Precious, released in
1995, is the first, last, and only album by
Cubic U. She later went on to make some of the best-selling albums in
Asian history under her real name,
Utada Hikaru.
The album, recorded while she was a fairly young girl living in New York City, is entirely in English and is decidedly old school R&B, in comparison to the expensively-produced J-pop/rock sound that Utada adopted when she made it big in Japan. It captures Utada at a remarkably perfect moment vocally: her singing only goes downhill from here, although the instrumentals, angst and lyrical maturity in her later albums are all (predictably) much better.
Precious brought Utada to the attention of several people in the American music industry, including Lenny Kravitz. Unfortunately, she didn't make any major Western releases until well after she had achieved ridiculous fame in Japan and East Asia, and by the time she came back, she had degraded into suckage. Thankfully, recordings are forever.
Tracks:
- My Little Lover Boy
- Lullaby
- How Ya Doin'
- I Don't Love You
- Promise
- Ticket 4 Two
- Take A Little While
- 100 Reasons Why
- Work Things Out
- Close To You (cover of The Carpenters' song)
- Precious Love