Today, I decided to take a listen to an artist from a pop genre completely unfamiliar to me: j-pop.

I'm always trying to expand my musical horizons, and so I've been making an effort to audition artists and albums whose styles I have not yet heard. My wife recently bought a boxed lot of fifty CDs from eBay, and some of these discs are just so very pop, and much of today's pop music runs counter to my personal tastes in music. Amongst these discs were some j-pop albums and singles...

Today, I decided to audition Deep River by j-pop artist Utada Hikaru.

(Is that the sound of a fainting yak I hear in the distance?)

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Utada Hikaru - Deep River

At this point, it's probably best that I restate the fact that I am completely unfamiliar with j-pop, other than what I've learned from reading j-pop reviews written by my unconscious yak friend. I have no real basis of comparison to highlight the relative strengths and weaknesses of this album within the j-pop genre. What I can tell you is that, simply considered against what I like and dislike in pop music these days, there are some tracks on Deep River that I enjoy listening to, and others I probably won't bother with again.

As it turns out, I like this album ...well, let's put "like" into proper perspective.

I LOVE my wife and my kids.
I love a really good strawberry.
I love music by Sting and The Police.

I like my job. (Seriously)
I like cheeseburgers.
I like Deep River by Utada Hikaru.

I don't like that I can't watch Forty Niner football here in Dallas.
I don't like coconuts and walnuts.
I DON'T like much of the pop music by the likes of BritTina JessiSpears.

And so, I think that Deep River is an album I'll listen to every so often. I won't mind when Windows Music Player plays certain Hikaru tracks at random. I won't kick Deep River to the curb (unlike the Wild Orchid album I bought earlier in the year, but that's another review).

What I like about the album is that it's not a endless mix of the same sounds, the same beats and the same musical themes and ideas. Effort has obviously been made to create different sounds, different moods and for that, I like it. Most of the sounds are electronically created, precise and even sterile in some places, but some songs manage to produce real emotion and atmosphere. Hikaru's voice is a bit thin, but it's far from annoying or grating like some of her US counterparts. Her delivery is clean and uncomplicated, not resorting to any of the stylized and overdone vocal gimmicks that infect much of the pop music here in the states.

Most of the tracks on Deep River are danceable (not that anyone wants to see this Tomato dance), featuring computer-driven rhythm sections that outline the song in a very square manner - this is one of my issues with synthetically created dance pop of any kind. It's just too perfect. But in this recording, it's not all that bad...

Songs like Sakura Drops, Traveling and Letters manage to grab my interest with decent backing vocals, nifty arrangements and great production. I really enjoy the simple guitar arpeggios in Letters, even if they're nothing more than zeroes and ones, rather than being played by an actual person. The slightly South American flavor of the song's arrangement is a nice touch that is the right choice for the way this song moves.

Hearing Uso Mitai na I love you for the first time immediately made me wonder which came first: Evanescence's goth-pop sound or this track? Well, EV's Origin predates this album, but after hearing this track, I'd swear that Amy Lee might have swiped some ideas for Fallen from this song. The verses are very reminiscent of the EV sounds found in Origin, but the bridge and chorus return to more of a pop sound, and pull back from the more goth sounds in the verse. Probably not a good idea to be lightly menacing when singing (Japanese lyrics) I love you...

Speaking of Japanese lyrics, listening to pop sung in Japanese is actually a lot of fun. With no way to know what a song could possibly be about without looking up translations of the lyrics, I'm left to guess at each song's content based on the mood created by the music and by Hikaru's vocal interpretation of melody and the words she sings.

So is the gorgeous piano ballad (and my favorite track) Final Distance a song about being far away from a loved one? Is it about losing someone? She sounds so sad, her voice trembling in places, and the piano and strings tell me this is a song of regretful memories. OH! An English chorus, at least part of it is in English, gives some clues that seem to confirm my suspicions:

I want to be with you now
through the (??) and the distance
(Japanese)
we can start over
(Japanese) distance
we should stay together
I need to be with you

The switches between English and Japanese can be jarring sometimes to someone who has no knowledge of the Japanese language, but I would imagine that to a sixteen year old girl in Tokyo who is taking English classes at her school, this song is a melancholy romantic tear-jerker. Which means I like it too - I can be a softie that way, even when I only understand about ten percent of the lyrics.

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So what have I learned about j-pop today?

Let's keep it all in perspective - it's just one album by an artist I've never heard and know nothing about (though a quick internet search tells me Utada Hikaru is one of the most popular j-pop artists ever). But I do know that I like this recording. There are some pretty decent songs to enjoy in Deep River and none of them are outright annoying to my ear. I think that, given a choice between Hikaru and BritTina JessiSpears, I'd choose Hikaru every time, language gap and all. I much prefer listening to decent music with lyrics I can't understand to music that I simply can't stand.

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Utada Hikaru - Deep River
Released 2002 by EMI Records

Tracks
SAKURA Drops / Traveling / Shiawase ni narou / Deep River / Letters / Play Ball / Tokyo Nights / A.S.A.P. / Uso Mitai na I Love You / FINAL DISTANCE / Bridge(Interlude) / Hikari


Recommended: Yes