Cubic U -- Close to You

Over lunch today, Larry, Gary and I got onto the topic of which bands and singers took on particular significance in Japan over the decades, and so artists such as Cheap Trick, The Ventures and The Beatles popped up in the conversation.

Another band that can't be dismissed is the Carpenters. Yep, ol' nostalgic me embraced my inner Carpenters in Japan and I ended up buying a couple of their BEST compilations. But the Japanese welcomed them with open arms and they never let go. My time at karaoke often involved at least one Carpenters tune being sung, and even a couple of J-dramas had Carpenters tunes as their theme songs. One time, there was even a retrospective on Karen and Richard on Japanese TV when one of the young female tarento who was on the panel burst into tears on camera when she found out that Karen had passed all the way back in the early 1980s.

I'm not sure how "Close to You" ranks for fans in Japan although my belief is that there must be some pretty intense discussions among them about what would belong in the Top 5 Carpenters tunes. For me, the Hal David-Burt Bacharach creation is probably the most representative song for the duo.

Over the years, I've heard plenty of covers of Carpenters songs by Japanese singers, and that includes Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）. When she made her debut with "Automatic" in 1998 in that really stark apartment, she lit quite the fire for J-R&B approaching the end of the century. It was "Automatic" this and "Automatic" that for several months afterwards.

So I was surprised to find out that Utada had had a previous incarnation as Cubic U. Mind you, it was just a year previously in January 1997 when she recorded and released the single "Close to You" in the United States. I remember the morning clearly when I was watching the morning news show on Fuji-TV when the entertainment reporter talked about Cubic U and "Close to You", and showed that music video of her looking rather pale and with hair that looked like it severely needed conditioner.

All joking aside, I finally watched the entire music video tonight and realized that she hadn't been singing "Close to You" alone. Her partner was Stanley "Jamal" Hampton, and their take on the Carpenters' classic was that of a smooth jazz/slow groove. Frankly, no one is going to beat Karen and Richard in my ears when it comes to "Close to You", but Utada was already showing some fine voice in her version...and at the age of 13 or 14!

The single apparently didn't chart but a year later, it was included as a track on Cubic U's debut album "Precious" in January 1998, although according to the Wikipedia article, there were problems with Toshiba EMI at the time that restricted its US release to industry insiders supposedly. However, it did get its release in Japan. It also failed to make any dent initially but with the huge success of Utada's debut album "First Love", "Precious" was given a second release in March 1999 after which it rose to No. 4 (J-Wiki) or No. 2 (Wikipedia) on Oricon with a little over 700,000 copies sold.