Entry 2: Utada Hikaru - Japanese Pop Sensation

In line with the first blog about the Wonder Girls, I will discuss another case of Asian pop singer trying to capture the audience in US. She is regarded as one of the first Asian artists who entered US market, and her musical identity as an Asian singer can be compared with that of the Wonder Girls, which I will discuss at the latter part.
She was born in NY and raised both in US and Japan, and her identity can be attributed to her family background and experiences in both countries. She debuted in Japanese music market with an album First Love, and it brought a huge success, selling more than 10 million.
A series of albums followed after First Love were successful, which gave her a nickname of ‘Pop Sensation’, ‘Britney Spears’, ‘Christina Aguilera’ in Japan.
Her music is influenced by her mother who was a famous traditional Japanese music (enka) singer, and she tries to globalise her unique musical styles with which enka musical characteristics are imbued.

After her success in Japanese music market, she attempted to enter the US market, releasing her first English album Exodus, after working with Timbaland. However, the response from the audience was rather disappointing due to the indifference of Asian singers in US market by that time. As Utada said in her interview with MTV, “I don't think it's the music that I'm concerned about. It's obviously that I look really different and there really aren't any completely Asian people [who are popular singers in the U.S.] right now.”

As opposed to the Wonder Girls’ marketing strategy – they are indeed quite well-prepared in terms of infiltrating into US market – which identifies themselves as cute Asian girls from Asia with Asian context, Utada Hikaru identifies her music less in an ‘Asian’ context but in a globalised musician in appealing to the audience in US. In other words, instead of trying to labelling her music as ‘Japanese’ music, which belongs to ethnic music, she tries to fit her music into Hollywood music context.
Her attempts in the transition of Japanese music into American music market can be seen as natural (considering that she is fluent in both English and Japanese) as well as her ordinariness, not being a ‘pop sensation’ in Japan. This can be seen in an interview with CNN, in which she says, “Actually, it's not that different for me... Well, I saw you earlier saying that 'Japanese Pop Sensation', but I'm really not pop sensation... person...” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fckMNcC8HdY
The issue of being a ‘Japanese Pop Sensation’ leads to a discussion of a comparison with American pop sensation, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera. Instead of comparing herself with American pop singers, she tries to build up her own identity and to promote her ‘Japan-ness’ to the audience in US. In an interview with Time magazine, she answers to a question which talks about her music style in comparison with Britney Spears’, that “…I'm not like a gorgeous bombshell or anything like that…It was just always my music at the front” (Time).
As can be seen from the excepts of the interviews, she identifies herself as being different from other American pop singers, as Utada Hikaru herself who has her own music style. In a question about the strategy to appeal to American audience, she points out that she wants to create her own music; by creating, writing, and arranging her music for herself. She also says that no matter where she plays, her music style would be the same, which implies that her attempts to American music market should be seen as something different from other ethnic music – for example, the Wonder Girls’ music can be considered as ethnic in a sense that their music style is kind of like a retro-pop from Korea, which contains a strong Korean context. That is, the Wonder Girls attempt to promote their musical identity by stereotyping their image as an Asian girl group, whereas Utada Hikaru tries to appeal to the audience by tearing down stereotypes of Asian singers. She tries to break down the stereotyping of Asian music and Asian singers. This is well represented in an article in Time: “The music industry is ruled by stereotypes: whites rock, blacks rap and croon soul, and few dare to cross the color line. There are hardly any Asian pop acts of prominence in the U.S. (no wonder some see Hikaru as mysterious). Hikaru is mounting a challenge to the status quo”.

(Works Cited List)

Maki, Okada, and Gerald Groemer. "Musical Characteristics of Enka." Popular Music 10.3 (1991): 283-303. JSTOR. Web. 12 May 2010.