^ Yes, in your opinion. It's fine if you explain why you prefer TL to Loveland but stop talking as if I'm wrong for not feeling the same.

Was the hate for True Lovers on other forums? Becuase I just remember people just kinda being meh about it.

Just repeating the love for HEAVEN as her best album to date but I'm finding LOVELAND to pretty easy to get into.

...maybe this is only me but in You're Beautiful I keep hearing the beginning of the JENOVA music from Final Fantasy VII, makes me like the song even more!

Wait, she actually described her own album as a masterpiece? Just wondering.

What have Japanese music critics said about Loveland since the release so far? I'm curious. I don't usually listen to what they say (in regards to any artist), but with Miliyah I don't know how they've rated ANY of her body of work (musically/lyricall/etc).

Thanks again for the translations tenshi! <3

It was posted on her blog :yes
You can read the translation here.

^ Thank you. I find it odd that someone would call their own work as masterpiece just like that. I hope that there is something wrong with that translation. In any case, I don't really care.

Maybe I'm looking a little too into what the post says, but here goes. Miliyah didn't say enough in the blog post to really specify much so I think it was really easy to misconstrue what she was referring to. I don't think she would really go that far to say that LOVELAND is a masterpiece... in general most Japanese people are not that (and right now my brain isn't working and I can't think of the right word but right now...) egotistical... (eh, I hope you guys can kind of see where I'm trying to go with that). Anyway, I don't think it was a boast of any kind, she said she finished LOVELAND and based on what she said that if at all it was an affirmation of appeasement of the end result.

But really if you want to look at the context, from there she said the staff surprised her with the cake right? So the staff had the cake written with the masterpiece diddy on it. The quote after is when Miliyah says that it was a masterpiece... Here you can look at it as: she is referring to the cake, not the album. Although this post is primarily about one topic (the album), she switched to a subtopic (the cake) and made a direct reference (I think it's a masterpiece!) about it. So I think its more about the cake than the album and it would make sense. That's just my interpretation though.

It doesn't make sense for an artist to say a new album, a day after the completion of said album is a masterpiece. That's a lot to live up to for the rest of your career if it is in fact a "masterpiece". Its such an extremely bold and ludicrous statement. If she said that months after she completed it and was more along the lines of i.e. 'after much thought I feel like this album is the most complete and cohesive body of work I've done to date compared to my older work' then that I would view as normal because thats more of a thought out artist growth opinion. You know?

^I definitely agree and that she was referring to the cake is exactly what I thought. Thanks for clearing it up more.

That's what I thought until I looked at the picture of the cake itself. There's definitely some kind of pun here but I wouldn't read too much into it.

Any artist would call their latest creation their masterpiece until the next comes up. Ayu does that whenever she releases something. Howevr, Miliyah has a lot of creative input in the production of her albums, and this time she even produced a PV. I think she feels she achieved something with this album that she had not done before.


Anyways, I took some time to give the album a few listens. It's pretty coherent, it's probably never gonna be my favorite because there's no track standing out for me, but it's such a solid album that I definitely can't say it's bad or anything. I actually like it a lot overall. It's just missing that wow factor I could find with most of her albums. I really like all of the album tracks though, especially The One, 冷静と情热のあいだ and Shape of Love.

I would agree with you on your statement, but normally artists say that its their "favorite" or "best work yet" which is still a far cry away from saying its a "masterpiece". That I think is kind of normal 'cause its new and they've spent the last year plus working on the new material so they're heavily invested and have poured their heart and soul into the project, etc. In terms of Ayu, I know she always does that, but I don't believe I remember her saying on record that any album is a masterpiece.

Of course if Miliyah is taking more reigns in her creative control she should feel a heightened sense of achievement, that's great, but I still don't imagine that post referring to her saying LOVELAND is a masterpiece haha. I'd hope to think she's a little more humble than that.

I don't really see anything wrong with her calling her work a masterpiece tbh ^^; I'd take it more as an "it's my magnum opus!" than "this is one of the best albums EVER MADE BY ANYONE EVER" personally but maybe it's just me~

^yeah, can't understand the fus either. she can name her won album anything she wants. clearly this was a double reference here. if she would not think it is a masterpiece I beg her not to release it in first place.

by the way i think it's time to open a new thread :P

I'm already post #514, I agree...

The original message:
She calls the album a masterpiece in English and in Japanese (最高傑作) :laugh

^ That's interesting. Thanks, tenshi.

I suppose it's a great thing she can think that, but the way I see her has changed a bit now.

I don't know, I don't want to be judgmental and I don't mean to say I think less of her (I don't really care in general because when I listen to artists I listen to them for their music, not for who they are as people or what they say/do), but this is just something that strikes me odd no matter what. I can't wrap my head around, for example, finishing my own painting I'm very proud of and think it's amazing (which is completely fine), and then announcing to the world that it's a "masterpiece". While I'd allow myself to think that, I would rather wait to hear other people's thoughts about it before announcing such a thing (in the end, I would never announce it anyway because what's the point?).

Which only says that me and Miliyah are different people who see things differently. No surprise there.

I guess that people who were raised to be humble all the time would see this as weird, those who were not wouldn't really care (which I think is a far better thing). At the end of the day, this just depends on what you see is more right; whether you think that humility is the way to go, or whether you think people should be able to really say that they are the best/smartest or that their work is a masterpiece (one of the very best albums in existence) without feeling bad about it (I don't think one should feel bad about this kind of stuff, but it sure has its drawbacks like everything else in life).

I guess stuff like this is in general something that can be discussed in length, but we sure don't have to do that here. I hope I didn't offend anyone or make anyone think I'm saying Miliyah is a bad/worse person because of this. I do not think that and am not trying to make that point. For the most part, I do see her as a much more confident person.

(Or maybe I'm just reading too much into that masterpiece comment. Who knows if she was even being THAT serious about the whole thing.)

^ Personally I'd never say that aloud about my own work either so I understand where you're coming for. (Whenever I finish something I usually only like it for 5 minutes and then start picking flaws anyway lol.)

That said, Miliyah sings, writes and composes (almost) everything herself. Her album is her baby and she's proud of it. To me it's more like she's saying, "I put all my creativity in this album. I made it as good as I could. Therefore, to me, it's a masterpiece." It's a masterpiece as far as her own work goes. That's how I interpret it. Does that make sense? :laugh

^I'm the same...I like my stuff while working on it and then yeah..

but I want artist to realse stuff they are 100% okay with and not just some okeysih/maybe next time album

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense, and it's a great way of interpreting it. I think I'll just stick to that, too. :)