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Come Back to Me Free on iTunes

This an addendum of [Review] Utada Hikaru's This is [not] the One (Part 1). These are my thoughts on each of the tracks.

You can listen to the album yourself on her official site: Utada.com

1. Come Back to Me

   It's obvious why this song was chosen as the first single for the album. It's a pop ballad, produced in collaboration with Stargate, the team behind Ne-Yo's "So Sick," Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" and other notable hits. "Come Back to Me" naturally has a somewhat similar sound and could possibly be very marketable.

   But, I have trouble with some of the lyrics and melody. I'm captivated by the first set of verses, pre-chorus and chorus. They all sound good to me and set up the story, if you will, of the song.

   The next set of verses continue the story but comes as a discord. The subject shifts from first person to third person, which is a little jarring. The melody also gets a little awkward as the verse structure seems to change with "And she buys this \ And she buys that \ Just leave her alone" in one verse and "It isn't that bad \ It isn't that bad \ And she's wiser for it now" in the other. This is followed by a pre-chorus that returns to a first person story, which further highlights the discord. I think the first person verses are good and that's what she should have stuck to.

   In the last set of verses, she changes the pace and packs more syllables in, which I found nice until she breaks meter with "You are my priority \ Can't you see you punished me \ More than enough already" It just doesn't sound right with the "more than enough already."

   The single was released several weeks ago on iTunes, and it doesn't seem to have appeared on the radio here in LA yet. Perhaps it's too soon to judge if that's a sign of its rejection. I suppose time will tell.

   You can download the music video from iTunes for free for the rest of this week, which by the time I post this won't be very long.

2. Me Meuro

   This is just a strange little song. Having a Spanish title, from a Japanese-American artist on an English language album is perhaps the first indicator. "Me meuro," as Google tells me means "I die." And surely in the song she sings of suicide, depression and alcoholism--some of which could be metaphorical but I'm just not sure. She sings of a lover who leaves her and goes away to Istanbul, while she's channel surfing and eating Godiva. Well, Godiva was sold to a Turkish company, and Istanbul is a city in Turkey, so at least there's some logical connection there, but it sort of highlights the quirkiness of the song. Somewhere in there she asks if she should "go Winona Ryder / and do some crazy thing." Yeah, just kind of random.

3. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI

   For FYI, Utada samples the work of the prolific artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, who you might not know by name, but I'm sure you have experienced his work. The sampled tune gives the song an interesting semi-Asian feel, which reminds me of some of Utada's Japanese songs. The rest of the song mostly rubs me the wrong way. It's full of awkward sounding verses like "NYC, NYC (wha-at, wha-at?) \ Tokyo, Tokyo (wha-at, wha-at?) \ Send it out from the streets to the highest, to the highest high." And then "MP3, MP3, players \ Work it out, work it out, hustlers \ Oh my name got him there, ooh." NYC, MP3, FYI? Makes me think WTF? I'm not sure how that all fits together.

   There's also a verse that I'm not if I hear it right, but it seems most of the internet hears it the way I do: "Like Captain Picard \ I'm chillin' and flossin' \ It's seven o'clock \ I issue you the warning." "Like Captain Picard?!" That's another WTF?! What does that mean? Why did that seem like an appropriate simile? Things like that throw me completely out of the song.

4. Apple and Cinnamon

   Now this song has the makings of a good R&B hit. It sounds like any R&B song we might hear on the radio. It has a good beat to it, and the message is simple and relatable. I love the line "I can't believe that you and me were falling out of love \ and everybody used to be so envious of us." I say this a great candidate for a second single for the album if it gets that far.

   I do have one hangup with it. The simile "chemistry like Apple and Cinnamon" doesn't sit right with me. Yes, the combination of apple and cinnamon is something very acceptable...in things like cakes, pie and some cereals, but we don't normally refer to the union as "chemistry." I suppose it's a valid usage, but it's awkward. And yes, artists often come up with new phrases that make it into popular culture, but I think "like apple and cinnamon" in the context she tries to use it in, is slightly too obscure and Utada herself is not popular enough for that to happen.

5. Taking My Money Back

   This is another case of a pretty good sounding song that I feel has its drawbacks in the lyrical premise. The song starts out with a style that reminds me of that of Aaliyah's, which is a great sound. The story I get from the song is one of a girl who realizes her boyfriend isn't good for her despite the things that made her fall for him and expresses it by "taking [her] money back." I can see that kind of working literally and metaphorically, but money is also a symbol of superficiality so taking that back may not mean all that much. Most people probably won't think about such things as much as I do, so this song could possibly be a hit.

6. "This One (Crying Like a Child)"

   Again, this is another example of a good sounding song, but when I pay attention to the lyrics, I wonder if I am hearing them correctly. If I am interpreting it correctly, this song is about a fan, maybe groupie, who forms somewhat of an obsession over her favorite artist, who she had a brief affair with. But I almost think that our speaker is just a crazy delusional fan. Either way, the rest of the song makes her sound border-line crazy but in a sweet melodic way.

   I think it's kind of cool that she makes a reference to one of her inspirations, Freddy Mercury, with the line, "I'm living on my own \ like Freddy." A bit of trivia: Utada performed a cover of "Living on My Own" during one of her tours. But, it doesn't quite sound right in the song. What also doesn't sound right is later she sings, "We should get back on the road / Like Simon and Garfunkel / Let's get married." So I get how the first two lines relate, but how does getting married work with it? The marriage idea fits in the context of the rest of the song, but in that instance it confused me. I don't know much about Simon and Garfunkel nor if they have any relation to Utada, so I simply might be missing something.

7. Automatic Part II

   "Automatic" is a single from Utada's break-out Japanese album released in 1999. That's a whole decade ago! Now she brings us "Part II". Apparently a lot has changed in ten years as "Automatic" was a much more cute, innocent, and pop-sounding song than "Part II." "Part II" is certainly more grown up and has more of a hip-hop/R&B sound. I like it, but at the same time I don't. Much like all of the other tracks, I like the sound but the lyrics take me out.

   It starts out with "Hello my name is Utada like la-di-da-di-da-di-dah \ For your information I am here to take it higher." I don't like starting out with such pretentiousness. This is reinforced later in the song in the two lines "Do you like the way I rhyme, it's pretty darn clever" When I hear questions like that I would probably answer "no," whether or not it's true.

   Elsewhere in the song she sings "Find out all about me on myspace and my news letter \ I'll be glad to add you but I won't give you my number." The Myspace reference dates the song a little, especially since Myspace's popularity seems to be dwindling while Facebook's is growing at this currently.

   The verse that catches my most attention is "Contraceptive \ When I'm on it, it's \ Automatic." When I heard this, I was like, "what a minute..." Does this mean that when she's on the pill it's ....eh? It makes me wonder. This certainly shows a more grown up Utada. Sexuality doesn't come up much in her Japanese work. This is due perhaps in part to the fact she started her career practically as a child, at age 16.

8. Poppin'

   To me, this is the album's throwaway song. It has a spy music feel to it, but speaks as a party song. I'm not sure what Utada's intent was. It must have been a fun experiment for her, much like most of the tracks in her last all English album Exodus

   I'm sure there's a group of people that the song works for, but I personally could do without it.

9. Dirty Desire

   So, the title of this song gives you an idea of what's to come. The melody of the first verse actually makes the song sound cute and innocent and almost bubble-gummy, and perhaps that was a deliberate choice of irony. But, the pre-chorus quickly reminds us about the kind of song this really is: "When I'm alone at night \ I sit and fantasize \ And in my fantasies I love you long time \ Doing my nine to five \ I'm thinking six and nines \ I gotta make you mine." That's right, she's thinking six and nines--my kind of girl. Still, this it's kind of cheesy.

   Wait, back up: "I love you long time?!" Oh dear. What self-respecting Asian(-American) woman would say that?! I wonder what audience she had in mind when she wrote that. She probably thought it was playful, but it made me cringe.

   The rest of the song is filled with lyrics that a dirty mind would see as obvious sexual allusions and metaphors set to a nice dance beat. So, there might be life for this song in a club, though not any self-respecting Asian club.

10. On and On

    On and On has a good chance as a dance song. It's too repetitive for radio play and lyrically it doesn't have much content, which might be a good thing if it can find its way into clubs. With it's main message of "make the night go on and on and on..." it's great for parties. Though, the stanza "honeys if you're gay, burn it up \ like a gay parade \ honeys if you're straight, pump it up \ take it all away" is awkward melodically and lyrically. I'm also not sure if the US in general is ready to imagine how a gay parade "burn[s] it up." Though, the beat can probably overshadow the lyrics when played in a club, and if no one's paying attention, no one will care, just like most songs.

The more I listen to this album the more some of the songs grow on me. It isn't as bad as I originally thought, but it's still not as good as I hoped it would be. I definitely like it better than Exodus, and give This is the One a better chance of success in the US, but I still feel that it falls short in terms of getting and keeping the attention of the general market. This is one of the things that I would love to be proven wrong about.