| Utada Hikaru, born in New York City in 1983, grew up immersed in music. Recently she's earned much praise for her musicl sense and for her talent as singer-songwriter. Everything started with the single "Time Will Tell," which registered on numerous FM charts more than a month before her official debut "Automatic." That release also did well on the charts, and since than, she's followed it up with more and more songs, many of them entering the charts at the same time! Utada won the "PowerPlay" on dozens of nationwide FM stations. It is still freshly remembered that on the week of its release, her single set the record of ranking No.1 in frequency of airplay on FM and AM stations in both the Kanto and Kansai regions (203 times per week a 1998 record). And it's a well-known fact that "Automatic/Time Will Tell" (released Dec. 9,1998 as both 12cm and 8cm discs) amazed everybody, achieving the extraordinary distinction of being ranked highly on various sales charts for both 12cm disc and 8cm discs, including the Original Confidence (Ori-Con) chart. Her following second single "Movin' On Without You" (released February 17, 1999), a commercial song for Nissan Terrano, earned the top postion as it appeared in th Original Confidence chart. |
