Japan's contributions to international culture are numerous, and have been increasing rapidly over the past decades. Whereas Japanese companies gained prestige by the 1970s, Japanese culture itself only became rapidly disseminated by the 1990s. Currently, Japanese animation is the most popular animation globally, and Japanese music is the most listened-to of any single country's (with the born-in-New England-and-living-in-Japan Japanese Utada Hikaru holding the title for most records sold by any artist or band). This pervasiveness of Japanese culture has increasingly promoted the Japanese language around the world, making it one of the more popular languages to learn as a second-language, especially among the most diehard fans of Japanese media.