gantzman246 wrote:
I don't think TITO is dated at all. Mainstream American pop and r&b is very stail right now while TITO has a fresh sound. IMO the album has a blend of today's pop with 90s R&B. This Is The One has the potential as long as its promoted properly. Utada should not give up on it yet.

IceAngel wrote:
I do see what you are saying Shurikid. And I agree with you on the music companies. But thats my point when I say her music is dated. Listen to Taking My Money Back then compare it to a song like Exodus '04. The verse in TMMB has been done before. I cant remember who it was but the melody is almost the same as another song that was heard in the 90's. I have no qualms about the music. That is fresh and new. But put together with the melody (which is all that seems to matter in the music world now - you know, catchy vocal lines and such -) it makes the songs sooo dated.

Exodus '04 however is a song and part of an album that was released before its time. Which is why people may have been hesitant towards it. The vocal melody is new and different and so is the music and it fits with the time. And that was composed pretty much by Hikki herself. I'm not trying to say that Exodus is a better album. I'm just saying that TITO came out a little too late to be new, and Exodus came out a little too early to be accepted as main stream.

Promotion is the big issue. Everything has to sound like something else that is out there. The sad reality is that you cant be accepted for being different no matter how hard you try. Hikki has her flavour of things that will not quite work if she collaborates with the wrong people. I think she should find a new record company. Sorry IDJ.

Shurikid wrote:
Quote:

gantzman246 wrote:
I don't think TITO is dated at all. Mainstream American pop and r&b is very stail right now while TITO has a fresh sound. IMO the album has a blend of today's pop with 90s R&B. This Is The One has the potential as long as its promoted properly. Utada should not give up on it yet.

Exactly. TITO is, in many ways, different from mainstream pop right now, but it isn't dated or incapable of making it in the American music market. The problem is that I don't think IDJ has a clue how to market new artists. I feel like they just kind of expected that their popularity as a record label and Utada's popularity as a musical artist would equate to good sales, but that's not the case. Utada hasn't broken through in America yet, but the way IDJ handled her album made it seem as though she did. They capitalized on her popularity in Japan but have thus far failed to emphasize what Utada can bring to America. "This Is The One" is a fantastic album; the reviews for it have all been more or less positive, and even the highly selective Ryan Seacrest brought Utada onto his show because the potential is there. To be sure, some of the issues with TITO have just been bad luck. Utada getting sick in the middle of promotion was one of the worst things that could have happened, but it didn't kill the album.

For starters, a second single should have been released weeks ago; we shouldn't be sitting here speculating over whether or not there's even a second single coming. There was a hype building over "This Is The One" back in April and May; I remember having people come up to me knowing I'm a fan of Utada's music and saying they bought her new album, and I'd never even talked to them about it. CBTM was a great choice for a first single (not the BEST, but pretty good). IDJ let that hype die the minute Utada wasn't able to fly around in her private jet and talk to indifferent radio hosts who are more interested in how many people listen to their show than whether or not Utada is a good artist that deserves to be recognized. This is not the kind of action a responsible record company takes, which to me means that the people at IDJ either don't know what the heck they're doing or they just don't care about Utada. I don't think the latter is the case because they went to the trouble of creating the album in the first place, which means they spent money on something they want to profit from, and even if that's their only motivation it speaks to the fact that they would, conceivably, at the very least be TRYING. Whether they are anymore, I don't know, but it's my opinion that they just have no clue where to go with TITO because their concept of how promotions would play out were flawed from the beginning.

I know I've said this before in other discussions, but I have to restate that some of this is also just the fact that the American music market is so limited and exclusive that it's becoming increasingly difficult for new artists to start from the bottom up like they used to. Not only do you need the right record label to make it "big" these days; you need to have the right producers (Utada had them, but the irony to Utada's music is that she totally overshadows Tricky and Stargate), the best writers, and to top it off it looks like you must have competed in some cable network program like American Idol (either that or you have to be a Disney Channel fakey-actor-turned-fakey-singer). I mean, look at the people making the top hits right now. They don't write, produce, or promote their music: most of them hardly even sing their songs. The problem with America in this regard is that the music industry is only interested in churning out chart toppers by the same tried-and-true "artists" that will make a lot of money for a couple of weeks then fall to spot 2 and make way for the next big hit by Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. It's a cold day down under when we see a new face that isn't contracted by Hollywood Records or part of some contest show where you prove you can sing by whoring yourself out artistically and aesthetically so the masses can gobble you up and spit you out just in time for your well-groomed replacement to step into your boots and fill the empty role. If IDJ ever intends for Utada to make an impression here they need to get their act together and make her a top priority: if not, they need to stop torturing all of us and send out a newsletter or something explaining that they're too cheap and greedy to actually attempt to breathe some new life into our terrifically bland musical world.

OK, I'm done now. <3

Shuri/Eli

Shurikid wrote:
Quote:

gantzman246 wrote:
I don't think TITO is dated at all. Mainstream American pop and r&b is very stail right now while TITO has a fresh sound. IMO the album has a blend of today's pop with 90s R&B. This Is The One has the potential as long as its promoted properly. Utada should not give up on it yet.

Exactly. TITO is, in many ways, different from mainstream pop right now, but it isn't dated or incapable of making it in the American music market. The problem is that I don't think IDJ has a clue how to market new artists. I feel like they just kind of expected that their popularity as a record label and Utada's popularity as a musical artist would equate to good sales, but that's not the case. Utada hasn't broken through in America yet, but the way IDJ handled her album made it seem as though she did. They capitalized on her popularity in Japan but have thus far failed to emphasize what Utada can bring to America. "This Is The One" is a fantastic album; the reviews for it have all been more or less positive, and even the highly selective Ryan Seacrest brought Utada onto his show because the potential is there. To be sure, some of the issues with TITO have just been bad luck. Utada getting sick in the middle of promotion was one of the worst things that could have happened, but it didn't kill the album.

For starters, a second single should have been released weeks ago; we shouldn't be sitting here speculating over whether or not there's even a second single coming. There was a hype building over "This Is The One" back in April and May; I remember having people come up to me knowing I'm a fan of Utada's music and saying they bought her new album, and I'd never even talked to them about it. CBTM was a great choice for a first single (not the BEST, but pretty good). IDJ let that hype die the minute Utada wasn't able to fly around in her private jet and talk to indifferent radio hosts who are more interested in how many people listen to their show than whether or not Utada is a good artist that deserves to be recognized. This is not the kind of action a responsible record company takes, which to me means that the people at IDJ either don't know what the heck they're doing or they just don't care about Utada. I don't think the latter is the case because they went to the trouble of creating the album in the first place, which means they spent money on something they want to profit from, and even if that's their only motivation it speaks to the fact that they would, conceivably, at the very least be TRYING. Whether they are anymore, I don't know, but it's my opinion that they just have no clue where to go with TITO because their concept of how promotions would play out were flawed from the beginning.

I know I've said this before in other discussions, but I have to restate that some of this is also just the fact that the American music market is so limited and exclusive that it's becoming increasingly difficult for new artists to start from the bottom up like they used to. Not only do you need the right record label to make it "big" these days; you need to have the right producers (Utada had them, but the irony to Utada's music is that she totally overshadows Tricky and Stargate), the best writers, and to top it off it looks like you must have competed in some cable network program like American Idol (either that or you have to be a Disney Channel fakey-actor-turned-fakey-singer). I mean, look at the people making the top hits right now. They don't write, produce, or promote their music: most of them hardly even sing their songs. The problem with America in this regard is that the music industry is only interested in churning out chart toppers by the same tried-and-true "artists" that will make a lot of money for a couple of weeks then fall to spot 2 and make way for the next big hit by Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. It's a cold day down under when we see a new face that isn't contracted by Hollywood Records or part of some contest show where you prove you can sing by whoring yourself out artistically and aesthetically so the masses can gobble you up and spit you out just in time for your well-groomed replacement to step into your boots and fill the empty role. If IDJ ever intends for Utada to make an impression here they need to get their act together and make her a top priority: if not, they need to stop torturing all of us and send out a newsletter or something explaining that they're too cheap and greedy to actually attempt to breathe some new life into our terrifically bland musical world.

OK, I'm done now. <3

Shuri/Eli