Heart Station - Information

Information

Before the release of Heart Station, Utada had stated on her personal blogs that she was working concurrently the then unnamed Heart Station album and her second English-language album, and had been busy creating demos for new tracks at home on since October 23, 2007.

On January 16, 2008, Utada (on her official blog) confirmed that there are two tracks on the album that will include a strings section, "Flavor of Life: Ballad Version" and a then-untitled, now revealed to be "Prisoner of Love", that was being mixed. On February 1, 2008, Utada confirmed that she had begun mastering the album's final track, which would later be finalized to be "Celebrate," made between midnight and the following day when it was due, and is an upbeat track which she quite likes. A physical demo had been burnt for her to complete work on from home, and she mentioned that the album's mastering had begun. The album track "Celebrate" was under the tentative working title of "Yakekuso (やけくそ, Desperation?)". On February 6, 2008, Utada had finished the mastering stage of the album, which was done by SterlingSound, the people in charge of mastering Utada's albums from her musical career's beginnings. Her official website has confirmed that 13 (versus the earlier reported 12) tracks will be included on this album (with the 13th being a bonus track, the original "Flavor of Life"), meaning this is Utada's third album in total to feature a bonus track. A B2 sized poster will be included for people who pre-order a copy of the album. The album has reached as high as No. 1 on Amazon Japan's Pre-Order List, as well as other major online merchandise and music stores such as HMV Japan and CD Japan, among others. On February 15, 2008, two more new track titles were revealed in Japan's MUSICA Magazine's review of the album, which were "Celebrate" and "Niji-Iro Basu". On February 19, 2008, the album's track list was revealed via her website in its entirety, the day before the release of her 20th physical Japanese single, "Heart Station/Stay Gold". When titling Heart Station, Utada continued the tradition of naming her albums after a track within said album. However, Heart Station is the first album to be named after a promotional single, rather than recut singles such as First Love, Distance), or Exodus, or non singles, such as Ultra Blue or Deep River. Boku wa Kuma and Flavor of Life were recorded in 2006 while Beautiful World, Kiss & Cry, Stay Gold and Heart Station were recorded in 2007. Prisoner of Love was recorded in 2008.

According to reports by Shop EMI and Capitol Music on March 1, 2008, Utada's latest Japanese release would see a Canadian release on April 8, 2008. Much like the previous Canadian releases of Ultra Blue and Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 1, Heart Station was reprinted in Canada and the Canadian version was sold at a lower price than its Japanese counterpart. The Taiwanese version of the album was confirmed with an official webpage by EMI to have a release date of March 28, 2008. A Hong Kong release date of March 28, 2008, was announced soon after, with a release in South Korea following on the 29th.