First Love (Hikaru Utada album)

First Love is the debut Japanese-language studio album (second overall) by Japanese-American recording artist Hikaru Utada, released on March 10, 1999, by Toshiba-EMI.

An R&B and dance-pop album, First Love centres on the theme of love and relationships. The songs were written and recorded over the course of about one year, between the end of Utada's 14th year and the end of her 15th year. Critics' opinions of the album were generally favourable, praising Utada's songwriting and vocal delivery. In its first week of release, the album entered the Oricon Albums Chart at number one with over two million units sold. Since its release, First Love remains the highest-selling Japanese album with nationwide sales of 8 million copies. It has also sold over ten million units worldwide, making it the highest-selling album in Asian music history. Due to its enormous sales and revolutionary nature, the album is still presented as a milestone in the history of Japanese pop music.

Utada promoted the album by releasing three singles: "Automatic/Time Will Tell," "Movin' on Without You" and the title track, all which were accompanied by a music video. She performed several tracks from the album on several television appearances in 1998 and 1999, and have performed songs on her Utada: In the Flesh 2010 and Wild Life tours. "Automatic/time will tell" and First Love are her best-selling CD single and album respectively. Exactly fifteen years after its premiere, a 2014 re-issue of the album was released, featuring a bonus live DVD and the special edition featured two additional discs.

Background
Born and raised in Manhattan, New York City, Utada started singing at a very young age; she was a member of U$3$, a musical act with her mother Keiko Fuji and her father Teruzane Utada. U$3$ released their debut album Star in 1993, with the hope to debut in America; the album only peaked at thirty-three in Japan. Utada's mother was a Japanese enka singer and actress, while her father was a Japanese record producer who had contributed to some of Fuji's work. In 1996, the group was re-branded as Cubic U, an R&B project that focused primarily on Hikaru, resulting in the English language album Precious in 1998 with record label Toshiba EMI. Precious was originally scheduled to be released simultaneously in Japan and the United States, but due to EMI's internal restructuring issues, this album was not released in the United States and was only released in Japan. 8,000 copies were shipped in Japan at the time of its release, but on March 31, 1999, the album was re-released with a new jacket. At the time of the reissue, First Love, the first album under Hikaru Utada's name released three weeks earlier, had become an unprecedented hit, and the reissued version of Precious also attracted attention, selling approximately 700,000 copies according to Oricon.

Utada relocated to Tokyo in early 1997 to attend Seisen International School and American School in Japan. During her studies, Utada signed as a solo artist with Toshiba EMI and began recording her album First Love. Fluent in both English and Japanese languages, the head offices at EMI asked if she could write Japanese songs rather than English lyrics. During the process of the album, Utada desired to become a singer-songwriter and occasionally practised producing and composing her music rather than becoming a Japanese idol. She refused to allow talent agencies to contact her at the start, which was a very common tradition for Japanese singers in the 1990s, and her father started to manage her work along with producing and composing it; to this day, her father continues to manage and co-produce some of her work. Aaliyah's album Age Ain't Nothing but a Number was the inspiration for Utada's fascination with rhythm and blues music, and she described Aaliyah's album as her rhythm and blues roots. Aaliyah's soft, murmuring vocals also influenced Utada's future singing style.

Production and composition
The lyrics to the tracks from First Love are written primarily in Japanese by Utada and featured interspersed English-language phrases. Utada's father Teruzane and Akira Miyake served as the album's primary producers alongside Hikaru; Saito Masaaki, Nakasone Junya, Sanada Yoshiaki and Okamoto Tatsyua served as the album's executive producers. Utada contributed to editing and producing her recorded vocals for all the tracks. The tracks from First Love were recorded in studios across her native New York City, Los Angeles and Tokyo. American producer and mixer Ted Jensen had mixed the tracks at Sterling Sound Studios in New York.



The album's opener "Automatic" is an R&B and dance-pop song that talks about a previous relationship. Rockin' On Japan's editor and chief Kano had commented that Utada had brought a large prominence of R&B and soul music with the tracks "Automatic" and "Time Will Tell", and felt that "Automatic"'s release introduced a new R&B audience inside of Japan. The title track is a power ballad conveying slow and off-key vocals that complimented the music to the album.

"Movin' on Without You" is a disco and house-inspired track that was influenced by the early 1990s dance music throughout the Western part of the world and lasts a duration of four minutes and forty-one seconds. "B&C", a funk song, was featured as a B-side to the physical CD format from "Movin' on Without You". The album closer "Give Me a Reason" is a trip hop song. "Interlude" was produced into a song called "Kotoba ni Naranai Kimochi" on Utada's Distance album.

Release
First Love was released on March 10, 1999, by Toshiba EMI. The album was released as a compact disc and a double vinyl. The vinyl was exclusively released in North America and Japan by Eastworld Records. First Love was released in the Philippines by OctoArts EMI Music. It was released in South Korea and Indonesia by Eastworld and EMI.

After fifteen years of its release, First Love was re-released by Universal Music Japan on March 10, 2014, in two separate versions. The normal version is a two-disc set featuring a remastered version of the normal album along with a second disc featuring Utada's previously unreleased "LUV LIVE" concert. The remastering was done by Ted Jensen. The other version is a limited edition 4-disc set, containing the remastered track list on disc one, "LUV LIVE" concert on disc two, as well as featuring a disc containing karaoke tracks and the last containing a multitude of demos from the First Love era of Utada's career. The deluxe edition also carries with it memorabilia from that time, including a hard cover booklet filled with unreleased photoshoots, handwritten lyrics, promotional items as well as replicas of the tickets and backstage passes to her "LUV LIVE" concert. The Deluxe Edition initially was limited to 5,000 copies, however, due to overwhelming demand, this was pushed to 10,000 after the initial 5,000 units were sold almost instantly.

Singles
The double A-side single "Automatic/Time Will Tell" was released on December 9, 1998, as an 8cm mini CD single and 12cm CD single. The songs received positive reviews, being highlighted as album stand outs. "Automatic" was given the gold award at the 2000 JASRAC awards, beating her own song "Time Will Tell" and "Dango 3 Kyodai" to be the most royalty-receiving song in 1999. The Japan Record Awards mentioned the song as an Honorable Mention Award. In 2000, The Japan Gold Disc Awards had awarded "Automatic" along with "Movin' on Without You" and "Addicted to You" for Song(s) of the Year. "Automatic/Time Will Tell" peaked at number four and number two on the Oricon Singles Chart in their respective formats. With both formats combined, "Automatic/Time Will Tell" has sold over 2.06 million units in Japan, making it her best-selling physical single, the second best-selling single by a female Japanese soloist and the nineteenth best-selling single in Japan overall.

The second single "Movin' on Without You" was released on February 17, 1999, as a 8cm single and a 12cm single. It served as the commercial song for the Nissan Terrano. The song received positive reviews, many of which highlighted the song as an album stand out. The 8cm single reached number five on the Oricon Singles Chart. The 12cm single reached number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, marking this her first number one. This edition of the single was certified million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of one million units. "Movin' on Without You" was her most well-known song in the West before her rise in popularity through "Simple And Clean."

The third and final single "First Love" was released on April 28, 1999, as a 8cm mini CD and a 12cm standard CD. "First Love" was used as the theme song for the dorama Majo no Jōken, starring Hideaki Takizawa and Nanako Matsushima. The song received positive reviews, many of which highlighted the song as an album stand out. The 12cm standard CD single of "First Love" peaked at number two on the Oricon Singles Chart, missing the top spot but was certified double platinum by the RIAJ for shipments of 800,000 units in Japan. The 8cm CD version reached number six. At the end of the year, "First Love" became the annual number one song on Taiwan's Hit FM Top 100 Singles of the Year chart for 1999. "First Love" was also adopted as the marching song for the Spring 2000 National High School Baseball Tournament.

Reception
Music critics complimented First Love. Tomoyuki Mori of Amazon praised the album for its heartfelt lyrics and said that her voice is rich in emotional expression. Japanese magazine CDJournal felt Utada's singing voice and musical style was very heartfelt.

Tower Records described the album as "an epoch-making work that played a pioneering role in completely changing the concept of popular music in Japan." Music critic Yoichi Shibuya commented that the album was "different to anything Japanese pop music had produced up until now, with a very high quality and international appeal," and that he felt that "the DNA of Japanese pop music has changed." He also commented on the album's sudden astronomical sales, saying that it "achieved a combination of revolutionary quality and popularity that had previously been thought impossible."

In a 2016 article, OKMusic's Tomoyuki Hokari noted Utada's way of putting words to melody in her work. He praised Utada's "seamless use of words, which makes the most of her unique bilingualism (she is a native speaker of both Japanese and English) - or perhaps even unaware of it - as one of the great inventions in the history of Japanese entertainment," adding, "I don't think anything has yet emerged that surpasses this invention, at least in terms of publicly recognized methods and techniques. I don't think anything has yet emerged that surpasses this invention, at least in terms of methods and techniques recognized by the public." Music Magazine's Yumiko Kakoi commented that "she has successfully and unconsciously made the best parts of R&B and songs into her own." Tomoo Yamaguchi, also of Music Magazine, commented, "The fact that there is nothing obnoxious about her music or singing ability shows the size of her capacity."

Commercial performance
First Love entered the Oricon Albums Chart at number one with 2,026,870 units sold. The album sold over five million copies in a month in March and April of 1999 and placed Utada among the 100 wealthiest people in Japan. It stayed at number one for six nonconsecutive weeks and stayed in the top 300 of the chart for 93 weeks in total. Oricon named First Love the best performing album of 1999 in Japan, with 7,365,830 copies sold by the end of the fiscal year.

By February 2000, First Love was reported to have sold more than 8 million copies in Japan alone, making it the largest-selling album in the history of the Japanese record industry. First Love is the only album or physical record to have been certified octuple million by the RIAJ, which is equivalent to being certified 32x platinum by the RIAA. The sales of First Love helped it overtake B'z's B'z The Best "Pleasure" as history's highest-selling Japanese album. Alongside its success at home, First Love also sold 500,000 copies in Taiwan, making it the highest-selling Japanese album in Taiwan's music history.

By the end of 1999, Utada was ranked 5th on Japanese radio station Tokio Hot 100 Airplay's Top 100 Artists of the 20th Century by the station and its listeners. In September 2004, First Love reached sales of 10 million copies globally, making it the highest-selling album in Asian music history. In September 2007, Rolling Stone Japan ranked First Love No.99 on its list of the "100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time". First Love is the seventh album to claim the highest weekly sales in Japan, behind her 2001 album Distance and 2002 album Deep River.

Personnel
All Japanese names are in Western order – given name before family name.


 * Hikaru Utada – vocals
 * Anthony Jimenez Corton – secret Love, additional chorus
 * Akira Nishihira – arrangement, keyboards & programming
 * Kei Kawano – arrangement, additional keyboards
 * Shinichiro Murayama – arrangement, keyboards & programming
 * Toshiyuki Mori – arrangement, keyboards & programming
 * Jun Isomura – arrangement
 * Tsuyoshi Kon – guitar
 * Yoshiaki Kusaka – guitar
 * Hironori Akiyama – guitar
 * Yuji Toriyama – guitar
 * Masayoshi Furukawa – guitar
 * Yuichiro Honda – guitar
 * Yuichiro Goto – strings
 * Jullian Hernandez – additional chorus
 * Nobuhiko Nakayama – synthesizer programming
 * Takahiro Iida – synthesizer programming
 * Masayuki Momo – synthesizer programming
 * Taka & Speedy – rhythm arrangement, rhythm programming
 * Akira Miyake – producer
 * Teruzane Sking Utada – producer
 * Hidenobu Okita – director
 * Masaaki Ugajin – all vocals' recording
 * Masaaki Ugajin, Masashi Kudo, Seiji Motoyama, Takehiko Kamata, Bob Allecca, Mike Brown – back track recording
 * Hotoda Goh – mixing
 * Ted Jensen – mastering