Pitchfork really liked Utada Hikaru in 2022! After having their song “Somewhere Near Marseilles” come in at #10 in the site’s “The 100 Best Songs of 2022” ranking yesterday, today their album “BAD Mode” was included in the site’s “The 50 Best Albums of 2022.”
Of the album, which came in at #31, Pitchfork’s Colin Joyce said
For over two decades, J-pop star Hikaru Utada’s intensely emotional songs have looked for answers to life’s big questions. On “BADモード”, their searching leads them to pay tribute to house music, along with the glittery sounds of disco, city pop, and ’90s R&B. As they grapple with fear and grief throughout the album, instrumentals co-produced with A.G. Cook, Floating Points, and Skrillex swell and swirl with ecstasy. The club is often imagined as a place of abandon, but “BADモード” is a reminder that dance music is equally well-suited to accompany catharsis—you might not always find answers, but you can still sweat through the pain.
