%20Hikaru%20Utada%20on%20The%20First%20Take%20-%20First%20Love.png "Hikaru Utada performs “First Love” on The First Take")
Another week, another video of Hikaru Utada on The First Take. I don’t know how I didn’t see this coming. Because of course Hikaru would not just perform a brand new song on The First Take. Of course it would make sense for them to also perform a classic. The classic that they are known for. So, in addition to a performance of “Mine or Yours”, we got a performance of “First Love”.
Now, all three of you who have been following me and this blog for a while will know that I am not a huge fan of “First Love”. I acknowledge how monumental the song was for Hikaru’s career. That it is a staple song in Hikaru’s discography. And I really like the lyrics and composition of it. I just don’t like Hikaru’s voice on the song and find the whole thing kinda boring. And by the time I had become a fan of Hikaru Utada, Deep River was out — the album title track of which I thought was amazing, still think is amazing and greatly preferred as a ballad over “First Love”. And since then Hikaru has released many ballads which I prefer over “First Love” — the ballad version of “Flavour of Life”, “Sakura Nagashi”, “Manatsu no Tooriame”, “Hatsukoi”. “Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro” doesn’t make the cut, because as much as I like the song, as per “First Love”, Hikaru’s vocals kinda fuck it up for me.
I’ve grown to like “First Love” more as Hikaru’s performed it over the years, but I’m still not a fan of it. Whilst Hikaru’s voice has improved since 1999 when “First Love” was first released, their range, vocal ability and technique hasn’t grown massively — their voice is still incredibly inconsistent. Hikaru doesn’t always rearrange songs for live performance to better fit their voice. So, there are some performances of “First Love” which are really good and make me like the song more and others highlight why I never liked the song in the first place. Thankfully this performance on The First Take is a case of the former, where the re-arrangement was nice and the song was taken down to a lower key, so Hikaru sounds better. This performance was also much better than the performance of “Mine or Yours”, because it was noticeably different from the studio recording. I personally like when performances of songs don’t sound exactly like the studio version, otherwise I would just listen to the studio version. So it’s a shame that “Mine or Yours” didn’t feature a guitarist, so we had an acoustic version of the song.
The best part of this “First Love” performance was hearing Hikaru really dig into the low sections. Hikaru has tapped into their lower register something quite a few times on every album since Heart Station, and I always like when they do it because it adds such a cool texture to songs — they sound so much more comfortable and stable and not as though they are singing out of their range.
I’ve grown to like “First Love” more as Hikaru’s performed it over the years, but I’m still not a fan of it. Whilst Hikaru’s voice has improved since 1999 when “First Love” was first released, their range, vocal ability and technique hasn’t grown massively — their voice is still incredibly inconsistent. Hikaru doesn’t always rearrange songs for live performance to better fit their voice. So, there are some performances of “First Love” which are really good and make me like the song more and others highlight why I never liked the song in the first place. Thankfully this performance on The First Take is a case of the former, where the re-arrangement was nice and the song was taken down to a lower key, so Hikaru sounds better. This performance was also much better than the performance of “Mine or Yours”, because it was noticeably different from the studio recording. I personally like when performances of songs don’t sound exactly like the studio version, otherwise I would just listen to the studio version. So it’s a shame that “Mine or Yours” didn’t feature a guitarist, so we had an acoustic version of the song.
The best part of this “First Love” performance was hearing Hikaru really dig into the low sections. Hikaru has tapped into their lower register something quite a few times on every album since Heart Station, and I always like when they do it because it adds such a cool texture to songs — they sound so much more comfortable and stable and not as though they are singing out of their range.
💿 Albumkaru Reviewtada: Precious | First Love | Distance | Deep River | Exodus | Ultra Blue | Heart Station | This is the One | Fantôme | Hatsukoi | Bad Mode | Science Fiction
💿 Singlekaru Reviewtada: Time | Dare ni mo Iwanai | One Last Kiss | Pink Blood | Gold ~Mata au hi Made~ | Nani Iro Demo Nai Hana (A Flower of No Color)
🎧 Spotifykaru Playlistada: Slaykaru Queentada | Hikaru Utada: R&B | Hikaru Utada: Ballads | Hikaru Utada: Bops | Hikaru Utada: Remixes
💿 Singlekaru Reviewtada: Time | Dare ni mo Iwanai | One Last Kiss | Pink Blood | Gold ~Mata au hi Made~ | Nani Iro Demo Nai Hana (A Flower of No Color)
🎧 Spotifykaru Playlistada: Slaykaru Queentada | Hikaru Utada: R&B | Hikaru Utada: Ballads | Hikaru Utada: Bops | Hikaru Utada: Remixes
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