Do you think IDJ gave up on her?
Do you think Utada decided to give up on the album?
Do you think there were legal issues and she couldn't resume promotion?

I am very confused, and upset. And hurt, tbh.
Everything was set up PERFECTLY.
(a) HOT album.
(b) LOTS of fan support.
(c) First single actually making a slight impact.
(d) TV and radio appearances GALORE!
(e) Album actually charted at number 69 on the US chart...her best entry to date, by far.
(f) Album becomes the first album by an Asian artist to reach the iTunes top 20.
(g) First single gains attention by becoming the free music video of the week.

With all of those things combined, ALL THAT WORK put into it...it seems very hard to believe that IDJ or Utada herself would just decide to give up.

It's almost enough to make me cry when I think about it. I felt it through the whole project. THIS IS THE ONE. After Come Back To Me, all she needed was a little bit more of a push into the US before she took off. Blew up. Her songs being played on the radio a few times a day. Charting within the top 20 Billboard charts. Her name known. US success.

SOMETHING must have happened, that we haven't been told. And by the looks of it, Hikki doesn't want to share it with us, or she would have said something about it on her blog by now.
But WHAT could have happened? Everything was picture perfect. She was on the road to success, then she crashed. WHY? Any ideas? Speculations? Theories? Discuss.

(And no bringing up the sickness thing. That obviously had no role in the death of TITO, if it actually happened.)

Perhaps she expected more than what she got.

She released one single in Japan and was a superstar. One. She released one full album, and broke a record. One album.

She originally released Precious which barely got attention, and then years after being one of the hottest stars in Japan EVER, she came back to the States. Exodus, let's face it, was a flop. It probably drew in maybe... five new fans? The rest were fans of her Japanese work already, and probably a good half or even 3/4 hated it.

Then she released This Is the One, and while it did significantly better than Exodus, it still wasn't the huge hit that First Love was (or the rest of her albums) were in Japan.

Perhaps because she clicked so quickly with Japan's listeners, she's having a harder time getting motivated to get noticed and click with America's?

Either way I think it's a crying shame. This Is the One is actually one of my favorite albums from her, and I would love to see more English work from her.
If she HAS been discouraged, hopefully she won't give up entirely. And if she wants to catch America's eye, she needs to at least release another single fairly soon, otherwise the people that DID notice "This Is the One" will forget about her.

all we could do is speculate. it is disheartening to feel that way, but i agree. it seems that hikaru was on hiatus from her american stuff. she was literary everywhere promoting TITO then all of a sudden there was silence. even her blog was blank for like 3 months. what happened then, we could only speculate.

whatever happened between her and IDJ, i think its purely business and her management should take care of it. TITO is a much more marketable album than exodus. it is more mainstream than exodus and should be promoted as they would promote her japanese stuff. FYI and This One are good songs to boost the album.

hikaru and IDJ have responsibilities to all her fans(whether jap or american stuff). they should at least tell us all what are they up to. if they stop hikaru's activities in the states, then TITO would end up like exodus, another flop(teardrop!)



i will continue supporting her work.

I was in pure heaven with excitement on TiTo?s release and the first wave of promotional activity had me dancing around in anticipation of the music and beats to come, my personal opinion is that TITO did not disappoint with CBTM Promo Video having a real wow factor, with both contemporary and stylish songs combining a unique blend of Pop and Hikki?s own brand of lyrical quirkiness, Tito undoubtedly invokes mixed feelings amongst the Hikki faithful, this compilation is a reminder of Utada?s extraordinary versatility, because TiTo hits all the right buttons if given time to absorb the heavy R&B rhythms which for a brief moment brought her to the attention of a wider US audience, with a possible Grammy nomination in the offering for CBTM Video would be very well received and thoroughly deserved.

Chasegran, EezyBreezy, and percypenn, have highlighted almost all of the possible scenarios as to why TiTo promo and publicity was curtailed and as much as I am desperate to get my sticky mitts on IDJ, The Door, or U3, and give them a thoroughly good thrashing to within a inch of their lives, the fact is it will probably get me nowhere, although it would make me feel allot better.

This would be a very different thread, had all parties been sailing in the same direction but I have a suspicion this was not the case from day one, evidence of this fact is the incoherent and disjoined approach to digital and physical CD release strategy.
Overall there has been an appalling lack of communication with fans generally, something that could and should have been dealt with more professionally with the inevitable legion of disappointed fans bemused that no explanation was given.

I don't know exactly what happened (yeah she may have given up or just didn't want to get too famous in the U.S. or whatever) but that just wasn't right that Hikaru and IDJ didn't give us an explanation or statement once she got better of why promtion for TITO stopped. She just continued writing things in her blog like TITO never happened. It wasn't right at all. I mean I still like her Japanese work better though I did enjoy TITO and wanted it to do well but that wasn't fair to us that an explanation wasn't given.

Yeah, it stopped abruptly and the promotion wasn't even long enough to push further success.

Most probably she got bored of it. Who knows? She's already quite successful so maybe she got bored since TitO did not get the response that she expected. (assuming that she expected profoundly huge response) OR maybe something did happened because of IDJ. Were they really keen to promote the album in the first album? We all don't know. Maybe they did but they gave up half way.

This whole thing is sad, I was hoping that Utada would make it big then at least there would be more radio stations playing her songs. Come Back to Me was only played for a VERY VERY short period of time in my country. It's safe to say that the song per se did not get sufficient promotion/attention. I'm just curious... do your local radio stations still play her songs?

And I do agree that it's weird how she stopped blogging about TitO after she recovered from her sickness. You guys are right, she acted as if it does not exist, which kinda frustrates me.

I wish there was a way that we could ask what exactly happened. I used to drop her some comments on myspace occassionally but she hadn't been online in a while, last I checked.

And most probably she would avoid this question if you ask .

Welll I know Hawaii was ages ago but she did say she wanted to work with Kanye back then....I'm not a fan of the jerk but im sure they'd make good music and teh tune with Neyo was pretty good and he's a douche too lol

Erm but yea I was hoping (even tho I prefer her Japanese stuff) that she'd keep the momentum and maybe do another western album....

She just needs less of the mainstream sex styled stuff and to try her stuff like Santuary (that just came up on the playlist)...I mean her western music can be awesome too but I do feel that Easy Breezy was like racial slurring herself and that the 6and 9 song was a little overboard with 'trying'...lol

Not being unfair I dont think, I get what she wanted to do but people are idiots and she cant break into the main stream long term with shallow music....you need raw talent to do reach longevity and she clearly has it, its just releasing it.

- As a sidenot I've never heard any of her songs here in the UK lol....and MIA who I also like had a couple of her worst songs go a lil' mainstream over here...

I dunno, she's right about the racial difficulty based on her look tho...and name....it'll be easier for that wonder women group or whatever they're called cos they're named something easy to grasp....

Also I heard Ayumi was gonna try break the states and I'll go ahead and call it that her record label'll put the breaks on that on the basis of this success...

Take care all

- Damn shame, hopefully she wont retire anytime soon and If she does and if I ever get any fame I'll try to break her oput of it with themesong work lol

I still have to wonder if America is still somewhat xenophobic when it comes to our popular music? I mean, I can't think of one Asian artist who has had a popular hit that everyone knows, except maybe OMD with "How Bizarre", but even THAT was just one-hit.

Personally, I would love it if Hikki and Ayumi both broke here in the states. As it stands now, most Asian music fans here already know Ayumi, like her or not, and are at least aware of Hikki. Hopefully there can be enough momentum for either one to break them out into the mainstream here in the states at some point.