Twenty years of Hikaru Utada’s ‘Exodus’: An album ahead of its time
To celebrate its anniversary, writer Amanda Walujono reflects on how this album has aged over time
"Exodus" wasn't appreciated when it came out 20 years ago, but that doesn't mean we can't praise it now.
Photo illustration by Ryan Quan
Words by Amanda Walujono
It’s 2004 and Hikaru Utada is walking alone in New York. She purposely dresses down, or not “girlie” as she phrased it for the Washington Post, to avoid “looking like a hooker because [she’s] Asian.” No one realizes Utada is about to release her first major English album, Exodus: a sonically ambitious and esoteric album that would ultimately become a cult classic.
In Japan, Utada is a bona fide sensation. Her debut album First Love sold more than 9.5 million copies, and its titular track has remained so influential that Netflix released an entire drama inspired by the song in 2022. Utada, who spent her childhood going back and forth between Tokyo and New York City as a bilingual and bicoastal only child, was catapulted to superstardom at the tender age of 15. American record executives took note and wanted to cash in on Utada’s success stateside. The only issue was how to categorize her.
Asian representation of the early 2000s
As a test run before officially signing with Island Def Jam, Utada recorded “Blow My Whistle” for the Rush Hour 2 soundtrack in 2001. The R&B track was produced by the critically acclaimed duo The Neptunes (made up of Chad Hugo and Pharell Williams) and featured a verse from rapper Foxy Brown. While Utada’s early work was strongly influenced by her R&B contemporaries such as Aaliyah, she mentioned to Time that Williams expected her to play “the more settled and slightly mysterious Asian girl.”
After all, it was the early 2000s. There was no Crazy Rich Asians, Everything Everywhere All At Once, or BTS. Representation was paper thin, and many doubted whether Utada could break through in the American music industry as an artist of Asian descent. As Rori Caffrey wrote in The Daily Yomiuri, “If Exodus flops, the millions who pinned their hopes on Utada will shrug and say ‘Make it in America?! Shucks, who were we kidding?’” Utada herself was well aware of this pressure, noting, “People do ask me if I think I can make it in the States, I don't think it's the music that I'm concerned about. It's obviously that I look really different and there really aren't any completely Asian people [who are popular singers in the U.S.] right now."
As I grew up, my understanding of what it meant to be an Asian woman in the United States expanded, and with it, my appreciation for Exodus, in all of its complexities.
It’s no wonder Exodus ruminates on Utada's Asian American identity, even if she admitted later that it wasn’t done consciously. When I read that in 2022, an “aha” moment rushed through me—validation that I wasn’t reading into the lyrics too much as an elementary-aged Asian American girl desperately seeking representation that wasn’t Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls. Music is always an intensely personal art form, one that’s informed by memories, but its relationship with the listener can also evolve over time. As I grew up, my understanding of what it meant to be an Asian woman in the United States expanded, and with it, my appreciation for Exodus, in all of its complexities.
“I don’t wanna cross over between this genre, that genre”
With light and airy vocals, Utada sings her artistic statement in track one, “Opening,” with straightforward directness: “I don’t wanna cross over between this genre, that genre.” She is not a mysterious Asian girl here; Utada is earnest, open-hearted, and clear. That soft lightness quickly dissipates in her next track, “Devil Inside,” a club banger about an angel who secretly burns with jealousy and descends into a fun hell.
Through "Exodus," Hiraku Utada rejects traditional expectations and instead explores subjects that were considered taboo at the time.
Sony Music
The “good girl gone bad” pop girl trope is long established, but in 2004, Asian women weren’t even allowed dynamism. Asian women were either the studious girl (which Utada was slotted into, with her one semester at Columbia University), or the dragon lady. In “Devil Inside,” Utada embraces duality, both in image and sound: plucky traditional Japanese chords are sprinkled in with a melodious electric guitar and 808 drums.
Utada incorporates traditional Asian sounds—a trend that was popular at the time—throughout Exodus, including on tracks produced by Timbaland, who Utada had trouble meeting halfway, she admitted on the Zane Lowe Show in 2022. Eventually, Timbaland relented and let Utada pick from a library of his beats, which she programmed and recorded vocals over alone.
While Utada’s mother, Keiko Fuji, was a traditional Japanese enka singer, Utada’s music was never known for incorporating traditional Japanese elements before or after the release of Exodus. In many songs, Utada exoticizes herself through sexual lyrics, such as, “So I showed him how people in the Far East get down” in “The Workout” and “Can you and I start mixing gene pools? Eastern, western people, get naughty, multilingual” in “Let Me Give You My Love.” But Utada showed she could also be tongue-in-cheek, singing, “You’re easy breezy and I’m Japanese-y,” in “Easy Breezy.” When I was 10, listening to those lyrics made me uncomfortable, though I couldn’t articulate why.
Even when I was a teenager, with a clearer understanding of sex and racial stereotypes, I actively fast-forwarded through these parts and sometimes skipped the songs altogether. But after I left my very suburban, Asian American hometown and experienced the world for myself, I understood how self-exoticization can be a stepping stone to self-acceptance, as are awkwardness and clumsy fumbles. The aforementioned lyrics are still not my favorite, but I accepted them as growing pains to empathize with, not as targets of viral mockery, isolated from their context.
Exodus is at its best, and most human, when Utada is hyper-specific. In “Animato,” she is at her most personal when she sing-chants her interests as various synths and electro sounds whoosh in the background: “DVDs of Elvis Presley, BBC sessions of Led Zeppelin, singing along to F. Mercury, wishing he was still performing.”
But Utada is just as interested in the world around her as she is in her own pleasures. In “Hotel Lobby,” she paints an incredibly humanistic portrait of a prostitute. During the aforementioned 2004 interview with The Washington Post, Utada explained how she would “look in The Village Voice and [see] three pages devoted to 'Asian Girls' ads.” It’s hard not to think that “Hotel Lobby” was dedicated to one of these Asian girls, centering her inner thoughts (“This is not what she expected / Her hopes, they stretch and they bend”) and humanity (“She’s unprotected”). This portraiture, contrasted with the almost bubbly production, cements “Hotel Lobby” as one the highlights of the album, and one I return to again and again, having grown past my initial childish discomfort at the depiction of sex.
An exploration of their non-binary identity
Another song on Exodus that unsettled me as a child was “You Make Me Want To Be A Man.” There was something I always recognized as intensely personal about the song, the way the chorus is noisy but chaotic, but Utada’s desperate pleas soar above it all: “I really wanna tell you something / This is just the way I am / I really wanna tell you something, but I can’t / You make me want to be a man.” It always felt too intimate to me as a child—like I was looking at something deeply private and forbidden.
In my early teens and twenties, I chalked the lyrics up to simple frustration with men, as is common in heteronormative relationships. While I, a straight woman, had never personally experienced that feeling, I always just assumed Utada, being a quirky lyricist, was just using a metaphor. In 2021, Utada came out as non-binary (with she/they pronouns, as stated on their official Instagram). That’s when I finally understood. Much like the entire album itself, “You Make Me Want To Be A Man” was simply ahead of its time.
The rippling effects of Exodus
Exodus never did establish Utada as a main pop star, peaking at 160 on the U.S. Billboard 200—a certified flop. Utada, always a few steps ahead, predicted sagely: “I don't think it's the type of music that can be on American radio. I feel like the way to go is on TV and the Internet as far as marketing.” And while the few TV appearances Utada made didn’t amount to much, there was critical praise from outlets such as Allmusic, and over the years from Vice and NPR.
If nothing else, Exodus gave a very talented artist the confidence and the precedent to experiment musically, “to make sounds from zero, to make things [that] sounded a bit stranger sonically, and a bit more intense. To have [it be] fun, but still be emotional and genuine, and something to dance to.” In other words, an upgraded version of Exodus.
While Utada avoided working with other collaborators for some time after their experience with Timbaland, they recently opened up to working with producers such as Floating Points and A. G. Cook. In 2022, Hikaru Utada released BAD MODE, the first bilingual album of their career, which placed in year-end best album lists in outlets such as Pitchfork and NPR. That same year, Utada also performed at their first music festival ever, on the main stage of Coachella, as part of 88 Rising’s lineup.
Was this the success Island Def Jam had envisioned for Utada? Probably not. But the record label disbanded 10 years ago, and Utada continues to evolve musically. One thing that never changed: Exodus was always worth the listen.
Published on September 8, 2024
Words by Amanda Walujono
Art by Ryan Quan
Ryan Quan is the Social Media Editor for JoySauce. This queer, half-Chinese, half-Filipino writer and graphic designer loves everything related to music, creative nonfiction, and art. Based in Brooklyn, he spends most of his time dancing to hyperpop and accidentally falling asleep on the subway. Follow him on Instagram at @ryanquans.