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Utada Hikaru – HEART STATION
Tracklist:
01. Fight The Blues
02. HEART STATION
03. Beautiful World
04. Flavor Of Life -Ballad Version-
05. Stay Gold
06. Kiss & Cry
07. Gentle Beast Interlude
08. Celebrate
09. Prisoner Of Love
10. Take 5
11. Boku wa Kuma
12. Nijiiro Bus

Bonus Track:
13. Flavor Of Life

Finally! The long anticipated album gets to see the light of the day! I was really excited to see what Hikki was going to do this time. Her last album followed a very futuristic/synth-y tune all around, and I was curious about what she would do this time. It’s seldom that I’m disappointed in any of her releases, she always makes such impressive music which is really pleasing to the ears.

HEART STATION is Utada Hikaru’s 5th original Japanese album and was released on 19th March, 2008 (a la, today) in Japan. The album will be released in Canada on 4th April, however. The album was leaked onto the internet a few days prior to the release, despite the record company’s greatest efforts.

Note: I won’t be reviewing single tracks in this review.

The first track on the album is Fight The Blues, a shockingly experimental track that caught me off-guard. Actually, I’m still quite surprised at its eccentricities. It’s an upbeat pop song with ethnic electronic sounds resonating as a backdrop. There’s also an Indian tabla used instead of drums, if I’m not mistaken, which is quite strangely intriguing in all.

Followed next are the single tracks jumbled together which almost everyone would skip just to get to the new tracks, something I did definitely.

Afterwards, is Gentle Beast Interlude, a 73 seconds long interlude (d’oh) which sounds rather recycled. It’s almost completely made up from sounds from her previous single tracks, and also Fight The Blues which is the first track on this album. But even then, it proves as a nice interlude anyhow.

Celebrate is really reminiscent of Hikki’s older work with a 90’s pop theme. Even then, however, this track seems to have the least effect over me off of the entire album. There’s just nothing that stands out in it majorly that could captivate my attention. It’s nice as background music, but nothing more.

After the sort-of boring track Celebrate, Prisoner of Love stands out exceptionally well with its R&B undertones. The magnificent introduction to this track makes up for an otherwise staler following. I love the chorus in this track and Hikki’s neverending cries of “Prisoner of Love!” This is, like the previous track, a comeback to Hikki’s older style of music but a much more efficient one at that.

Next is the ever-so-debated mystery track of the album, Take 5. The song has a surprise ending, which is apparently supposed to be artistic as the fans dub it. Of course, it could be the result of a bad radio-rip that was on the leaked version of the album, but anyway. Take 5 is a heavily synthetic track with strange ghost-like sounds in the background and whatnot. I would have liked this track if it were a bit more fine-tuned, because right now it sounds like it’s going all over the place with no particular direction

Following the strange deathwish that is Take 5, you get (drumroll…) an even more desperate deathwish, Boku wa Kuma! Hugely out-of-place and much more of a distraction than anything, but it’s not very long so thank heavens for that. Boku wa Kuma flows right into Nijiiro Bus, another children’s song which is twice as annoying as its predecessor. It starts out fine, but then drags on and on and becomes more of a nuisance than anything.

HEART STATION has had a tremendously negative response from fans, but I do not concur because I think HEART STATION is a really cool album. Having only 5 new tracks out of 13 is sort of sad though, but as a compilation of great single releases that were followed by this album, it’s really cool. Utada proves once more that she is a competent musician rather than only a celebrity, and while this album might not be her best ever, it’s a worthy addition to her discography.

Overall grade: A-