The only great thing about NEXT LEVEL are the interludes. Seriously, some of the best interludes of her career (Bridge To The Sky is my absolute favorite, followed by everlasting dream and then ARIA), although Disco-munication has to be one of her worst. NEXT LEVEL the song is rather dull - I love the arrangement though and the overall atmosphere of the song - but the chorus is such a letdown; I wish we had an instrumental. I have since grown to like the song for what it is. EnergizE is fun, but I listened to it so much when the album came out that I have grown tired of it. rollin' is annoying and repetitive - not in a good way. I used to love identity but the verses are rather odd - I do not like the feel that they give off. LOVE'n'HATE is another song I really dislike. Curtain Call is terrible.

As far as the singles go, I love Days and always will (but I do not allow myself to listen to it until the first snowfall of each winter, makes it more special - having my first winter smoke while listening to it this year and the snow falling in the afternoon was magical). GREEN I like as well. I was obsessed with Sparkle (like everyone else) when it first came out, but since then my love for the song has simmered - still a great song but I don't find myself nearly as amazed by it now as I was then. Rule is way to hectic for me.

So really, this album is rather boring for me. I was hoping for trance and lots of energy when the theme was revealed, but it was electronica done in a very poor, boring, and predictable way...

for me, NL = Bridge to the sky, NEXT LEVEL, Sparkle, Rule, GREEN, Disco-munication, and LOVE 'n' HATE. i rarely listen to the others. all of these songs/interludes are fantastic tho, so all else on the album is easily forgiven for being boring/lackluster.
GUILTY on the other hand.. I can't forgive anything on that album lmao. it's a mess.

taskebab...smdh. LOL
I just wish we knew which of the rest of the songs were full songs.

I just want the album! lol

Curtain Call is probably my favourite album closer ever <3

Remember when the title came out and we were all going "omg she's retiring!!!" xD But the song and the one-take PV was amazing. I loved that technique in HEAVEN, too... :)

I really should just bite the bullet and order the CD+3DVD version because we're pretty broke for the next few weeks since I've been off work with no pay but I just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaant that limited version! xD

Haha its funny how everyone hates the tracks I love. I actually rarely listen to a full ayu album. I have playlists and all with fitting songs.

NEXT LEVEL had great tracks. I love disco-munication, LOVE n HATE, curtain call, NEXT LEVEL and the singles (altough, except for sparkle, none was fitting)
.

with RnR I rarly listen to countdown or meaning of LOVE but they are nice tracks. apart from that I really like everything I think.

Love songs has to be the best since years and is the only album since miss understood I still listen to from Track 1 to the end.

and with FIVE. beloved is just to long for me and progress feels underproduced (her voice sounds so overdone). I loved the collabs. I'm a URATA Fan and his solo album is great. I which, she has more collabs in future since she went solo for years now. BRILLIANT is just another perfection like alterna, kiss or kill, Like a doll, Marionette and so on...

I want a new concept and not a similar to...-album...

every ayu-album had a good atmosphere...one more one less...and sure, i think "Party Queen" will be an electronic-pop-album or something like that too. But she would never give us an album, who sounds similar to an another album.

Think about "Guilty" and "Rock'n'Roll Circus"
Sure, both have the same musicgenre but i don't think, there is anything similar....

the barebones of it ayu's albums are different, but the feel sometimes you can compare... I for one never want the same album, but I like thinking that you can compare them to others that she has done!

so far I haven't liked any of Ayu's London/foreign works albums (RnRC, Love songs, FIVE), Love songs has Do it again & November which are my abolute favs, but that's all, and FIVE has BRILLIANTE, but that's all :( and I decided to eliminate RnRC from my ayuhistory

she gets stronger and stronger with each release imo. I dont know is it me going through similar things but FIVE was perfect, sometimes I wish it was a full album. Slight flirtation with j-rnb was such a fresh air. Especially after safe Love Songs and RnRC, at least I thought of it as safe with her casual listeners and fans. Each track speaks for itself how strong it is. I can't doubt Party Queen will be something strong and fresh too.

+1 :yes

Curtain Call is one of my favourite tracks of all time, same for the PV.

Honestly, there are very, very few Ayu songs that I outright dislike, disregarding the ASFXX album. Heck, I loathed SURREAL until 2010, I didn't see what the big deal was, I thought it was such a boring and utterly stupid song.

But the only songs I dislike are Close to you, No Way to Say, Free & Easy, crossroad, CAROLS and Connected. Everything else is awesome in my book. :yes

taskebab.... The title leaves me speechless everytime I read it... Not in a good way... I can see ayu going all 'GIVE ME YOUR KEBAB, wowowowow yeah yeah yeah"....:irked

I don't even know how it sound, but I already love taskebab :heart (haha :laugh). Cannot wait to listen to it.

YES THIS!! CUrtain Call for me is such beautiful and pure perfection!! X)

I have a feeling I'm gunna end up buying the 5DVD box set because I just got paid for a commerical I did so I have money!!!!

Meh, somehow I doubt it, considering NONE of the 'task' interludes have any kind of ayu vocals whatsoever.

That what means that tastes differ!because I can't see how u can do not like these songs, which are my all-time favs :)

can't wait for the album!! and i'm secretly hoping for a CREA song. hee

tbh the only decent song from her recent (relatively recent) which I really loved for real is GREEN... and it was released in 2008 :thud

hope her new stuff will impress me.

I love NEXT LEVEL singles (Rule, Sparkle, GREEN and Days :heart )
but the album tracks are not relly good for me (i only like NEXT LEVEL and Energize)

I really love Curtain Call and Rollin! I don't think Next Level a bad album. Only song I really can't stand is Love'n'hate. And I mostly don't matter the interludes.. at any album.
So.. I like Next Level.

can we get covers soon please T_T I know it's early but I'm dyiinngggggg hehe XP

^It'll probably be at least a few weeks before we see the covers.
I'm hoping for something better than the "London" Rock'n'Roll Circus
covers. Not that they were bad, they just weren't worth a trip to London
to make. I want to see her standing with Big Ben in the background or something, lol

The trip to London was because she wanted to record there, and the fact that she did the PVs/cover shoots there was probably because she was there already. She tends to do this a lot when she goes overseas.

She's had a lot of on-location album shoots recently compared to older albums. (ASFXX to MY STORY were all in a studio/indoor location, (miss)understood/GUILTY/Love songs/Rock'n'Roll Circus were all shot outside AND overseas.)

I think her better covers (and photos in general) tend to be taken in a photo studio for some reason.

Some of em was taken overseas/outdoor and she looks like she was cut/paste on the backround so what is the point of making em XD (glitter/fated, Sunrise) Was fairyland cover taken on the beach somewhere abroad? Cause it still looks like taken in a studio :P the only photos I mainly like taken somewhere outdoor and oversees are from calendars.

If you check out the fairyland PV making of you'll see it was shot in Hawaii during the time they were shooting the video.

I remember when I was talking with tasuku on Twitter, a few people jumped in and started spamming him with suggestions for task-related song titles. I wonder if taskebab was one of them XD

thats what I meant, they were taken outdoor but for me they look studio-ish, cause of photoshop propably. They over-do these photos all the time.

Lots of post production for the fairyland covers. They were taken when it was relatively bright and sunny outside and somehow they ended up with a sunset-ish huge to them. Also surprising is that Shimoko took those photos, I think? The same goes for BLUE BIRD's cover, as I think it was shot on the pile of pillows on the boat featured in the PV.

Interesting that for most of the summer singles since fairyland, she shot the covers in the area she shot the PVs (Hawaii, Guam, Hong Kong) but then for Sunrise/Sunset the PVs were done in Japan while the covers were in Bali. I wish they had just done the covers in some studio in Japan, lol.

with a name like Party Queen, I really hope the covers are like Sparkle

a hot cover with her mouth open,looking fierce

^
Or maybe something like her rimmel london campaign of 2010 winter, she's so cute in there, though it's kinda girlish and I'm expecting something fierce xD

PS: try to wake up listening Bridge to the sky+NEXT LEVEL, it's magical to me, always make me smile =)

^^ I think it was said the album covers were shot in a field or something (i'm not sure though but i believe i've read it here) so idk if we're going to get something ~fierce~, i was thinking of something more natural like love songs, but well maybe i'm wrong, ayu can still surprise us (:
^ awww it must be so magical to wake up listening to bridge to the sky and next level *a*

I would love something abstract to her usual covers. NL was kinda like that, but not in the best quality she good give (Ok, i really like the cover, but the booklet is the worst booklet ever... Tacky and cheep.) When you said 'field' I imagine her on very big, empty field in her pink hair doing weird pose, in weird clothes <3 that would be fierce xD something like GUILTY ~extreme edition~ xD

Well, when Ryan Chan and Leslie Kee were waiting on location for the shoot, they were in a very grassy area.

https://twitter.com/#!/lesliekeesupe...34749770022913

My thoughts exactly. But without the leopard dress, lol

Party On Green for a cover would be very weird imo xD

Anyway, I love her hair in the next level booklet, its so unnusual even seeming kinda cheap =B
A grassy area, PVs in clubs, Party Queen... it's gonna be quite a different release huahuahua

why is there not a page for the life and style book on amazon.co.jp or CDJ? I don't get it...

^ I wonder too..
I hope they'll add it soon :headache

Just seems odd to me...and YA says it'll be released at the end of February.

#confused
#getittogether

I think if she'd done the whole big ben thing it would have looked really touristy, I dunno made it cheap? like going for the obvious

I hope a cup of tea is the only other interlude besides taskebab. Will be weird having a full-length album without some sort of introduction though, but it's all good!

Also, do we think that the PV for HBYR will air around the time it is released digitally?

^I don't really care for the one cover, but the CD+DVD of her up close is gorgeous.

I didn't like RnRC concept at all. The whole thing was a miss for me. Love songs, despite that I don't like the album, had a really cute concept. Not earth-shattering, but I liked it.

Never understand the R'n'RC hate. Whether it's the concept or the music itself, I thought it was an extremely solid release. I LOVE it.

If Party Queen is on the same level, I will be ecstatic. Something tells me it will be though. ;)

Also, thinking about it, it will be pretty cool if the album doesn't have an intro. It worked great on (miss)understood! As long as she starts it out with the upbeat tracks. Like maybe Party Queen, Shake it, or NaNaNa will be the first track...hm....ugh I hate speculation LOL

Do not get me started... Do not get me started.

*Deep breaths* *Deep breaths*

Lol.

Yeah I don't understand why people hate RnRC.

I am simply grateful for it gave us Microphone, last links, Sexy little things, and Don't Look Back!!

^^I also love countdown, Sunrise, You were..., and Lady Dynamite! haha the album version of Red Line is great too...I love the way it ends. <3


@zeke stop being a drama queen :P

I really like RnRC, I think it's a great album. Same thing goes to Love Songs. Both of these albums have different concept. I don't know why people hate RnRC? For me, all of the songs were great..Even I Love "meaning of Love" on first listen. :)

I hated the album version of Red Line! Her vocals were terrible... Lol.

*shrug* idk it sounds like any other studio track from that album to me

RNRC was just expected for me :shrug

It was the same formula as her other albums, just with her current standard of bad music lol

And the concept...London fashion was so popular then, I figured she was just being trendy like she tries to do. Her Love Songs reminds me of Rinka's photobooks...

So anyway, idk, I wasnt disappointed. I liked that she had count down and last links, just cause, we hadnt really had any plain, raw songs like that.


And yeah, her studio vocals had been awful since GUILTY for me, so, I wasnt bothered.

Im so excited for her vocals for this album *_*

I'm quite excited about this new album!

Really? How so? Love song, crossroad, MOON, Days, GREEN, Sparkle, Microphone, BALLAD, You were..., November, all sound outstanding to me.

While I can understand people disliking NEXT LEVEL, I can't possibly understand what's so bad about Rock'n'Roll Circus as the album had no flaws for me. It was what I wanted her to do.

I can't really recall a single artist who changes their formulas with every release, though imo Ayu changes plenty pretty often, though it's not that obvious.

^I love that about her though. I've said before there is at least one track that doesn't get played as much, or is the least favorite or something. For NEXT LEVEL, those would be identity and rollin' for me. Will on (miss)understood. etc.

I think I have to disagree, she gets much more boring, repetitive & weaker in terms of music with every release for me, FIVE is the weakest & cheapest of them all in terms of music production/PVs

"had" been, like back before rnrc I thought they were. I had the biggest issue with Rule iirc...her vocals for Love Songs were nice. English bugged me, but what else is new lol

You're making it seem worse than it is. She has ups and downs. It's normal.

so sad bu true..... +1 :(

give her a chance ;)

I think so too. Her earlier PV's have such a beautiful story sometimes. I watched her new PV's (Another song for example) and sometimes i thought "Is there any background story?"
I don't like PV's with only one scene and dance-parts only. I love ayu's PV's where you can see, that was a hard work to shoot and a big effort.

The best example was "Progress" i was so dissappointed, when i saw this PV. What was this? It is such an epic song...and it had deserved an epic pv...

progress is one of my favorite Ayu PVs. It's creative, inspiring and breaks the boundaries of typical pop PVs by being rather conceptual.
It's actually a fresh idea and not a generic love story or dancing at the beach PV. If I want bad lovestory or dancing PVs I can just watch MTV.

Lol, so much "I hope its not this, I hope its not that" talk. At least Ayu is releasing something at all. Some people are still waiting on any kind of news from ICONIQ or MIZCA, imagine waiting 18 months between releases from Ayu. :thud

I think she has bounced back a bit from her musical low. Love songs was a great album! But if you look at A COMPLETE, the 2nd disc is almost flawless, and then you get to 3rd disc and the quality sort of takes a nosedive...........

seriuosly i cant wait to listen to this album, especially taskebab and a cup of tea!really gives an effect for those who didnt know Ayu,like my friends really think i had taskebab and a cup of tea when i wrote it on fb :roflmao

I dont know why so many people hate the title taskebab. perhaps youve never had one. theyre delicious :D

Ayu's music went downhill? Naaah... I completely disagree, but I guess to each his own. I really loved FIVE. Though as for her PVs they really did go downhill. Her last best PV was do it again IMO. Epic and with meaning behind it.

I agree, I absolutely hated FIVE's PV's with a passion. I mean like, progress... I thought it would have an animated PV because it was a song for a game... But no, instead we get a weird PV about travelling or something.. It looked more like something of a schoolproject... beloved was super boring, Why...: I didn't liked it, and ANother song, don't even get me started on that one, they try way to hard.

I'm into the pv's with the 'creepy endings', like RAINBOW, when the two ayu's were sitting at the table, and the waitress only gave 1 ayu a glass of water, then that ayu laughed mischievously and the other ayu disappeared. :O. And the one pv where ayu plays with the children and wakes up all gothic like on a bench (forgot the song name). And ourselves, when the SUPER CREEPY ayu-men appear in her car, and the pv ends. :mischief Always make you wondering what if.

^I think you're talking the PV for "sweet season". O.o;

THIS. IMO the last best PV of ayu is do it again. i always love ayu's PV being deep meaning. that's why i love part of Me so much <3

Those are the pictures that i show to my family when i go to a trip :P I agree with you. Not that i didn't like the pics,actually i did like her looks a lot, but i do think some of them they were too obvious.

Anyway,abtract is not an Ayumi signature when it comes to pictures, i think expecting that from her might not be a great idea since virtually all her photos are commercial and meant exclusively to promote her.

My guess for this album is that,despite it's name, it's gonna have an angry and instrospective feeling;i present the Party Queen title actually hides a very dark album. :yes.

Can't wait to hear it :P

That's true,they are!!! :D :P the title is great imho ;)

You shouldn't really look at ANother song as an ayumi hamasaki song as the whole thing was made to fit Urata's "urban" image or whatever he thinks he is doing. The video was a typical pop garbage and imo it shouldn't have been made in the first place. On the other side, progress is in a way a small piece of art and I have to agree with isthisLOL? on what he said about it. Her videos didn't go downhill, she has ups and downs on that field as well. Imo MOON, do it again, Virgin Road and Sweet Season were really on pair with her older PV works, where the majority of FIVE videos simply aren't, but that's ok cuz not all of her videos were amazing to begin with, as some are simply way better than the others. It's normal for someone with so many videos ^^ I mean Koda Kumi, BoA and Namie Amuro have an impressive amount of music videos as well and I can hardly think of a couple of their PVs that are actually worth watching more than once.

Except there has been no real "up" in her music for me since You Were.../Ballad.

Really? XD Microphone, Don't look back, crossroad, Love song, Last angel, do it again were pretty big for me :)

Of those I would say I like Microphone, Last angel and Love song. However, none of them have the same impact for me that her releases previous to these have had. When RnRC was released it was the first time I was truly disappointed in a release Ayu had made. And from there the biggest up she's had for me was thinking about those songs "Oh, this song is horribly, unbearably boring like her other songs have been!".

you didn't get my point right

are ppl talking about RnRc
like all Ayu , I love more songs than dislike but my problem with this album was that the theme and the music had a disconnect and even the covers, the whole thing was so random
but the amazing tour totally made for the RnRc era, even though can she plz sing Last Links
Love Songs was flawless to me,still is and FIVE gave me beloved and BRILLANTE

so yeah, the songs I am dying to hear is NANANA

When I mentioned her vocals on R'n'R, I was specifically speaking toward the a capella / album version of RED LINE. That ending part just ruins the whole song.

I really liked Ayu's earlier PVs, where's everything is natural and not computerize...

Oh well. I'd say only NEXT LEVEL truly disappointed me and I consider it her worst album to date, though it doesn't mean I don't like it. It's just that I like it less than the others. I dunno. If she hasn't made anything I consider amazing in 3 years I'd prolly stop following her even after being a fan for more than 6 years. You must like her a lot. Lucky for me with each album she manages to surprise me with something.

They explained the concept behind progress in the making-of. It was a pretty epic project I thought that fit the song.

Ayu's older PVs seem to get some sort of weird rose-colored glasses treatment because while she does have a ton of PVs that were full of meaning earlier on in her career, she has just as many PVs where nothing is really happening around her or there's no "story" to be seen. I wonder if it has something to do with her change in directors at some point in her career (I'd say around Memorial address/MY STORY) where she went from basically using Wataru Takeishi every single time to experimenting with other directors.

So far from what we know about the PVs for this album, I don't think they would please many of the naysayers since one of them takes place in an apartment during a house party and another has Ayu in a nightclub with 'freaks'. There is the PV filmed in the Middle East(?) and the one where she rides a military tank and a factory/robotic drones are involved as well as a very sad ending apparently but who knows how those will turn out?

I think that FIVE's PVs suffered from being rather experimental in some ways and in others, not so much.

progress - stop motion PV concept, also done by RADWIMPS a while back. They need to take TONS of photos with a DSLR camera to create the effect

ANother song - a standard PV from any 'urban' singer, was essentially "URATA NAOYA"-made

Why... - the video was probably made with the concept of being a DOSQA promotional video. All of the outfits worn in the video are made by the fashion designer and one of the concepts was even lifted from their promotional materials.

beloved - made with the message of "hope" in mind, the concept was basically "find the color in your life in your darker days" but it wasn't executed as well as it should have been... probably because it was Leslie Kee's second PV ever

BRILLANTE - this had a bit of a story (something about the past and the future), but they probably could have done without the men

None of the PVs for FIVE were really standard Ayu PVs except maybe the last two and two PVs that vaguely resemble what she normally does probably isn't enough to satisfy people.

IMO, it does not ruin the song at all. It's supposed to be very raw as though she is personally telling you that she is there by your side, holding your hand when you are feeling down.

What PVs were 'computerized' recently? For the most part, her PVs -are- all natural.

Without the men there would have been no story in BRILLANTE. I stand by BRILLANTE being the best PV in Ayu's videography for me. A great concept with good direction and great art direction. I have yet to find a flaw. Except maybe the visual composition of the close-ups but...you can't really blame anyone for that. Close-ups, especially in film, are practically never perfect in that way and there were 2 people in them simultanously.
Usually Ayumi's PVs have something offputting about them. Something, often something small, doesn't fit in. There's a bad angle, an awkward cut...but BRILLANTE was textbook work from the first until the last second.

I do like her a lot. Her previous releases are amazing, despite that I'm not so into her now. They have made me a fan for life. And even though I don't particularly like her new songs, I don't really hate them. There are far worse songs. Just not my style. So, instead of being all grumpy about not liking her new stuff or hating her/stop being a fan, I just don't listen to her newer stuff, and turned my attention to Koda Kumi, because her music has been more my style lately. Also, I give all Ayu's new stuff a try, but if I don't like it, I just switch to an older song.

this is the story of my life, but now when Kuu is gone for a while I dunno what to do. I have BIG BANG & YG but no female artist

That's oke. For me, when it comes to Ayu, even if a new song isn't instantly a hit for me, I'll give it some more time, read the translation and pay careful attention to the composition/arrangement. So far many songs managed to grow on me this way.

The only thing that pops into my mind is how can people listen to kpop, but asking that would be stupid, right lol

^because we listen to things for different reasons?

For example, when I want to get down and ghetto dance, I dont want an Ayu song. Its just not the right feel.

Its not astrophysics.

I said it's a dumb question and therefore I wasn't really asking for an answer :thud as it's beyond obvious :P Of course it's not astrophysics, cuz if it was I'd prolly understand it better ^^

Lol okay.

In my childhood days I had a favourite song called NANANA so that's my first association :D



Love Jimmy's voice.

No bashing guys ! :)

I don't have many artists at all now. I still haven't accepted that Kuu isn't going to be doing anything for a bit. Its a hard pill to swallow. I loved sifow, but she's gone. And Miray too. I guess I have to rely on Kana Nishino, mini, and hope against all odds that Ayu releases new material that I love, the way I love Memorial address era stuff. I have been neglecting K-Pop these days...

that's why each song can be very diffrent from our expections! (: NaNaNa can be a ballad, and Shake it can be a hardrock... ^^

and KF, part of my childhood too, my mum listens to them a lot, and Nanana its one of the songs I can stand... ;D

Maybe NaNaNa would be a interlude. Who knows :D
I was expecting a song called 'LaLaLa' instead though lol.

I hope the upbeat songs are fierce and hot like INSPIRE or sort of STEP you, and not super bubblegum like EnergizE

Doesn't seem likely, since it has a PV :yes

I hope it will be a rock song a la Pink :D

I hope we never ever have an energize again.

^^I don't hate it, but engrish from ANY jpop artist (unless you sound like a native like hikki or crystal kay) turns me off a bit. I like the track...but I like her more fierce pop tracks MUCH more, like LOVE 'n' HATE, Sparkle, INSPIRE, etc.

yeah, im just no on the bubblegum tracks.

And im the same with engrish, but I know its all special in japan...whatever, I hate it.

I guess I just want her to be cool and not all idk trying to be cute. Why would she. Shes damn cute enough lol