Delicious Way

The album was entirely co-written by Kuraki herself, with the help of Michael Africk and Yoko Blaqstone in some tracks, while production was handled by Kanonji.

The album's background and development started in mid-to-late 1999 after her American debut single "Baby I Like", where East West Records and Giza Studio sent her back to Japan.

To promote the album, four singles were released; "Love, Day After Tomorrow" (which sold over 1.3 million units in Japan), "Stay by My Side", "Secret of My Heart", and "Never Gonna Give You Up".

[5] There onward, Giza Studio enlisted Kanonji to produce her debut record whilst Kuraki served as the album's primary songwriter, with the help of Michael Africk on the tracks "Baby Tonight (You & Me)" and "Never Gonna Give You Up", and Yoko Blaqstone with the track "Can't Get Enough (Gimme Your Love)".

[6] The record label also hired American producer/songwriters Cybersound (Michael Africk, Perry Geyer, Miguel Pessoa) to arrange and mix the majority of the songs from Delicious Way, with the help of Stone.

[7] The composition of the album's music included Aika Ohno, Stone, Tomoo Kasahara, Miguel Sá Pessoa, Perry Geyer at Cybersound, Masataka Kitaura, and Africk.

The album contains 11 tracks in both physical and digital formats, and has a cover sleeve photographed by Miho Mori; it features a slightly-sepia tinted image of Mai Kuraki, in front of a blurry background.

[11][12] It was certified in two categories by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) and sold over 1.3 million physical units and 100,000 digital sales in that region.

[8] Retrospectively, Alexey Eremenko, who contributed in writing the biography of Kuraki at AllMusic, highlighted the album songs "Delicious Way", "Love, Day After Tomorrow", "Never Gonna Give You Up", and "Secret of My Heart", as some of her greatest work.

"[31] In 2015, Kuraki paid tribute to the album by re-creating the artwork for her greatest hits compilation Mai Kuraki Best 151A: Love & Hope; Arama Japan staff members commented she "recreat[ed] the iconic fresh faced and plain clothed cover with her calm facial expression."