Released in 1999, Hikaru Utada’s major debut, First Love, remains the best-selling album of all time in Japan. The 38-year-old artist has never been one to rest on her laurels, and she’s just released her latest creation, the music video for her song “Pink Love.”
Utada’s last two music videos, by nature of being filmed at the height of the pandemic, featured no one on camera other than the vocalist herself, save a few people in the distant background of an outdoor scene. In stark contrast, “Pink Blood’s” video shows her in the middle of a writhing mass of darkly clothed humanity.
The experience doesn’t really look like a pleasant one, though, and several other shots are of Utada in solitude, including a repeating motif where she’s part of the earth itself, either emerging from or receding into the ground.
The mixture of music and lyrics also reflect the sense of melancholy that can accompany necessary emotional self-reliance. “Being cared for by someone who doesn’t understand my value won’t help me,” she sings, along with “It hurts when you realize that you’re the only one who can heal yourself.”
The bittersweet atmosphere is especially fitting in light of “Pink Blood” also being the opening theme for currently airing anime “To Your Eternity,” the story of an immortal being who emotionally grows through the relationships he forms with people he’ll outlive and inevitably have to part with.
Overall, it’s a much more somber tone than the at-home vibe of the videos for Utada’s “Time,” or the warm sequences of “One Last Kiss” that her son helped film. There’s long been a mixture of sorrow and strength in Utada’s vocals, though, much like there often is in life, and the sights and sounds of “Pink Blood” will likely to linger in fans’ minds for quite some time.
Source: YouTube/ Hikaru Utada
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- The Japan Ninja Council opens crowdfunding campaign for Nindo, the Online Ninja Academy
-- New hell found in Nagasaki, campaign to name it underway
© SoraNews24
31 Comments
Login to comment
gogogo
She's still got it!
asusa tabi
Love Sheena Ringo and Hikaru Utada
snowymountainhell
Agreed @gogogo & @asusaTabi 7:01am:
The song is Hikaru Utada’s haunting new music video for 'Pink Blood' yet, the first para reads:
Did we or, the SoraNews editor miss something?
Samit Basu
Kinda amazing how Utada Hikaru the natural-born American couldn't break into American music scene, while BTS and BlackPink rule American music scene right now.
Gaijinjland
Have to agree with @ Samit Basu. Even Japan’s ONE OK ROCK is big in the States. Their English is excellent but by no means native like Utada’s. It is really strange she was never able to break into the American market.
Hiro
@Samit Basu, is just simping for very attractive asian males and females. These days music is never about the content but about the looks. You should see just how crazy the females goes for certain males singers. Both young and old. My mother really like one of the chinese singer but i find his songs kinda boring. Every time i visit her, she play his songs in the house. I pity my dad.
bakakuma
Timing is everything. BTS hit the anime generation with Asian culture hitting main stream. With Utada things were just at market entry and not main stream. Wouldnt even see Asians on tv unless it was kung-fu or being imitated and made fun of at the time. A gap of two decades is alot.
Strangerland
I just think she makes better Japanese music than English music. On top of this, Japanese music has a different cadence than Western music, which doesn't seem to carry over so well. That's why there are very few Japanese music stars that have broken into the English music industry.
theResident
@Samit Basu - - Yeah yeah..we know you are just looking for an excuse to be pro-Korea/anti-Japan. You are always looking for the excuse. Don't even try and pretend your post is anything but that.
Speed
Not too into this song. I think Utada's lost it a bit. I really liked her debut album. The name Pink Blood is kind of eww too.
shogun36
I remember when she used to make unbelievable hits! I really miss those days.
thelonius
@Samit Basu
Different times now. BTS' message on the fluidity of gender (i.e. how boys can look and act like girls) is a concept that can find an audience now.
Back in the 90s or early 2000s, they would have been a fringe act at best.
itsonlyrocknroll
I went to the concert in Islington London, a lifetime ago, one could almost reach out and shake her hand
Dads birthday present, he was the oldest guy in the room, He didn't have to wear the medallion though, never forgive him for that, he insisted on escorting me.
He danced as well, I put a bag over my head, scared for life.
bass4funk
Never liked her voice or her music, but I do respect how she persevered in the Japanese music industry, definitely a hard worker and I can deeply respect her determination and work ethics.
itsonlyrocknroll
Good spot bass4funk, Hikaru Utada has her own management company U3Music that handles the production.
itsonlyrocknroll
Thank Dad for that
KansaiTen
Have to agree with Strangerland. American producers, especially in hip-hop, just try to transform Japanese singers into their standard production formulas. Never works—Take Mai Kuraki, who was a rival of Utada back in the day, as an example. Bombed in the US, but seven No.1 albums in Japan.
US producers just don’t seem to appreciate Japanese sensibilities when it comes to pop music. However, Japanese producers & artists do take ideas from many US-based artists and are able to successfully add it to their own work.
foreignbrotherhoodarmy
Awful singer and awful songwriting.
bass4funk
Yes and No. If she didn’t have the parents she had, her rise would have been more difficult, not impossible, but more difficult, at best she’s a mediocre performer, but again, that’s not a put down, for her fans and followers that love her, more power to her, and again, she worked hard to get to where she’s at, but do I find her a talented musician, not really.
Bob Fosse
You always post about artists you don’t like. I’d like to imagine you are supporting musicians or actors you do like on some alternative page somewhere.
kaimycahl
@Samit Basu Kinda amazing how Utada Hikaru the natural-born American couldn't break into American music scene, while BTS and BlackPink rule American music scene right now. Kids today don't know music, its not about what SOUNDS GOOD, its about what LOOKS GOOD. Guys who look like girls, who have been trained for years to dance and sing, vs someone who has natural born TALENT. UTADA can sing. If you EVER been to a music studio and listen to all the off notes that gets recorded that gets correct in Ceremony then you will understand how you get perfect pitch. UTADA doesn't need voice correction she is a one take then to the back grounds and ad libs. Seen it done, very beautiful voice the only female singer in Japan that I would say could out singer her would be Misia.
HillclimberToday 03:09 pm JST
Samit BasuToday 08:47 am JST
The American music scene right now: Filled to the rafters with either rap/hip hop or a derivative of. And you're saying some Koreans rule over that? Haha. Agree American's don't stick with one genre they tend to move one form of music to create another music genre for RAP-Trap and so on!!!
Real music went independent 20 years ago. Korea-pop only bubbled to the surface because all the real artists got out of the pool. Exactly musicians moved on, music evolved around ones environment and the street scene and drug culture. Korean music is nothing but demo R&B with a new jack swing with cute girly guys being screamed at by these young kids who just look at flesh and not understand music they only see fashion and cuteness and sex sells!!!
I would pay to go see UTADA perform over BTS any day!!! BECAUSE I know I am not going to get any LIP SYNCHING!!
Bob Fosse
I respect that too. I certainly wouldn’t seek an artist out to badmouth them.
But I know a few people here who would, sadly.
bass4funk
Well, her family did have some connections, so that helps.
As for myself, the only help I got was that they paid my tuition for one of my schools, that helped and if people are jealous, envious, or hateful, doesn't matter and I could care less, I will do the same for my kids as well, but after that, you are on your own.
That is just not true the majority of the time, except if you have parents that didn't ground their kids, then perhaps.
bass4funk
Not seeking them out, the thread is on JT, we are in the comment section and I commented.
Can't help it, I'm in the business, so yes, I am very critical.
Again, I didn't say anything bad about the woman and I did compliment her, but somehow you guys glossed over that. I'll give you another example, I don't like Madonna's music, never did, but as a businesswoman, innovator, hard worker, and a person that knows how to market a brand, Madonna has my biggest respect all the way around.
cleo
How the English language works is not personal opinion, You can’t just string words together in whatever way it suits you and expect people to guess that you actually meant the opposite of what you said.
Not if you want to communicate meaningfully, at least.
bass4funk
That’s your opinion, but thank you anyway.
I have to listen to the people are dictating to the rest of the world how to use pronouns and what is appropriate and what isn’t, spare me.
This is not an English literature debate and not contingent of me or anyone else trying to land employment at some law firm. Liberals, please stop being the speech police. Relax, don’t be so critical and let people say what they want. Life is really good.