mmmm... for some reason i really am not digging this guy... =/

It's more likely to be a ballad/mid-tempo sung in japanese ! I'm not very fan of duet but why not he has a pleasant voice and the fact he is the one who compose the song yes yes yes !!! at least one song made by someone new =)
I see only positive things about this collaboration for her & him ! J-Pop is well known in almost all big asian countries but I never heard of a chinese singer having a success in Japan (don't count Alan she sang in japanese) ?
Maybe they will recorded a chinese version of this song for chinese market in general including taiwan & singapore etc...

i preordered this and the blu-ray! YAY! lol

I like what you think here... A ONE
Well graphic design wise they can easily manipulate the text to form another word so I'm not ruling that out as well!.
This album release on the day ayu debuts so perhaps a throwback to LOVEppears then having ONE to look like LOVE could really work!

I'd be so happy if ayu sample her older tracks and make new songs from it..
End roll..monochrome these two are so underrated :/

Hopefully "A One" has a ,guilty, rnr, Next level, party queen feel. I dont know why but those albums suit the circus theme ayu seems to be obsessed with these days.:D

It's well-known but it's nowhere near as big as it was before. So I wouldn't be surprised if youngsters had no idea who she was or that she was still active considering K-Pop is the trend right now in Chinese-speaking countries...
If Ayu wants to expand her activities overseas this year like the media said, this collaboration is a very smart move considering JJ Lin's current popularity. And it's also good for him if he wants to make himself known to Ayu's Japanese fans as well.

Actually you won't hear about a Chinese/Taiwanese/Singaporean etc singer who made it in Japan because they don't feel the need to expand overseas. That's why lol China is big enough for them. Some Taiwanese singers like Show Luo or Vanness Wu released Japanese albums in Japan though.

Yes of course I think so too ^^
Japan don't feel the need too, it's the second music market in the world and in the case of Ayumi she never tried to become popular for exemple in china with songs sang in chinese you know what I mean ? Japan market seems so unreachable for other Asian countries the only way to make it is to sing in Japanese and most of the time it fails, even K-Pop singers sang their songs in Japanese to make it ... it's a mystery XD

Interesting development in re collaboration with JJ. I don't know his music but he sounded good in the clip. ayu did too, for her standard! :laugh

Is the new song/video with JJ inclusive in the 11 tracks or is this like a *new* development i.e. that the total song is now 12 and the video 10? :O

I would like that oh Lord please make that happen

P.S.
truehappiness thank you for the LOVE again notes! From these songs I only like Wake me up. Gloria and SAKURA are such drab (especially Gloria).

Not really... lol

But even if big J-Pop acts don't promote their stuff in Taiwan, China or other places, their songs are airing on radio (I guess it's the same for their PVs on TV), and Chinese and Taiwanese versions of their albums are being released... Even if they don't really try to make it there they try to sell their stuff there. That's not the case for C-Pop artists. If you want to buy their albums in Japan it will be import versions, their songs are not heard on radio and their MVs not aired on TV.

^
You are right maybe one day there will be a C-pop fever like J-pop and K-pop x)

Worldwide you mean? That would be nice, it would be less harder to find news and translations for songs lol

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to their collaboration! I hope it won't be as boring as the one he did with G.E.M though >_<
Here's the collaborations he released in his latest album Genesis if anyone is interested:
I'm Alive feat. Jason Mraz (lyrics and music by JJ Lin)

Beautiful feat. G.E.M (music by JJ Lin)

Yonghwa from CNBLUE - Checkmate feat. JJ Lin (released on Yonghwa's first album and in JJ Lin's repackage, music and lyrics by JJ Lin and Yonghwa)

Economy power and influence is what dictates international music market.

Beyoncé or Britney don't need to sing in French to sell in France, neither need to appear on brazilian TV shows to sell in Brazil... It's the same with japanese music over all the countries of that region. And even with making almost no effort, they will be seen as top acts and the local acts will some times be negatively compared to them on their own countries, even if they have the same qualities.

A French or a Brazilian or any other non anglophone act, on the other hand, has barely a chance of selling in the USA. And when they do, they will need to be the exotic act or something like that, even if they sing in perfect English. A chinese act in Japan would need to be something like that (and that's what they tried to do with alan, that never really sold all that much)

Some latin@ stars have change of making it big over there (like Shakira, Rick Martin, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj), but only if they sing in English. It's what happens to South Korean acts in Japan right now... And even so, they won't be regarded at the same status as the local acts, even if they sell the same or even more.

I think it's the other way around tbh.

Japan, like the US, just isn't interested in non-native music (English music being an obvious, still minor exception in Japan, of course). They also have the 2nd biggest music industry in the world, so they really don't need to import music from other countries. There simply isn't a market for cpop in Japan; otherwise, they'd sell cpop there, and it would be absolutely stupid not to. It's not really a matter of whether or not China is big enough, because the fact of the matter is that Japan's music industry is almost 50 times bigger than China's.

In short, it has more to do with the fact that Japan just doesn't really want or need it than anything else. Hence why even kpop, as ridiculously popular as it is now, doesn't really have much of a market in Japan unless it's remade in Japanese.

Edit: Andrenekoi explained it better lol

JJ Lin is great and extremely talented. Honestly if I were to picture Ayu collaborating with a famous C-Pop male singer it would've been him or Wang Leehom.

I look forward to hearing more about the collaboration!! Exciting news!

You explained it well too ^^
Actually I know that, that's what I was implying by saying that it was not really a mystery as to why Japan's market was "unreachable" for foreign singers. But I didn't know how to put it in words, both you and Andrenekoi did it very well!

About the thing "China is big enough", I was just saying what I've seen in interviews given by Taiwanese artists (I know, they're not representing all C-Pop singers but still), that they had no intention to debut overseas (as in the U.S) since China was a market big enough for them >_<

Madonna and Ayumi releasing an album so close in time is HEAVEN for me. I'm so excited about this! I already love 3 songs from that album. 11 more to come! :D

This article confirms that The Gift will be in A ONE.
http://udn.com/news/story/7263/71098...93%AD%E4%BA%86

Promo pic
http://i.imgur.com/6dRF5Je.jpg

Sorry for spamming the thread with JJ Lin stuff XD I'm really looking forward to this collaboration.

If we're mentioning albums released in April, marinara and the diamonds and ai otsuka are releasing too.
It's a busy busy busy month.

If the song composed for Ayu is anything like "I'm alive" I'm sold, really