Ayumi Hamasaki, Empress of J-Pop: The Essential Playlist

A new article by Popcrush is all about Ayu!:luv2
It talks about Ayu's status in Jpop and the influence she has been on it for two decades. It also talks about Ayu's music being added to Spotify and Apple Music. Going even further to make a detailed list of her most essential songs.:heart
It is so nice to see a positive article come out for Ayu.

Oh that's nice! I love that she recommended a lot of tracks, and obviously FLOWER!!!

it seems like I met Maro on Feb 8 in Tokyo, Ebisu area. he passed by me wearing sunglasses but I saw his eyes and his eyes were quite big and I thought may be I saw him somewhere and that he might be some tarento or so. and then I realized that he might be Maro! but by that time he already went away. I checked his blog, instagram and twitter now and it seems like he walks a lot :laugh I don't know if it was him or somebody really looking like him but it would be funny if it was really Maro.

^ years ago I was riding Namboku subway and I swear he was right in front of me lol. Considering it stops at several high end areas the possibility is quite high yea? Lol


On a side note...
I miss the chillness of the first ayumix.

I love the way the writer has written the song descriptions :luv2

That's really cool. Particularly, I wouldn't recommend A song is born, but I'm glad they added gems such as WHATEVER. :yes

You call me crazy but I wrote him an e-mail yesterday night right before posting this message to AHS. So I asked him if it was him. And you know what?! He just answered me that it was him!!! OMG :laugh it's crazy. haha.

He wrote me to call him next time if I ever meet him again. Wow. Lol.

It's so strange that I could meet him just like that since I came to Tokyo only for one day! I'm not even a Tokyo local. Crazy!

UPD: Oh, it was not him who answered me but someone from his staff.

Btw he looked kind of angry. And he's not tall at all. I guess he's living somewhere in that area. He wrote in his blog that day around 8:50 am like "It's so great to work since early morning like now" or something.

Yeah he's quite short!

But that's crazy!! Lolol

Wow, finally a good Western article about ayu.

I'm just remembering 2005/2006 when Kumi really blew up in popularity and there was all this drama between Ayu fans and Kuu fans :roflmao This forum was really popping back then!!

Yeah, I'd say A song is born is an acquired taste once you are more into Ayu and her vocal style. I do love it, but it was not a song I listened to when I was first becoming and Ayu fan.

Anyone wondering about her arena tour this year? I get the feeling that usually it's announced by now? Or has it been getting later every year? I'm wondering with the anniversary if the tour schedule is going to be changed up for some reason.

I think last year by this time the tour was already announced.

But since she's still travelling around it seems unlikely that there'll be an announcement very soon.

She should just do one tour this year, in the middle of the year. No Countdown and no TA live. Just one tour with good vocals, good production and good performances.

Actually, scratch that. Realistically I hope she'll only do one tour.

But if I had it my way she wouldn't do a single concert in 2017. She'd leave the fans dying with anticipation for her 20th anniversary in 2018.

And in the meantime she'd rest and plan an amazing anniversary tour.

Thanks for posting that PopCrush article - it was a very enjoyable read!

I need a studio version of the Fly High remix from this most recent CDL. Finally a live remix that doesn't feel like a novelty "here's a jazz/EDM/cafe bossa nova/rock remix" but a genuine re-imagining of the song still true to itself.

was looking at the old news and found that avex had plans to release A BEST on dvd, but it was cancelled
http://ahsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12645
http://www.yesasia.com/us/1002930636-0-0-0-en/info.html

I didn't know that!

It won't help: she keeps straining her voice every show regardless of how many dates she does. What she really needs is vocal training.

That's interesting!! Didn't knew it either! (It would probably be the record of DVD sales in Japan)

I just found this article on twitter: http://aramajapan.com/news/avex-pict...and-cds/71087/

Does this mean we won't be able to buy Ayu's albums outside of Japan anymore? Will it also apply to mu-mo+tenso?