I agree. That album rocked.

HAPPY ENDING was the best song from MY STORY. Especially when she performed it live during the tour.
From (miss)understood, I love Ladies Night.

yeah! that performance was lovely!! great vocals ^^
Ladies Night is great too, very catchy and I love to sing along to it =)

MIKAYUKO: I really <3 this thread! It will definitely work out:P and we'll definitely have some friendly constructive criticism here:yes and we'll always respect individual opinions~ sounds good?:D

lol Maybe Ayu works best under pressure HAHAHA.

M.A was made under a strict deadline.. and MY STORY was given a few extra months [Started in like May]. :D

I hope she gets pressured to work harder again! :D Maybe she'll make songs even better than her hits! :O!

^oh really? how about MU? A lot say that MU was rushed..

I think it seemed rushed because the 'GEOness' came so suddenly. Single release was Nov, and she finished the album by then..

Most of the GEO songs I think were recorded in a studio in NY.. :\ So some of them were rushed. /shrug though

"-Interviewer: ‘MY STORY’ has 17 tracks, so it’s a pretty long album. When did you start work on it?
-Ayumi: I began right after this year’s tour was over, so around May or June. I felt very strongly that I wanted to take my time with it.

-Did that have something to do with the fact that your ‘Memorial Address’ released last year, was a mini album, and you hadn’t released a full length album since ‘Rainbow’ in 2002?
-Last year’s was a mini album, so I feel like for fans who were expecting a full length album, it must have been like, ‘This is it?’. I’m sure they wanted to hear more. So this year I wanted to take my time making this record. Also, during ‘Rainbow’, there was a part of me that didn’t know what I should make my priority anymore, and it felt like I just somehow finally was able to make it into a full album. I didn’t want to feel that way again, and I didn’t want to do that method of creating, or of giving it to my fans. So last year that most that I could possibly do turned out to be a mini album. But I didn’t want to deal with feeling so pressed for time this year, and I didn’t want have a target date set, so I decided to ask if I could start working on it early.
-You wanted to put out something that you were really pleased with. So, does that mean that you made the singles you released this year while envisioning the album?
-That’s right. I made them with the idea that they’d been on the album. But I didn’t have any kind of concept for the album, I just wanted to put together a bunch of songs that I liked. I didn’t really care if they went together. So I really had hundreds of possible songs, and I gave them to various people to do different kinds of arrangements for, and wanted to just pick the only the ones I liked from all of that."

Quoted from article from AHS.

^oh cool! thanks for the article!

MY STORY has a nice flow to it, and the single songs are excellent. However some album tracks weren't as good..

I think MY STORY was more.. free in terms of album songs. I think its one of her most 'album-exclusive' song-albums. 13 new album tracks.. and 4 single songs...:p

<3 Is it?

yeah, that's true and that's why I enjoyed the album a lot when I bought it. MU has too many singles >< so the album feels kind of "old" but still the songs are good anyways.

RAINBOW is my favorite album :D

woot! yay! I'm a fellow fan^^
the whole album flows so well, everything, the lyrics, music, and album art..:luv2

I like this thread :) congrats for the thread creator. I liked the whole concept of RAINBOW and I was happier to see it sort of extended in A Ballads.

I agree, Happy Ending is an awesome song. I am completely suprised how many people hate it..

Anyway, Ayu's music was pure gold, even as squeaky as her voice was until after Memorial Address.

Like this?
Damn I am a failure at being nice..
Well, atleast I didn't say her music after that sucked. :shrug

yes! :yes *adds it to the list!*

Wow so far so good!! :D

and I'd like to say that I didn't like that much born to be... until I saw the PV! and I looooved how it turned out! Now I love born to be as much as Startin'!! :yes


EDIT:Ayumi no Yume that's not playing by the rules :no it sounds like sarcasm. you could have kept that last comment for yourself as the rules said so.

:\

Well, it's all a matter of opinions, and in my opinion, her work has only gotten stronger over the years :]

Hopefully, she uses D-A-I mooorreee.

Indeed. I hope we get to see more DAI and CREA in the future.

i'm missing them :cry

But seriously, i find her albums released after A Ballads to be of better quality and i love them a lot :D :P :)

^ Yeah I can see and hear how she get better and better! and she prooved it again with startin'! :P her little come back :P

huh?? why was i being sarcastic? i wasn't being sarcastic :no

well hopefully Startin' will sell well!! and make a good comeback!

Be careful though. Koda Kumi's album is getting promotion over Ayu's single.

/Blah. Her album isn't even a real album.. it's just a BEST >> /falls down

Ayu deserves promotion just as much as Koda.. ;-;