(Image from EMI Music Japan)
Japanese pop star Utada Hikaru is trying her luck with the English music market again with her new album “Come Back to Me”.
The New York born artist has released two all-English album to date, “Precious” (using pseudonym Cubic-U) in 1998 and “Exodus” in 2004. Both the albums did pretty well in Japan, but rather disappointing in US.
Good to see that Hikki hasn’t given up on becoming a global star. The title track Come Back to Me is currently streamed at Island Records… and the full album is scheduled to release in March 2009.
Japan’s Oricon has released the Top 100 Japanese albums/singles charts for 2008.
Pop band EXILE dominates the album chart with three albums in the Top 10, while the singles chart is ruled by the Johnny’s boybands, i.e. Arashi and KAT-TUN etc.
Pop group TVXQ is the only Korean artist(s) that made it into the singles chart, with “Beautiful You” at 73rd spot… known as Tohoshinki in Japan, the K-pop group has another two singles at 78th and 91st spots respectively.
Top 10 best selling Japanese albums of 2008
1. EXILE Love (EXILE)
2. Best Fiction (Namie Amuro)
3. 5296 (Kobukuro)
4. EXILE Catchy Best (EXILE)
5. Heart Station (Utada Hikaru)
6. EXILE Ballad Best (EXILE)
7. B’z The Best “Ultra Pleasure” (B’z)
8. A Complete: All Singles (Ayumi Hamasaki)
9. And I Love You (Dreams Come True)
10. A, Domo. Ohisashiburi Desu (GReeeeN)
Top 10 best selling Japanese singles of 2008
1. Truth (Arashi)
2. One Love (Arashi)
3. I Am Your Singer (Southern All Star)
4. Kiseki (GReeeeN)
5. Shuchishin (Shuchishin)
6. Hanabi (Mr. Children)
7. Soba ni Iru ne (Thelma Aoyama ft Soulja)
8. Don’t U Ever Stop (KAT-TUN)
9. Lips (KAT-TUN)
10. Beautiful Days (Arashi)
Utada Hikaru tops Japanese magazine Oricon Style’s annual Favourite Artist Chart for the second year in a row. A total of 20758 votes were cast by the magazine subscribers for the 2008 poll.
The top 20 Oricon favourite artists in 2008 are…
1. Utada Hikaru 2. Kobukuro 3. aiko 4. Mr Children 5. Dreams Come True 6. Southern All Stars 7. Namie Amuro 8. B’z 9. Spitz 10. Arashi 11. Masaharu Fukuyama 12. Kou Shibasaki 13. EXILE 14. Porno Graffiti 15. Ayaka 16. YUI 17. Ken Hirai 18. YUKI 19. Kuwata Keisuke 20. Yuzu
Kindly note that artists in Japanese terms often refers to musicians but not actors.
