Utada Hikaru: Passion ?Toshiba EMI

Utada is in a dangerous place. Not commercially, of course. As she readily admits, Japan will buy anything she drops, quality and creativity aside. But musically, I think she's on the edge of losing touch with her identity. All the clich?s about not forgetting where you came from apply here.

I know, I should cut out the impulsive analysis, but how can you not be tempted to dissect a career as interesting as hers? It's not everyday that a sixteen year old sells nearly ten million copies of her debut album, and while I'm on the tangent, please do find a copy of First Love if you haven't already. It's a masterpiece and still her best by far. Beware, however, of fantasies that Utada will abandon this electronica stuff and parade her Japanese material across North America.

Anyway, reality is that we will probably see a lot more music like Passion from Utada, and that's not a particularly good thing. Backwards lyrics are not novel, they're distracting. She seems to have confused muddy and sophisticated songwriting, which is a real drag here because the actual melody is entrancing and parallels the style of the original Kingdom Hearts theme. But instead of cherishing every note like she did in Simple and Clean, she's made a mess that sounds like a radio caught between two stations. (In the weird coincidence department, the song also bears a striking resemblance to .hack/SIGN's battle music.)

No, it's not really a bad single. Yes, the After the Battle version cleans things up a little bit. But Utada is capable of great things, so she loses points for outthinking herself on this one.

From December 22nd to January 11th, you can download a special online performance of Passion from Utada's website. These things are too cool to miss.