Precious (Cubic U album)
Precious is the debut English album by Cubic U (Hikaru Utada's stage name before her debut in Japan), which was recorded at Sony Music Studios in New York in 1996. The album was never released commercially in the US, due to internal problems with the label EMI. It was only available to music industry insiders. The album was released in Japan on January 28, 1998; the album failed to chart on the Oricon weekly charts. After the huge success of Utada's First Love, the album was re-released on March 31, 1999 and peaked at #2 on the Oricon charts with 702,060 copies sold.
| Precious | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Cubic U | ||||
| Released | January 28, 1998 | |||
| Recorded | August 5–20, 1996 | |||
| Studio | Sony Music Studios, New York City | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 54:42 | |||
| Label | Toshiba EMI | |||
| Producer | Hikaru Utada, Teruzane Utada, Fuji Keiko, Michael C. Warner, Booker T. Jones, Bert Price | |||
| Cubic U chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Precious | ||||
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Track listing
All tracks are written by Utada Hikaru and Charlene Harrison, except for tracks 3, 5, 7 and 12 written by Utada, Harrison and Michael C. Warner and track 9 written by Utada and Warner. "Close to You", which is a cover version of the Burt Bacharach–Hal David composition "(They Long to Be) Close to You" made famous by the Carpenters..
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "My Little Lover Boy" | 4:28 |
| 2. | "Lullaby" | 4:38 |
| 3. | "How Ya Doin'" | 3:05 |
| 4. | "I Don't Love You" | 4:51 |
| 5. | "Here and There and Back Again" (on promo copies only) | 4:47 |
| 6. | "Promise" | 5:24 |
| 7. | "Ticket 4 Two" | 5:23 |
| 8. | "Take a Little While" | 3:52 |
| 9. | "100 Reasons Why" | 4:31 |
| 10. | "Work Things Out" | 4:31 |
| 11. | "Close to You" | 4:39 |
| 12. | "Precious Love" | 5:20 |
| 13. | "How Ya Doin' (Rap Version)" (bonus track) | 3:46 |
Note: Several promo copies of the album have the track "Here and There and Back Again" as track 5. This was not released physically.
Release history
| Country | Date | Version | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | January 28, 1998 | Original | Toshiba-EMI |
| March 31, 1999 | Re-release |
Singles
| Date | Title | Peak position | Weeks | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 28, 1997 | "Close to You" | --- | --- | --- |
Charts
Precious - Oricon Sales Chart (Japan)
| Release | Chart | Peak Position | Sales Total | Chart Run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 31, 1999
(Re-release) |
Oricon Daily Albums Chart | |||
| Oricon Weekly Albums Chart | 2 | 702,060 | 17 weeks | |
| Oricon Yearly Albums Chart | 35 | 702,060 |