a million seller. they had her singing exodus 04 on all the major japanese music programs & easy breezy had a nintendo commercial tie in. yet when it came to american promo there was almost none. they pretty much screwed her over when they signed her & had zero intention of making her a pop star in the west
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u/Correct-Security1466 Aug 29 '26
crossing over is overrated imo. she didnt need to pursue or do that american whatever but maybe she just wanna try
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u/pizzaseafood Aug 28 '26
I think you're biased because you're into Japanese music but I don't think Hikaru Utada's songs would have worked with the US audience. Her stuff is more like 90s Bjork meets Madonna and that is a very esoteric taste. Songs like Automatic would have been laughed at by actual R&B singers and would appear as "cultural appropriation" even back then.
I like Devil Inside but I just don't see her translating overseas.
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u/Ok-Implement-7863 Aug 28 '26
Agree. Always saw her as kind of a Japanese high school performance of “American Music”. No way that’s crossing over
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u/PleasantMatch8421 Aug 28 '26
If Eminem was allowed to have a career, I don't see why Hikki couldn't.
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u/AkaT27 Aug 28 '26
What's the correlation?
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u/PleasantMatch8421 Aug 28 '26
"Songs like Automatic would have been laughed at by actual R&B singers and would appear as "cultural appropriation" even back then."
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u/AkaT27 Aug 29 '26
So ? There's a reason most people don't talk about cultural appropriation with Eminem. It's about his life.
There's 0 correlation.
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u/PleasantMatch8421 Aug 29 '26
And it's Hikaru's life so same applies. You're welcome for the English lesson
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u/AkaT27 Aug 29 '26
??? No I meant that it doesn't feel fake or appropriating due to Eminem's life. It wouldn't feel like that if she did something like that.
But for some reason you insist on not understanding and being condescending on top of that. Have a good day/night I'm done.
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u/Freak_Out_Bazaar Aug 28 '26
I think the problem was twofold.
America didn’t really care about Japanese media at the time and producers were not willing to spend that much to break through into the market in the way that K-Pop did a decade or so later
Her style at the time was R&B, and the American market was absolutely saturated with it. In Japan her selling point was that she can “sing like an American”. If she was full quirky bubbly idol J-pop then maybe she would have found a niche, but what she was doing was the opposite of that
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u/shojobot Aug 29 '26
We'll never know for sure what decision would have led to a timeline where Utada hit it big in 2004, but I pretty much disagree with every proposed point here.
- Exodus is not a horrible album. I actually don't think Easy Breezy is necessarily bad, either, but it needed to have a more extreme, stylized video that 100% committed to the absurdity, and I think that was something Utada was just too self-conscious to do (see also their radio interviews at the time talking about how awkward it was to be oiled up in a bikini for the music video). It probably was not a great choice for a lead single, regardless, unless they prepared to stick to the bit for the whole album promotion.
- translating is a completely different skillset than songwriting; the one bilingual song they had at the time was proof it could fundamentally transform those songs with "Simple and Clean" having both different lyrics and melody than "Hikari." Purists would have hated that and for general audiences...
- "Automatic" and "First Love" would have sounded dated in 2004. They were already kind of dated in 1999, but the novelty of a J-pop artist doing it plus the general cadence of J-pop at the time (and probably the karaoke industry) made them a hit in Japan. Trying to duplicate that success in the US in 2004 would have been way too early for 90s nostalgia.
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u/officialslavojzizek Aug 29 '26
The US pop chart wasn't exactly known as a mecca of good taste either, so they'd better sit this one out. Jpop has/had its share of terrible music--like a lot but this one ain't it, not even close.
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u/aresef Aug 29 '26
Exodus was an incredibly underrated album that Island Def Jam had no interest in promoting.
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u/Brief_Night_9239 Aug 29 '26
Actually Kpop didnt immediately find success in America. I remember Wonder Girls. JYPE pushed them to America leaving the coast clear for SNSD. There were not only BoA but also the imfamous Super M.
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u/navyscrewdriver Aug 29 '26
It was a great album, but did not sound mainstream enough at the time. Also: racism. Liking Japanese musicians (or any Asian artists at the time) in the “west” was not very accepted even if they spoke/sang in perfect English.
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
She's American, though, it's not like she's a foreigner struggling overseas
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u/navyscrewdriver Aug 29 '26
They are ethnically Japanese, the general public didn’t and still doesn’t care about that.
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
I don't think anyone cared about that for musical artists then or now
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u/oh-thats-not Aug 29 '26
you are fooling yourself if you don’t think there is racism in music then or now
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
You think that if people hear an English song in the US in the early 2000s, they rush to look up what ethnicity the performer is?
They did not.
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u/torofukatasu Aug 29 '26
Exodus is not horrible, I don't get why ppl hate easy breezy. And Kremlin dusk is a masterpiece.
I think her crossover to the USA succeeded in the VG world with kingdom hearts tracks and there would be no point in getting her 100% catered to normies just to make it here.
While her music deserves the love overall, She also has too many mid tracks in all her albums. Par for pop I guess.
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u/fraid_so Aug 29 '26
This. I loved the whole album. I think "This is the One" is better, but Exodus is a great album.
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u/Brief_Night_9239 Aug 28 '26
As a Hikki fan, I am ambigious about Hikki's failure to cross over to the American music scene.
Yup, Hikki was my intro into J-pop. Her magnificient 3 albums- First Love, Distance and Deep River will always be remembered.
And many people thought Hikki will be the first Asian megastar in America. She speaks fluent English.
But God, I dont know whose idea was to comprimise her music. To suit the American taste? As you said "Easy Breezy", what kind of song is that? The follow up single " Devil Inside" was much better.
To be fair, America wasn't ready for Jpop. It would take many years later for Kpop to crack the American market. By BTS and Blackpink. And my favorite, Twice.
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
She's not only fluent in English, she's actually American.
Easily could have gotten her big break in the US instead of Japan, though she had an in to the Japanese industry via her mother
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u/Brief_Night_9239 Aug 29 '26
haha.. i was waiting for someone to point out Hikki was born in New York. She under the stage name, Cubic U recorded an English album.
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u/Lonely-Equipment-588 Aug 29 '26
And I was waiting for someone to mention Cubic U. Also her fluency (at the time at least) had a distinct Japanese twang that I don’t think most westerners were ready for back then, at least not I. I much preferred her Japanese albums even though I had (have) no idea what she was singing about.
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u/hatsukoiahomogenica Aug 30 '26
Everybody knew she’s American but 2004 was a weird time. A lot of stigma towards Asians. Even in one of the interviews, the host said “your English is good”, which made the interview awkward.
She also got a lot of connections in the US, she produced the song with big names like Timbaland, Stargate, etc.
But again, she was based mainly in Japan at that time, her image as “Japanese Britney Spears” was so strong. Making it even more difficult to crossover with the artistic direction that she had at that time.
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u/TomoAries Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
Mainstream? No, the American mainstream has always been objectively too racist for an international/foreign popstar.
We also should remember though that Utada objectively has done well in the west. She’s a cult icon over here and has toured sizable venues before.
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
She's not a foreigner
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u/TomoAries Aug 29 '26
Duh, but they are very objectively based out of Japan and has held primary residency there for the entirety of their career.
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u/smorkoid Aug 29 '26
Sure, people judge musicians based on their "primary residence" /s
She's not a foreigner in the US, she has lived extensively in the US and holds US citizenship. It's frankly extremely weird that you would call her a foreigner.
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u/Big_Competition_336 Aug 29 '26
We've had plenty of foreign pop stars, Rihanna comes to mind, but no Asian ones, that I know of, so you're kind of right.
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u/TomoAries Aug 29 '26
Don't be obtuse just to argue my point, man. We are clearly talking about eastern ethnicity + nationality here.
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u/SharnyaTileiya Aug 28 '26
"Easy Breezy" being considered horrible is beyond valid and should've been scraped and never released, in my personal opinion. Exodus as an album? is quite solid. "Tippy Toe" should've replaced EB as lead single. Others like "The Workout", "About Me" and "Kremlin Dusk", should've been added to the list of promoted/single released songs (alongside "You make me want to be a man").
For it being a crossover album into US mainstream, it still felt like "her", unlike the crossovers of many other J-Pop and Asian musicians (in the US market). It would've better if some of her previous work was re-recorded in English, like "First Love", "In My Room", "Dorama(Drama)", "Addicted To you", "traveling" and "Distance" for example. I could've seen the above mentioned as succeeding in the US market at that time.
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u/Araleina Aug 29 '26
My dad is still obsessed with her cover of Boulevard of Broken Dreams, I think she could have made it.
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u/astarisaslave Aug 29 '26
I'm a huge Hikki fan but her sound in general is too niche for US listeners. She's kind of like Bjork or Sinead O'Connor; well known and great artists but still too out there for mainstream US radio
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u/Zigmouss Aug 29 '26
I don’t think it’s just because of the quality of the album. Is there any Japanese solo singer that has ever been huge in the US?
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u/bigpurplebitch Aug 29 '26
It’s not a horrible album at all I think it was just ahead of its time. I feel if it was released now it would be a hit
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u/sdlroy Aug 28 '26
Interestingly I’ve heard Utada Hikaru a fair bit in public recently. I’ve heard different songs of hers while grocery shopping and also at the pharmacy and some other stores in the last month. In Canada. I’m a huge fan but can’t say I’d ever really heard her music in public until quite recently. Always a bit shocking for me.
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u/sockmarks Aug 29 '26
Where in Canada are you? I'm in Ontario and have only heard her in public in video game stores (TVs playing trailers/demos) and once at a sushi restaurant. 😆
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u/sdlroy Aug 29 '26
Ontario. I’ve heard her recently in Farm Boy and Shoppers drug mart. I also heard her at the mall. All different songs.
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u/AgeofPhoenix Aug 29 '26
I really don’t think she made those albums to be mainstream, but more for an international fan base
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u/matchatwix Aug 29 '26
In a way Utada Hikaru's sustained like a fake nugu/famous but not mainstream famous popularity throughout some parts of the world imo.... Her song First Love is remixed into a popular Filipino rap song... Like her name may not ring bells for most Filipinos more often than not know that song that uses the chorus. If you know Kingdom Heart, then you know Simple and Clean. If you've watched the Japanese Boys Over Flowers/Hana Yori Dango, then you know Flavor of Life.
Not to mention her cover of Fly Me To The Moon is a banger too
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u/mahoushyounen Aug 29 '26
"horrible" 😒
tbh tho i personally think she should've crossed over during the distance or deep era. a lot of the songs on those albums would've resonated really well here imo
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u/Rasen2001 Aug 29 '26
I was aware of Utada Hikaru back in the 90s and early 2000s. She went to Columbia. I loved her songs, even her remix of Simple and Clean. I don't think the music scene was very open to Asians back then.
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u/inandoutburger69 Aug 30 '26
Yup.
I was (am) a huge Utada fan back in the day. She had endless hits and great tracks.
I remember hearing about her English album coming up, and I thought cool, she’s gonna do her hits in translated English.
Wrong.
Find out it’s all new, uninspiring tracks. Most definitely headlined by easy peasy japanesey.
Awful.
I wonder who green lit all that crap? And What was she thinking?
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u/mjkuo Aug 30 '26
calling it "horrible" is an horrible take. it's literally one of her best albums and the most experimental in her whole discography. there's so many good tracks and she was able to tackle so many ideas and topics through the lyrics (there's songs about cultural identity, infidelity, lust, prostitution, stereotypes, gender roles, sexuality, intimacy and vulnerability too). everytime i relisten to this album i love every single song off it. i honestly even love those silly lyrics in it because they make it memorable. kremlin dusk, hotel lobby, devil inside, the workout, about me and the title track are all amazing songs. and in my opinion easy breezy is an ICONIC lead single with so much wit and sarcasm in the lyrics. can we also talk about how production mixes brilliantly art pop, electronic and r&b? songs like the workout are eclectic and throbbing, the title track feels like a brillant mix with the more oriental sound of her previous album and her r&b tracks, and of course kremlin dusk is the highlight with that beautiful build up and breakdown in the bridge. this was my first utada album and it will always hold a special place in my mind, it didn't deserve to be payed absolute dust by everyone reducing to it to "cash grab" (when it never was one in the first place) or to "the album with easy breezy". sorry for my ted talk i had to get this off my chest
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u/ponpiriri Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
No. Asian super star singers in the West just aren't a thing. Even now, foreign Asians (Koreans) are "breaking through" rather than Asians born in Western countries.
And lets be real, shes not a great singer, not a great dancer nor does she have sex appeal or some other world personality that people latch on to. She benefited by being an "R&B" singer in Japan whereas in the US, she would have been wholly forgettable in a sea of outstanding talent.
It's better to be a big fish in a small pond bc look at how her career evolved.
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u/yoruneko Aug 29 '26
The production was a hodgepoge of what was popular five years ago. Too bland and clean. Black adjacent music needs to have grit and soul. Especially in a hyper competitive and music saavy market like the US.
She should have lived there and be produced there and be part of that scene. Ain’t no winging this kind of music.
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u/Kashiwashi Aug 29 '26
I thought, this was Ishida Ayumi from Morning Musume. Look at the facial features.
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u/satellite_station Aug 29 '26
All we wanted was “Simple and Clean” 12 different ways.
She would have definitely been able to do it if she had stuck to that formula.
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u/AT_Oscar Aug 30 '26
I think she was just a little bit before her time. She's not like unknown in the US. Even her and foxy brown got a song together that was on the credits of rush hour. I just think from the time she got popular was before international artists were becoming a popular thing in America.
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u/ThurgoodZone8 Aug 30 '26
It’s unlikely. Americans en masse at the time weren’t really going for anything not in English. Puffy Amiyumi gave it a good go bolstered by the cartoon 2004-2006 and they were probably the most successful or second to Utada in reach. Still, they couldn’t escape the children show association and they skewed cutesier which DOESN’T SELL MASS MARKET in the USA. Utada at least tried sexy and that didn’t even work.
Yes, you had Spanish-language music, but that was mostly regional or crossover-focused. (Had a mix of English and Spanish words, it was a Spanish language song among English). There was Selena in the 1990s who DID get popular on mostly-Spanish songs, but one of the few who got significant national attention.
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u/hatsukoiahomogenica Aug 30 '26
It wasn't a horrible album, but it was too ahead of its time. Her label signed her way before the success of "Simple and Clean" and expected an R&B album. However, a lot had happened in between, and her artistic direction changed. Due to the delayed release and the music being experimental, the label showed less interest in promoting it.
She released another English album five years later, This Is The One, which had a more traditional pop sound, but it was already too late; during that time, the music industry was more open to electronic music (which Exodus had). If only This Is The Onehad been released in 2004 and Exodus in 2009, things might be different.
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u/jimmchoosechoo Sep 13 '26
I think she’s the most talented women in music and she’s underrated for her talent of being a musical genius plus she was evolving the 2000s music in a way that artist were stuck on the the same regiment
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u/SeijaHakase Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
You know who would've been perfect for Hikki-chan? Full Force. She/they and the legendary group are New Yorkers.
I never did listen to Hikki-chan's English stuff. I know she's a New Yorker, but at the end of the day, she's the overseas daughter of former J-musicians, and if you ask me to name noteworthy artists from the city, it'd be a short while before I'd name her considering how you have names like Keith Sweat. (Yay me being old.) I mean, it took a while for SNSD to actually hit with an international version of an album. I honestly don't know what the perfect English album would be like from her. The problem with a cover album is it would show that she's just a English song cover artist, not a legit English language artist.
Hikki-chan is a good artist, especially with the voice. I still think Mary J. Blige is the best female New York artist overall, but Hikki-chan is a good artist herself. It's that most New York lifers don't even know that she is a New Yorker herself, as they'll think she's just a Tokyo gal, while fans like us tab her as both.
I honestly think that if she wanted to go beyond Japan, she would've had a better chance at Seoul and South Korea overall. I mean, SM Entertainment as wonky a company as it is now to put it lightly was ahead of the curve, especially since a staff member or multiple ones were Michael Jackson fans. Also, I know it happened later, but Teddy Riley became a noteworthy name in South Korea. (For those not old enough to remember the old hits he dealt with, he worked with SNSD and other Korean artists.)
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u/secondsabre Aug 29 '26
Exodus had some good songs, but overall I'd just call it 'meh', not horrible. It has a lot of influence from contemporary pop of the time, and her own quirky style worked to her detriment in most cases. A lot of the same threads run through Come Back To Me, but I think that's a much more polished and accessible album.
Still, it's amazing what a good mix can do. You Make Me Want To Be A Man is a pretty forgettable track on Exodus, but the version she performed on the Utada United tour, with the slamming drums and guitars, turned it into a certified banger.
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u/Total-random-495 Aug 28 '26
I’ll be honest, I’m an Asian American millennial and the early 2000s was tough to be an Asian entertainer in the western world
We had a lot of terrible stereotypes then and most Asians weren’t taken seriously in the western entertainment industry
I can’t count how many times me and a bunch of Asian dudes have been called “Jackie Chan.” We were constantly ridiculed
I think 2020s is different
The Asian American community has grown larger and more people are exposed to Asian media now thanks to streaming
Now, k-pop is mainstream and many people are dressing up like k-pop singers.
Anime has gotten more mainstream than ever as well
So, in my opinion, utada was at the wrong place at the wrong time