Since the release of her debut album First Love, which went on to become the best-selling album in Oricon history,[3][4] Utada has had three of her Japanese studio albums in the list of Top 10 best-selling albums ever in Japan (number 1, 4, 8) and six of her albums (including one English-language and one compilation) charting within the 275 Best-Selling Japanese albums list.[5][6] Utada has had twelve number-one singles on the Oricon Singles chart, with two notable record achievements for a female solo or group artist: five million-sellers and four in the Top 100 All-Time Best-selling Singles.[7][8] Utada has an estimated more than 52 million records sold worldwide.[9]
She was described by Time Magazine as a "Diva On Campus," a reference to her having attended Columbia University for a brief, career-break semester in 2000.[2][10][11] In 2009, she was considered "the most influential artist of the decade" in the Japanese landscape by The Japan Times.[12] In 2003, Utada was ranked number 24 in the survey of Top 100 Japanese Pop Artists of All Time by HMV,[13] number 10 in HMV's Top 30 Best Japanese Singers of All Time in 2006.[14]
Additionally, Utada is most well known in the West for making two theme song contributions to Square Enix and Disney's collaborative video game series Kingdom Hearts: "Simple and Clean" (which is the re-written English version of her 10th Japanese single Hikari)[15] for Kingdom Hearts and "Passion" for Kingdom Hearts II (later re-recorded with new English lyrics as "Sanctuary" for the North American and European releases of the game).[16] In 2007, her single "Flavor of Life" reached number 2 in worldwide digital download yearly single chart with over 7.2 million downloads,[17] and contributes to 12 million digital sales for her over the same year
