Christmas just came early for Hikki fans.
To commemorate the album’s 15th anniversary, Bilingual Queen of J-Pop Utada Hikaru will re-release her debut album, First Love — otherwise known as the best-selling album in Japanese music history.
According to the press release, the Anniversary Edition — which will arrive on March 10, 2014 — is one for the hardore Hikaru fans out there (#SomethingMorePersonal): The original album’s been remastered by GRAMMY-award winning engineer Ted Jensen, and includes a previously unreleased DVD of Utada’s very first live shows — the LUV LIVE performances held in Tokyo and Osaka in April of ’99. Not only that, but the collection will also include B-sides and a karaoke version of the original CD (!), as well as a book full of photographs, LUV LIVE tickets and passes, autographed lyrics and advertisements from the era.
Basically, it’s everything you could ever hope for in a re-release and I need this more than air.
But wait — that’s not all!
The live version of Utada’s In The Flesh Tour has just put on iTunes today (!!!). The whirlwind bilingual showcase took place between January and February of 2010 between North America and the UK (which I caught back in Boston, and which remains one of my favorite concert experiences of all time). Security was tight during most shows, and video footage was banned. Mercifully, this nearly 2-hour live DVD features footage from both the Irving Plaza show in NYC and the O2 Academy Islington shows from the UK.
To promote the release, Utada uploaded the full performance of “Passion/Sanctuary” on her YouTube page (my favorite Hikki song ever, so I’m already crying), but it’s currently geo-blocked to Japan. (Rude.) Luckily, that’s why Tumblr exists.
This is officially the greatest day ever. (UPDATE: Almost the greatest day ever. The greatest day ever will be when the hiatus ends.)
‘In The Flesh 2010’ was released on December 9. (iTunes Japan)