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Singer Hikaru Utada drops two digital singles this month

Japanese-American pop artist Hikaru Utada. (Photo: Epic Records Japan)
Japanese-American pop artist Hikaru Utada. (Photo: Epic Records Japan)

The highly acclaimed Hikaru Utada just released a digital single titled “Time” earlier this month, and has another digital single titled “Dare ni mo Iwanai”, meaning “won’t tell anyone”, coming up on 29 May.

Even if you have no idea who Hikaru Utada is, you must have at least heard of her 1999 Japanese debut album song First Love. The Japanese-American singer-songwriter has since been active in both Japan and the United States before going into hiatus from 2011.

Although Utada made a brief comeback in 2012, the R&B and dance-pop singer only officially returned to the entertainment industry in 2016. Resuming her glory days, Utada’s subsequent releases are nothing short of well-received.

Likewise for her latest digital single “Time”, it was downloaded more than 32,000 times within its first week of release, snatching the top position on the Oricon Weekly Digital Single Ranking. “Time” is also the theme song for the currently airing Japanese TV drama Gourmet Detective Goro Akechi, starring Tomoya Nakamura. For viewers in Singapore, you can catch the drama, same week as Japan on GEM TV on both Singtel TV and Starhub TV.

Being a digital single, Time is available for download on streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify and iTunes Store. Or, you can catch a short version below, which already has more than 2 million views.

As for her upcoming digital single “Dare ni mo Iwanai”, it is the song used in the commercial of Suntory Natural Mineral Water.

What’s more, in view of the COVID-19 lockdown, Utada is also doing an Instagram live session every Sunday this month, starting between 6:30pm to 7pm SGT. It turned out that her guest for her Instagram live session on 10 May was actually Tomoya Nakamura, the lead actor in Gourmet Detective Goro Akechi. Who knows who else we will see in the upcoming sessions? Perhaps someone related to her upcoming single Dare ni mo Iwanai?