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%20booboosnack%20Hikaru%20Utada%20Mashups.png "A fan creates a mashup album for Hikaru Utada’s 41st birthday | Random J Pop")
19 January 2024. Hikaru Utada’s 41st birthday. And a fan who goes by ‘booboosnack’ for their musical endeavours created a mashup album to honour the day. And as great, creative and immersive as the album is (and BITCH, we’re gonna get to that), the story behind how and why the whole thing came together is just as interesting to me; providing a greater context beyond it just being a bunch of mashups. And it also speaks to something I have always found to be quite common with Hikaru Utada fans.
Here’s what booboosnack posted along with the album.
I initially questioned the prospect of having this album partially revolve around a demo that is now old enough to rent a car (and, as of this year, old enough to stop receiving healthcare in the United States). Overtime, this conflict dissolved to reveal the most crucial thing about that earnest voice nestled beneath the analog fuzz of backing tracks and magnetic tapes. Because while one can understand how much they have changed as an artist, one realizes that so much about them remains the same, and beautifully so. Random J’s words, not mine.
Although the basis of this work isn’t entirely my own, it has made me feel like less of a failure in a life that still has plenty to offer. I am at least grateful to myself for creating an opportunity to rekindle what I’ve grown to love about music itself. It gives us a story to tell, and a chance to make it our own. This album is not just a celebration of Utada’s career, but a documentation of what I have learned about them, and what I will end up appreciating about them later in life. I didn’t set out to make a bible of what a mashup album should be for this specific artist. I just wanted to share what I’ve learned and what I’ve come to love about them. With time, it will also reflect what I will end up loving about them in the years to come.
And now I’mma interrupt that profundity to say that booboosnack slammed their foot down on the pedal of the niji-iro bus, because their mashup album is very much up the alley of LGBTUTADA+. Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Lee Hyori, Mariah Carey and Ringo Sheena in this bitch!?
Gxrl.
booboosnack fired warning shots to DJ Yanatake and those others DJs who get brought out for the Hikaru Utada DJ mix sessions at Tower Records.
The Hikaru Utada’s fandom has always seemed quite unique to me. A common sentiment I see is people having found something in Hikaru Utada’s music and artistry that they didn’t know they were even looking for. And it acting as a gateway to something else. Whether it’s a sense of self, enlightenment, other music styles. Something.
Hikaru Utada was my gateway to Japanese music, which resulted in my music tastes becoming even more eclectic and all over the place. And this is what made me start this blog. In the hopes that it would make somebody else out there with a taste similar to mind go ‘OH SHIT. It’s not just me?!’. And I think that’s what Hikaru Utada’s music and career has done for many of us. It’s made us feel seen.
There’s always something being paid forward or connected in some way when it comes the Hikaru Utada fandom. Because booboosnack had tweeted that this blog made them understand Hikaru’s career a bit more and that they wouldn’t be as into J-pop as they are were it not for this raggedy blog – which is crazy to me, despite it being what made me start this blog in the first place. But in turn, this mashup album booboosnack has created really resonates with me, because aside from it featuring Hikaru Utada, who I’m a fan of, it includes mashups with other artists I’m also a fan of, and genres of music that I’m into. But, I also make mashups too and put songs and artists together that probably shouldn’t go together. So it also resonates with me creatively. And I could also imagine Hikaru Utada coming across this album and liking it too, because their music tastes are also extremely varied and all over the place and they probably like some of their artists their songs have been mashed with. There are even connections within the connections of the mashups. “One Night Magic” being mashed with a Charli XCX song produced by Sophie, who was close with and had worked with A.G. Cook on songs for Charli XCX. And A.G. Cook had produced a couple of Hikaru’s Bad Mode singles. “Addicted To You” being mashed with a Janet Jackson song produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, who also produced “Addicted To You” and another Distance single, “Wait & See (Risk)”. A song of Hikaru’s being mashed with Ringo Sheena, who Hikaru worked with on “Nijikan Dake no Vacance”.
It truly speaks to the work of Hikaru Utada and the way in which they’ve carried themselves and been so honest about aspects of their life and their approaches to their artistry and how all of these things are connected. Because of course their fandom would feature a whole bunch of sensitive bitches who are in touch with their feelings and happen to be creative. And course one of those fans would put together something as cool as a mashup album which sounds like this.
Madame Web could never.
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