Utada Hikaru, known by her stage name Utada in America and Europe, and as Hikki, is a Japanese American singer and songwriter, arranger, and record producer. Before her First Love album (1999), she sold several records with mediocre success. After First Love's release, which went on to become the best-selling album in Oricon's recent history, Utada has three of her Japanese studio albums in Top 10 best-selling albums ever in Japan (#1, #4, #8) and an overall six of her albums, two English-language and one compilation, charting within the 275 Best-Selling Japanese albums list.