is a song by Japanese singer-songwriter

Hikaru Utada , who is also known by the mononym Utada, is a Japanese-American pop singer, songwriter and producer. By 2010, Utada had become one of the most influential, and best-selling, musical artists in Japan. Born in the United States to Japanese parent ...

. It was released on the main Japanese radio stations on September 13, 2016, and digitally on September 16, 2016.

Background and composition

"Michi" is an up-tempo

J-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

song with an arrangement made entirely out of electronic synthesizers and drums. Apart from a few

anglicism An anglicism is a word or construction borrowed from English by another language. With the rise in Anglophone media and the global spread of British and US cultures in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have become widespread in o ...

s and three lines in its chorus, it is completely in Japanese. It features an optimistic melody, while its lyrics talk about the singer walking a "lonely road", even though she couldn't feel completely alone, as the memory of the person she lost is still with her and guiding her through dark times. In an interview, she explained that it is a "danceable" song, meant to "reiterate that she is doing okay" after the loss of her mother

Keiko Fuji (5 July 1951 – 22 August 2013), known primarily by the stage name was a Japanese singer and actress. She had success in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s with her ballad-type songs. She was married on-and-off with Utada Teruzane, and was the ...

to suicide in 2013. Bradley Stern from pop music website MuuMuse found "Michi" surprising, compared to the more "muted tone" of the previously released singles from '' Fantôme''; instead playing like "a continuation of 2010's " Goodbye Happiness", even down to similar-sounding melodies".

Track listing

Release history

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Michi 2016 singles Hikaru Utada songs Songs written by Hikaru Utada 2016 songs Universal Music Japan singles