My dad accidentally bought LOVEppears for me and I finally got around to listening to it. LOL just when I was whining about how much I wanted that CD. XD

I was listening to it, enjoying it but not paying too much attention...but And Then came on and I was all ears. That song is perfection!!! D:

Edit: by the way, is the mixing for To Be different on LOVEppears compared to the way it sounds on the single?

I stan so hard for And Then AND November. *_*

I was gonna do a tldr explanation of why I love Party Queen so much besides the musical ingenuity but no1curr lolol

Random, but how did I just find out that there is a play button for FIVE?! I thought I had every play button...

never mind. It's there in my shrine with the rest. LOL brain fart. :P

Yes. "TO BE," "too late," and "monochrome" all have a new mix and NONE of them say so in the booklet. They're all very beefed up and filled-in sounding. "too late" and "TO BE" both have COMPLETELY new drum tracks as well.

I like the album version of too late much better than the single mix.

Funny cause I always found the album version so annoying. When I found out the single had an alternate mix, I had to check it out. Finally there was a version of the song I could stomach. Lol.

I wants the playbuttons ;-;

Yes, I love when they used to tweek the tracks a bit for the album! I guess the last time they did it was with alterna.

I love it too! I guess I'll have to listen to alterna on My Story when I get it some day so I can compare and contrast.

Plus, I kinda skipped Monochrome just because I was in a time crunch sort of so now I need to go check that out.

Anyway, To Be sounded great! I feel so behind just now giving this album a good listen after all these years but now after listening to it, I can't help but think it's like...the best freakin album ever. XD I just love the consistent sound all of the songs have with the great beats and keyboard and yet each song is unique.

And P.S II and LOVE ~refrain~ were very enjoyable. :yes

So all in all...I loved it. It was a wonderful distraction from my hectic week. I have a feeling I'm going to listen to this album nonstop.

I feel like if us two were put into a room together and we had to discuss every song in her discography and what we think about it, we'll just end up debating about like one song for three hours lol

What. I need to go check this out ASAP!

Now I feel like, although 99% of Loveppears' songs are released on singles, the album itself is justified because the single and album songs have notable differences. This is like a reverse Perfume experience.

Terminal just never gets old. :heart

To be fair, I quite enjoyed most of the singles from Love songs (except Last angel which I hate with a passion), and of course, Love song itself. But the majority of the album tracks - November, Like a doll, Do it again, Thank U, all sound tired, old, half-baked to me. I am constantly surprised that there seems to be so much love for November. I keep revisiting the song thinking maybe there's something that I've missed but every time I just feel more perplexed than ever. I guess it's probably the same reaction to people who thought "Party Queen", "NaNaNa", "call", etc were bad songs.

TK and Ayu were obviously still trying to figure out how best to work with each other's sound, and it shows, because most of the songs sound like globe outtakes/rejects.

To me, the best crystallisation of Ayu/TK's collab is probably crossroads and, later on, You&Me.

Definitely two of my favourite songs! I wish And Then got performed more. It would have been a good one to switch in for Fly High when that used to be a staple. Speaking of, I kind of miss Fly High. Not in every concert, but if it popped up in a a setlist every so often now I think it would be nice.

I pretty much agree with everything you said but the bolded part made me actually grin like an idiot. And Then is such a good song and it makes such a good concert song too. I love Ayu concerts, they're entertaining of course, and more like a show than a concert, but a lot of her songs are not very 'concert-like' to me. (If that even makes sense.) But I actually just watched the PCL09 version of it and I forgot how good of a live song it is!!

I love this! You guys need to do a podcast or something!

So, I was watching a reality show and then, in the middle of it, they started playing a song and you may find it very familiar:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x33...-e08-hdtv_tech

Skip to 24:40

WHOA

LOL I did not expect that but when I think about it, that melody is pretty standard reality show. Very neat. :D

@mi|kshake, a podcast of that debate/discussion would really be very interesting! :D

Omg, I think so too.
Lol, I'm surprised there hasn't been an AHS podcast. Now that would be interesting. Weekly digests of songs and/or albums, with various guests volunteering to make an appearance and discuss. Basically a debate, where 3 members are for the song/album and 3 are not. Although I think the biggest issue would be staying on track (pun not intended).

November is truly great because you can just feel so much emotion behind it. The arrangement is beautiful; if you're not actively paying attention to the layers in the background, and primarily a fore-frontal music listener (as in 80+% of your attention is focused on the vocal track alone), then it's difficult to notice how beautiful and grand it is. Each verse has intricate changes in the background, and different layers take the forefront of the backgrounds stage during each segment of the song. The ending where everything comes together and is weighted equally really shines more so after you notice that.

Also, the song paints a really vivid picture for me. It's one of those songs when listened to in the right context, you feel at one with the music. It's very "cool, brisk atmosphere, early evening, color in the sky beginning to change but sun still shining" type of song. Oh, and very woodsy. Like you need to have trees visible around you, and drying grass.

Although the beginning is very ballroom-esque, it begins very cordial and well-mannered. I imagine a couple, perhaps Ayu and her lover, locked into the beginning of a cordial ballroom dance. And after "miteita", beginning with "dare mo", their dance springs to life, and it becomes a very active, yet utterly romantic type of dance. The song itself is such an autumn-time dance between lovers. Even the call-and-anwer intro/outro works with that imagery. The lovers are calling to each other, and are reunited after being a part of an extended period of time, and in the end, they part ways again, still calling and longing for one another. The cycle continues.

I find November so very standard, I dunno... I've listened to the song hundreds of times, I've tried scrutinizing it AND stepping back from it, and I guess it just doesn't speak my language or something because while I find it very good, I don't get the intense love so many people have for it here. And I accept that I never will.

But for anyone else who just doesn't "get it," you're not alone. I think the song is quite nice but it doesn't have the kind of buildup I want, she sounds tired to me rather than emotive, and the choice of instrumentation isn't in any way special. I've been music-obsessed for decades and to me there's nothing standout about it.

I think it's good, but ONLY good. Not great, not epic, not amazing, it's just... there. And it gets its point across to some degree. And I don't skip it. So I mean, it's definitely a high quality track. But I don't "get it."