|
is a song recorded by Japanese recording artist and producer Hikaru Utada for her third studio album ''Deep River'' (2002). The song was written, produced and co-composed by Utada herself, while additional production was handled by long-term collaborators Akira Miyake and her father Teruzane Utada. "Hikari" was originally written and recorded for the video game ''Kingdom Hearts'' and was eventually added to the video game as the official theme song, while an English-language version "Simple & Clean" was used for the international editions. The single was then added to her studio album, along with her compilation album ''Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 1'' (2004). Musically, the songs are acoustic pop songs that utilize elements of pop music, rock music and electronic synthesizers and keyboards for instrumentation. Both version also received a remix that incorporated dance music that was used as the opening sequence for the video game. Lyrically, the songs discusses a relationship between the protagonist and the lover. Utada found it hard to write the theme song for the video game because she felt the concept and plot of the game was "soulless".〔 Themes incorporated in the song include love, peace and the aftermath of it all. "Hikari" and "Simple & Clean" received favorable reception from most music critics, who had highlighted the track as an album standout and praised it for its simple production, vocal abilities and composition values. Critics also suggested it to be one of the best video game songs in recent history. Commercially, "Hikari" was a success in her native Japan, peaking at number one on the Oricon chart and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of 500,000 units. It was the second consecutive number one single from the parent album. This became her first charting single off 2002 and her first single to chart at number one during that year. The accompanying music video was issued for the single as well, being directed by her then-husband Kazuaki Kiriya and featured Utada washing her dishes and drinking water in an kitchen area. The simplistic video was shot like this due to schedule conflicts between Utada and Kiriya, and managed to just record a video for this. The song has been performed on several of Utada's domestic and international tours including Utada United 2006 and Utada: In the Flesh 2010 ==Background== During her four-year career since her 1998 debut with her single "Automatic", Utada's status as a Japanese singer and producer was enormous and had benefited with strong sales around Japan. Her first two singles since her debut; "Automatic" and "Movin' On Without You" sold over one million units in Japan, with the first selling over two million. The parent album ''First Love'' eventually became the highest selling Japanese album of all time, exceeding sales of more than 7.6 million units in Japan and was certified octuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of eight million units; the album eventually sold an addotional three million worldwide, totaling to 10 million sales. By the end of the year, Utada was rank number 5 on a Japanese radio station Tokio Hot 100 Airplay's ''Top 100 Artists of the 20th Century'' by the station and its listeners. After having a two-year break from the public, her second studio album ''Distance'' (2000) became another success in Japan and sold over four million units in Japan. The album was backed by the singles "Addicted to You", "Wait & See (Risk)", "For You" / "Time Limit" and "Can You Keep a Secret?", with nearly all the singles achieving over one million sales in Japan. After the promotion off the album was complete, Utada went on to create her third studio album ''Deep River'', which served an July 2002 release. Before its addition to ''Kingdom Hearts'', the initial idea for ''Kingdom Hearts'' began with a discussion between Shinji Hashimoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi about ''Super Mario 64''. The game began development in February 2000 and originally focused more on the gameplay with a simple story to appeal to Disney's target age range. After executive producer Hironobu Sakaguchi told director Tetsuya Nomura the game would be a failure if it did not aim for the same level as the ''Final Fantasy'' series, Nomura began to develop the story further.〔 According to Nomura, he had only Utada in mind to use her for the ''Kingdom Heart'' game, and further series, and approached her to record a track for the game. He felt that because of Utada's strong status in Japan and her mixture of both American-Japanese heritage, he felt it would work better with some one to record both English and Japanese language tracks.〔 Her involvement, along with the first song's Japanese title, was announced in January 2002. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hikari (Hikaru Utada song)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|