DEEP RIVER is the 3rd Japanese studio album by Hikaru Utada, released in 2002. This album was yet another massive success for the still-teenaged Utada, as it became their 3rd #1 album and the top selling Japanese album of the year the third time in a row, as well as the #8 best-selling album of all time in Japan, selling around 3.6 million copies in the country.
This album is cited by many fans and critics as Utada's best work, for a few reasons. While their previous two albums both had a distinctly R&B-pop sound with an American influence, DEEP RIVER shows more experimentation and marked the beginning of their transition into more electronically-oriented pop music. The album showcases a diverse range of styles that can generally be considered "pop" but incorporate elements of not only R&B but electronic, dance, Latin, rock and orchestral music as well. Utada also held more creative control over this album - they had always been the primary or sole writer and composer of their songs, but on this album they were also involved in the arrangements of all but 2 of the tracks. they worked mostly with one arranger (Kei Kawano) for this album rather than the wide range of producers involved in Distance.
Four singles were released for the album: "Final Distance"
, "Traveling", "Sakura Drops / Letters", and "Hikari", all of which were major hits, with the last one providing the theme song for Square’s then-latest RPG blockbuster, Kingdom Hearts. A music video was also made for the title track, "DEEP RIVER", though it was not a single. The music videos from this album were the first to be directed by the director Kiriya Kazuaki, whom they would later marry, and show markedly more elaborate visuals and concepts than their previous videos... except for the "Hikari" video, for which the original concept had to be scrapped due to scheduling issues, and instead showed a single-camera shot of Utada washing dishes for 4 minutes.
Utada also recorded an English version of "Hikari", titled "Simple & Clean", which was not included on this album, but was used as the theme song to the international port of Kingdom Hearts, becoming the series’ Signature Song among English-speaking audiences.
Not to be confused with the novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō, or its film adaptation.
Tracklist:
- "Sakura Drops" (4:58) note
- "Traveling" (5:14)
- "Shiawase ni Narou" (4:46) note
- "DEEP RIVER" (4:37)
- "Letters" (4:48)
- "Play Ball" (4:14)
- "Tokyo Nights" (4:43)
- "A.S.A.P." (4:56)
- "Uso Mitai na I Love You" (4:49)note
- "Final Distance" (5:38)
- "Bridge (Interlude)" (1:09)
- "Hikari" (5:02)note
Simple and clean are the tropes that you're making me see tonight...
- Deliberately Monochrome: The album cover and liner notes.
- Driving Song: "Traveling" is ostensibly about this, though it's actually a metaphor for something else:
- Face on the Cover: A close-up, as with almost all their albums.
- Genre Roulette: Jumps from a fusion of electronica and acoustic guitar, to a pure dance track, to mid-tempo R&B, to an world-infused acoustic ballad, to uptempo Latin-influenced pop, in the first 5 tracks.
- Genre Shift: This album can be seen as a transition point between their earlier R&B music and their later more electronic sound. A few songs are still bascially pure R&B ("Shiawase ni Narou", "A.S.A.P") while other songs, like "Traveling" (pure dance-pop) and "DEEP RIVER" (acoustic guitar ballad with a prominent sitar) are new territory.
- Intercourse with You: "Traveling" is a rare example from their Japanese music. It's not very obvious but there is plenty of subtext making it clear:[...]Can you take me up? You look quite goodCan you keep it up? I would like to
- Location Song: "Tokyo Nights" is one, for Tokyo. The lyrics deal with loneliness and seeking fulfillment, which they finds in the city lights.
- Melismatic Vocals: Mostly downplayed or averted, in contrast to their previous albums.
- Minimalism: The music video for "Hikari". Utada washes dishes, drinks water, while sometimes lipsyncing along to the song. That's it. Done in one take and with one camera, with no editing.
- New Sound Album: Compared to their previous albums, this has a lot less R&B and more of...basically everything, but particularly electronic music, which would carry on into their later albums.
- The Oner: The music video for "Hikari" was done in one take with no editing.
- Scenery Porn: The music videos for "Final Distance", "Traveling" and "Sakura Drops" are all very elaborate and fantastical, and very beautiful, compared to their previous music videos.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Utada is the only vocalist credited on the album, so they does this a lot. It's most noticeable on "Traveling" and "Play Ball".
- Shoulders-Up Nudity: The album cover art. You can't quite see their shoulders on the front cover, but they're shown on the back cover. Several photos in the album booklet also show their this way, though in others she's wearing a white dress.
- Softer and Slower Cover: "Final Distance" is one of "Distance", from their album of the same name. It was going to be released as a single from that album, but after the Osaka school massacre they decided to re-record the song as a sombre ballad in commemoration of one of the victims who was a fan of Utada.
- Stop and Go: "Uso Mitai na I Love You" does this with its ending. The song stops for a couple of seconds, before the ending riff kicks in again, playing twice before the actual ending.
- Title Track: "DEEP RIVER", though the title doesn't appear in the song.
- Translated Cover Version: "Simple & Clean" is the English version of "Hikari". It wasn't included on the album, but was used as the theme song to Kingdom Hearts and is probably their most famous song in English-speaking countries.note
