Hatsukoi.

I didn't expect to get Utada Hikaru's new CD, Hatsukoi, anytime soon. It's not that I couldn't afford it, though it is rather pricey here in Tokyo. I just didn't want to have my heart broken into a thousand pieces, since from everything I had heard about this album... it's your typical, Utada drowning in a bath tub full of her sadness. She did just get rid of that Italian husband of hers (no surprise there... we all saw that coming), but upon listening to Hatsukoi for the very first time this week... I'm surprised it isn't as bitter as I thought it might be. BUT it certainly is full of much more sadness that even a billionaire's bath tub can hold. 

I'm talking that it's so sad sounding it's straight slit your wrist and neck depressing. No bullshit. 

I think HOW I got the album too didn't help me in the depression department either. I had pre-ordered this months and months ago and completely forgot about it. Then the person who helped me pre-order it brought it to a meeting with her... a meeting that I had been wanting for a long time... two months almost to be exact. It was the first thing she did when she saw me, besides cry... she handed me Utada's CD. Then she told me she won me a concert ticket to see Utada in December in Saitama. To think, I'll finally have a chance to see Utada... which would complete my entire list of artists I've ever wanted to see. She's the last one on my list, and then.. I've seen them all. Truly.

Now, my Japanese music history goes like this:  First, there was Perfume, then there was Utada, then AKB48, then Toriena, and then Guso Drop, then Yanamyu, and now... well, I'm head deep in idol music now that everything else has kind of faded from my musical radar. And I'm not complaining about this because I truly love me some good idol music. Play me There There There's any day of the week and I'm a happy otaku. But... Utada... she's like the person I go to when I'm feeling the most down or need true inspiration from a muse who is severely cracked. And with Utada, there's always been something rather "off" with her. I thought becoming a mother would've chilled her the fuck out but nope... she's at the TOP of her fucking Prozac pushing game with Hatsukoi. This album I can't stop listening too, as I sit here and work on a million different things, including writing like a maniac. But this album... it's typical Utada in that she bears her heart all over every song. The melodies aren't as hooky as her past melodies, but this is more... encompassing with the sound. Like SO much is going on with the instrumentation that backs her voice that you can get lost in each song. Definitely an album deserving of repeated listens. She even has a Boku Wa Kuma style song on the album (which I skip... it's nowhere near as kawaii and catchy as Boku Wa Kuma). And the whole album paces along in true typical Hikki fashion, going from the sad to the poppy to the experimental to the guest vocal song (something she's really into lately), until it hits track eleven... and then my world ends.

The song is called "夕凪" and honestly, if you want THE essential song to play right before you chug a shotgun down your throat, this is the song to hear last before you exit the world. It's.... TOO sad. TOO visceral. TOO deeply disturbing. That chant she does at the end of this song..... over and over again... I mean, if I were her and I was performing this live, I would do this chant for twenty minutes straight. That's my only critique of this whole album, actually... this chant at the end of 夕凪 is way too short. It needs to go on and on and get more and more intense. I would've loved to see Utada break down and cry at the end. I mean... it's the kind of magic that only music can create... that emotion called "suffering" that from this day forward, when I look back on my life during this very, very troubling time in my existence, 夕凪 will be the first song that pops up on the nostalgia playlist. Anytime I hear this song, I'll remember soaking in the sweltering Tokyo summer heat of 2018, working with Chika idols in a universe that can punish you just for saying hello to an idol in a way that isn't carefully guarded or in an appropriate fashion, yet at the same time has the weirdest and strangest sub-cultural appeal of any sub-culture I've been a part of experienced that has brought me more joy than I can ever remember having in life. I'll remember the pain I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it, and how it's driving me to the bring of utter self-destruction, and I'm trying like crazy to stay busy, stay healthy, stay focused on the gifts I have yet to give the world... my gifts that God gave me to share, these horrific stories in my mind. Stories about Pan Gu ending the world and the boy who has an imaginary girlfriend who is the key to saving humanity (or ending them?). Stories about a girl who worships a male AV porn star but then... well, she has much more to offer this obsession of hers besides her heart. Stories about a man who longs for a girlfriend and then gets one every night, but those girls disappear the next morning, and yet... he is more emptier than he has ever felt before when they leave. Until that is, the one girl spends the night who changes his world by the morning... and what can he do, knowing she'll disappear by the time his eyes close and he wakes up the next day.

And this is just the start. Utada reminds me that there are people out there who have hearts just as broken as my heart is in this moment. And knowing I'm not alone doesn't necessarily make it better, but as I sit here, chanting and chanting singing so many of the songs off Hatsukoi, I revel in the mystery of life that pulls all these tears out of my eyes when I'm singing Hikki's self-absorbed and deeply personal songs and making them  my own and yet... not wanting to die but wanting to press my feet down even harder on the bed of hot coals that my life has become. I have to press on and tell not just the stories in my head, but my story too.

Anyway, please continue to love and support me here on Patreon. Just a fun fact for all of you... if you each got 10 of your friends to give me 10 dollars, I would have enough money every single month to live without financial constraint. Something to consider!