J-pop mega star returns to the biggest hit of her career as an adult, with some help from a special musical partner from her past.

They say you never forget your first love, but it’s just as true that no one ever forgets Utada Hikaru’s “First Love.” Though it wasn’t the J-pop recording star’s first single release, “First Love” is by far Utada’s biggest hit, and also the title of her first Japanese-language album, which was released in 1999 and remains, to this day, the best-selling album of all time in Japan.

Originally recorded when Utada was just 15 years old, “First Love” was a pop cultural phenomenon in Japan, and is one of a handful of songs that just about everyone in the country under the age of 50 has sung at least once at karaoke. But no one has ever sung it quite like Utada has, and so she’s returned to sing “First Love” once again in a brand-new video.

This isn’t some slickly edited, heavily sound-engineered self-cover, either. Utada was the most recent guest on YouTube video series The First Take, in which famous Japanese musicians have exactly one take in which to perform their biggest hits in a single live recording session. So with only one shot, how did she do?

She absolutely nailed it. After putting on her headset and letting out a “Hmmm…okay, let’s do this,” Utada waits for the first notes of the melody to play, then throws her voice into a rendition of her signature song that starts out startlingly familiar to those who’ve heard the original, but then goes on to reveal new layers.

The sole instrumental accompaniment is a piano played by Kei Kawano, who produced and arranged the original recording of “First Love.” According to The First Take this is the pair’s first time to perform together since that recording, and with no other instrumentation or backing vocals to get in the way, there’s an extremely pure quality to the combination of Utada’s voice and Kawano’s piano.

At the time of release of the original “First Love,” Utada was praised for her plaintive vocals, which felt mature beyond her years as she sang of a love that couldn’t last, but which she’d never forget. Now, 25-plus years later, her performance is just as strong, but with an added vocal weight that comes from maturity and life experience acquired in the ensuing quarter-century. Utada recorded the original “First Love” as a teen, but she’s now a full-grown adult who’s been married and divorced twice, given birth to a son, and lost her mother. She’s undoubtedly gained several new perspectives on her feelings about love and loss, which give this new recording of “First Love” its own unique character without contradicting the original’s emotion.

As she finished the song, Utada somewhat sheepishly says “I always say thank you when I finish singing at concerts, so it feels weird being silent and not saying anything here,” revealing that she was very much in a live-performance frame of mind while singing before adding “Thank you so much.”

It’s a moving video for fans, who’ve reacted with comments including:

“National treasure.”
“Just like that, I’m taken back to my youth.”
“The original version feels like it’s someone singing who’s about to cry because they broke up with someone they still can’t let go of. The new one feels like someone looking through an old photo album, thinking back tenderly on the feelings they had at the time.”
“It doesn’t matter how talented of an artist covers it, no one can sing it like she can. Utada Hikaru is one of a kind.”
“I can’t believe it’s been 26 years since ‘First Love’ came out…I bet people will still be listening to it 26 years from now.”

Odds are that last prediction will come true, so maybe then Utada will come back for a third version of “First Love.” In the meantime, though, fans will likely have the new video on repeat, and if you need another The First Take masterpiece for your playlist, there’s this amazing cover of the Pokémon anime theme from Satoshi’s/Ash’s Japanese voice actress.

Source, top image: YouTube/THE FIRST TAKE
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