Her performances this year haven't been fantastic but they certainly aren't THAT terrible but I agree, Ayu needs time to relax, rest her voice and retrain her vocals before she goes on tour again. I hate to think how much strain she'll make if she doesn't have a rest at all!

I love Ayu but she's hurting her image by not resting enough. Why not send her overseas for 8 months to train her voice and write a new album, then come back in Dec 2010 and record it for a Jan 7 release 2011?

hi, my comment about credibility (or authority, influence, anything like that).

The writer of Techinsight just watched ayu's performance on Kouhaku and made a very personal comment on it. that's it.

As for the J-CAST article, its writer just quoted ayu's post in TA blog and, as truehappiness pointed out, just sourced some comments from yahoo!answers and youtube.

Both Techinsight and J-CAST are web-only media which doesn't have any relationship with traditional media such as newspaper and TV. And they are not ranked in the top 100 websites according to Alexa ( http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/JP ).

Though livedoor.com (which re-posted Techinsight article) is No. 7 website in Japan according to Alexa, I guess it is because many users have their blogs on this site. The news page news.livedoor.com is just one of many news sites in japan. Its source is sometimes credible and sometimes tabloid-like. :P

Anyway, because ayu is still a big celebrity, we occasionally see this kind of articles and many comments to such articles from ayu fans and anti-fans.

and my additional comment is ... fans in Japan have been saying that ayu should have a less-hectic schedule and vocal training for many years, i believe. (but at the same time, fan of ayu in japan are now happy/unhappy because the 2010 tour will/will not come to their city ;) So, you know how ayu has been working so far. I believe ayu is doing, in general, what she'd like to do and what she thinks she should do as an artist.

I'll kidnap her to Singapore. :P we'll go shopping at all the LV stores, and we'll eat good Singaporean food! :laugh

well a fan can dream....

sometimes it sounds funny when all of us want Ayu to get some rest and everybody's like suggessing a place for her :laugh

in fact that,this "stubborn" woman had fly this monink to a "secret" place :D

Livedoor and J-Cast are reputable sources, but even so, they are still obviously opinion articles. However it does reflect the general sentiment that I have seen, not only here but in Japanese places on the web as well. As Maikeru said, this is the equivalent of an article showing up in something like Entertainment Weekly.

could she be testing for new type of singing? LOL I know it sounds ridiculous, but I've heard this type of singing before, almost like you are out of breathe but it is actually something considered great, because you "suck back in" your voice and not letting end as a fade out.

but doing it so often really makes it sounds out of breathe......

For me it's a big joke this article x)

I don't think that the credibility is an important factor, as this isn't a rumor, it's something everyone's been aware for quite a while, obviously some less than the others.

She is not a singer ? she has not a great voice ? I laugh u_u

AsiaTour 2008 Who...ACCAPELLA

^ Yes, that was beautiful. ^_^ She's always been pretty good at a capellas, actually. :O And I thought her 2007-2008 vocals were some of her best, in my opinion... Dunno why everybody hates them. Every one of the a capella is amazing, for example. And even if you think they're bad, are they really as....horrible as, say, 2001 vocals, lol? D:

For one thing, don't bring up Carey. She's nearly blown out her voice from trying to show off her whistle register so freakin' much, so she's not a good example anymore.
But.... What's wrong with that note..? :no Dear, it's a perfect A, right above middle C. Go to a keyboard and test it out while she sings it. Not off pitch at all... And even if it were, it sounds fine to me...

It'd be nice, but the 'style' of singing she uses nowadays seems to lean towards the "yelling" as opposed to the lighter nasal tone that she used to use to sing Dearest. Honestly, I don't think I saw that much of a problem with the Dearest performance she did during AT08... it was actually pretty nice imo considering that she's (almost) completely abandoned the nasal singing.

I thought RED LINE's vocals were very reminiscent of the old Ayu that people seem to want to hear... maybe you don't feel the same way, but I think many people felt that she went back to some of her older vocal techniques (before 2007) when singing RED LINE...

True, it's just that it ended up being a sort of way for people to join the "vocals = WTF?" discussion even though that's not what you intended.

everyone knows that carey's voice has deteriorated too, but she's still known for her whistle register in the public so she's a very fine example to illustrate my point. :rolleyes

have I talked anything about pitch? voice quality. of course she won't be off key in the studio.

actually, I feel the same too, especially in the manner the verses are sung, but it's probably more in the melody than her voice.

but I also found her to be struggling much with teddy bear during CDL and a lot of people say that she was reminiscent of older performances. so there's a huge gap between individual perception.

Well, teddy bear was very good in comparison to the other performances that she'd done that night, some of which were... unbearable. While not as great as the one at AT03-04, it showed promise, I think.

True, Ayu is a busy busy busy person, but that's really not what strains her voice... She "screams" a lot in concerts. She really gets into what she's singing, and that has obviously messed up her voice a bit. It's like the "You were..." performances, except this has been happening for a while now. She needs to go on a complete vocal shutdown the day of each concert. The only time she should be talking before a concert is to do vocal warmups. I've heard of many singers doing this, and in the end, it really does help them.

In the VIVI Feb. 2010 interview she said:
"Because it was in the middle of the tour, I told my staff in advance, “It’s alright not to do anything for my birthday”..... Because if I were to have celebrated it, I would have definitely talked too much out of happiness and that would have been bad for my voice. Other than that, because I want to sing my best on stage, it’s kind of like “please let me be silent” (laughs).”"

so she's trying.

i really think Ayu just needs rest. she's been busy all the time and has kept going with no stops. whether she likes working or not, she needs a rest. i think it's finally beginning to take a toll on her, i believe in Ayu and definitely think she can over come this. it's just a plateau that she's hit and needs to get over. :)

It's a little disappointing that some people are assuming that she's been careless about her voice, when she is actively trying to keep her voice from crapping out. It's like... of course she's going to be trying to keep things from going wrong! She's the singer and probably knows what's good/bad for her voice. (Though her self confessed love for beer might not be helpful. Perhaps she's switched from beer to pocari sweat and aojiru?)

she's human. she's trying. give her a chance.

Go ahead...really. If it's towards me, whatever.

I just remember that I read this a while back

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_cord_nodules

From what everyone is saying about ayu's voice now (like how its in a different tone, breathless, etc) it does sound like she might have this vocal cord nodules thing. ayu has been performing quite a lot in the past few years and its likely she could have developed it and may not know herself yet. Its also more likely to develop in women.

Just thought I'd drop this in