Warning: THIS IS MY FAVORITE ALBUM EVER! I'm pretty biased.
"Through traffic jams in Tokyo; new music on the radio. We'll say goodbye to the world we know. This is our Exodus '04".
Aaaah how that line takes me back. Imagine me in -censored- grade in school seeing "that one singer from Kingdom Hearts" released an album, and in English, no less! I was so pumped. I immediately went online, and after trudging through the net for a while (back then it was a chore on less-than-desirable speeds), and I found her lead-in single -- "Easy Breezy".
Oh God, how do I even put this into words. I think I was so into the idea of a Jpop phenomenon releasing an album in the states that I was ready to accept anything. Luckily, the song wasn't that bad. Ok, maybe it kind of was. With lines like "You're easy breezy and I'm Japanesey", which isn't a word for your information, this track left me feeling a bit uneasy going into this effort. It was a fun girl-power-without-being-pretentious track, and it was enough to get me to the store to buy it, and suddenly my whole view on pop music changed.
Utada was not here to play games. Like most artists that are fueled by a big label, the radio-ready tracks are sent out as singles while the real gold is left buried in the mix of it all. Take "Tippy Toe" for instance. This song captures the full mood of the whole album, actually. The album focused on fuzing traditional Japanese styles with RnB and pop music of the day. It features a lot of layering of different noises, making for an almost entirely new experience once you move past mentally isolating another part of the track for a second playthrough.
I think that choosing to open with "Devil Inside' was not a great choice. It did reach #1 on the Billboard dance charts, but I still was not a fan of this track when compared with the rest. It felt more like a mid-album single. It's topic of feeling like there was something within that needed to come out really fit in with the theme of the album, but I feel like it was completely outshined by the following track, "Exodus '04". I feel like so much effort went into this East-West fusion track and it was just tossed in as a normal track. The friggen album was named after it. I wish it had gotten a video or remixes to showcase it. I truly believe that this could have been the single to save the album had they chosen to pick it up.
The topics for the tracks on this album were very mature, which was probably what lead to her demise in the US (moreso with the followup album than this one). Dealing with topics ranging from adultery, to banging Texans, to the dirt-nasty stuff that goes inside of assumably sleezy hotels. But the whole album isn't naughty. Tracks like "Animato" really break up the flow and bring in a completely new industrial vibe. Combine that with the only album that I've encountered to use interlude tracks effectively -- to the point to where I really wish she'd done a full version of "Opening"/"Crossover Interlude" -- and you've got yourself a very diversified album that still functions as a cohesive unit.
And then, there is God's gift to music. "Kremlin Dusk" has been my favorite song for literally ten years. Literally. This song is progression personified. I love the transition from bare music to full-blown extravagance at it's conclusion. The intertwining of numerous Edgar Allen Poe references (Other than the obvious one stating his name) was executed fantastically, and the chilling lines at the end "Is it like this/Is it always the same" and "When a heartache begins is it like this? If you like this, will you remember my name? Will you play it again if you like this?" make the work feel whole.
As a whole I feel like this album just works. I totally get why it didn't sell well in the United States. I honestly don't think this album was meant for the US, in Utada's eyes anyway, due to the style. This album actually went on to be the best selling foreign language album of all time in Japan. Get waht I mean now? I guess it was just right up my alley due to my pre-exposure to Jpop in the past. Even without the nostalgia factor, I believe that due to my musical pallet, had this album dropped today, I would still be able to enjoy it for what it is.
I feel that with better and more concise promotion, as well as better single selection, this album would have done far better. Critics went crazy over "Exodus '04" and still she chose songs like "You Make Me Want To Be A Man" over it. The album was a huge risk, and I really feel like it payed off in more ways than one for her. I just really hope that "This Is The One" didn't deter her from releasing English albums in the future. That album bombed.
Help in celebrating the 10th anniversary of "Exodus" by grabbing it on iTunes!
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