Utada Hikaru's personal twitter feed reported about 15 minutes ago that her new album will be released on 9-28-2016.

The tweet already has more than 4,000 likes and more than 4,000 retweets.

saldiven wrote:Utada Hikaru's personal twitter feed reported about 15 minutes ago that her new album will be released on 9-28-2016.

The tweet already has more than 4,000 likes and more than 4,000 retweets.

Thanks for the heads-up! Will pre-order a copy via CDJapan. I just miss Hikaru!

A little less than 24 hours later, and her tweet has 18K+ likes and 3K+ retweets.

Will have to keep an eye out for this one when it drops. It doesn't appear it's available for pre-order quite yet. She mentioned on her website that the title for the album has not yet been decided, but we're still two months out.

I can't wait to see the silly number of units this will sell after 6 years away.

She tweeted about a half an hour ago that today was the last day of recording vocals, presumably for the upcoming album.

I listened to the sound clips of Hanataba Wo Kimini and Manatsu no Tooriame on iTunes earlier today. I enjoy them.

It seems that Hikaru's musical direction is transitioning from urban contemporary to pop standard.

Track number 1: Michi-something has been put online but having trouble linking it.

It is higher tempo than Hanataba, and has more of a dance beat to it.

Ringo Shiina is singing on track #4 "Nijikan Dake No Vacance":



Full song: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

flyingwill wrote:Ringo Shiina is singing on track [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] "Nijikan Dake No Vacance":




Full song: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This has to be one of the most overpowered duos ever, I like the song but Sheena Ringo doesnt really shine in this song which is understandable from a release that isnt hers haha

New video uploaded on her channel, Eva soundtrack!

Utada is becoming far more active on social media, all around.

She's posting stuff to her youtube channel; during her hiatus, I believe there were only a half dozen or so updates over about 5.5 years. She's also making multiple posts daily on Twitter. During her hiatus, she'd go weeks or months between tweets.

HD full version of the collab with Sheena Ringo

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Utada is coming out of her hiatus with guns blazing.

Here's an add for Suntory bottled water that she's featured in:

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Fantome is #1 in iTunes Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. 

A limited number of physical copies were made available at a variety of record stores around Japan on the 27th, the day before the official release, and they all sold out at every location.

I expect this to go Platinum rather quickly.

saldiven wrote:Fantome is #1 in iTunes Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. 

I just bought a copy of her album on iTunes!

Currently #18 in the USA iTunes downloads and #13 in the France iTunes downloads.

Also, according to Oricon, it is the number #1 album on their daily sales ranking today with over 87,000 units sold today. I'm curious how many they sold in the sneaky day-early copies that were available at stores yesterday and were all sold out across the country.

Oricon still has Fantome as #1 on the daily album sales chart.

Utada re-tweeted another screen print a fan sent to her showing that Fantome was #12 in another country's iTunes daily download chart, but I couldn't figure out which country that was.

As of right now, Fantome is #3 on this chart here, but I don't know if that's USA numbers or worldwide numbers or what this listing even represents:

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(Might change by the time you look at it if later than today.)

Edit: Apparently Hikki herself is shocked by the #3 spot on the US iTunes:

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Rina tweeted that she was listening to Fantome this morning.

Since its release, Fantome has been #1 on the daily album sales chart every day except for one, where it was 2nd. Obviously, that resulted in it being the #1 album sold for both of weekly totals since its release. The album is still currently showing as the #1 album on the Oricon charts. Over 350,000 physical copies have been sold by Oricon's tracking. Unfortunately, I don't know any way to track the digital downloads.

BTW, the RIAJ has certified Fantome as Platinum, and the album is approaching Double Platinum status. (Platinum by RIAJ standards is 250,000 copies sold.)

I kept on hearing "Manatsu no Tooriame" over and over during my vacation in Osaka two weeks ago: Almost everywhere from ytv's NEWS ZERO to Tsutaya record outlets to takoyaki kiosks.

Right now, I'm humming its tune while doing my daily paperwork.

Six weeks in, Fantome' is still in the top 15 on Oricon's weekly sales charts.