What is Trendy Angel?

^i think it's a comedy duo....? didn't she have both of them in one of her tour shows where GACKT showed up on stage too?

This poetry reading is... a choice.

Yes he’s one half of the due who were a surprise guest at her concert, who she then surprised with GACKT.

Thanks for your answers artcika and tokyoxjapanxfan :)

Hahaha! ... yeah right?

The poetry reading doesnt interest me as I do not understand japanese, it would have been better if it was read by Ayu herself, or Ayu singing the song in acapella mode :luv2

I'm finding this whole promotional campaign to be really fun

The album TROUBLE is to be released on August 6th via SPOTIFY, Apple Music etc, all the streaming websites
Source: TA Email

^ She never mentioned Spotify, it says "subscription services such as AWA and Apple Music" (doesn't even say all subscription services)

It's up on AWA
"TROUBLE" by 浜崎あゆみ on AWA

Ayu's featured on the cover of one of Spotify's curated playlists for J-Pop!

https://i.imgur.com/r3r7l8M.png

That's fantastic! Really strange song choice for that playlist though, lol.

When you have some free time, please put a good headset, listen to the last demo Ayu released and then play aeternal. The difference of sound quality between the demo and the final version is astounding!

How is aeternal dance pop lol
but it's awesome they used her picture for the cover

TROUBLE Spotify streams as of 08/13:

We are the QUEENS: 11,094
æternal: 25,584
WORDS: 13,551
W: 12,707
The way I am: 12,470

this EP is doing better than her latest releases on Spotify, that's exciting! æternal has almost the same amount of streams than MIJ album tracks.

That picture looks great as a playlist cover, but... What an unusual song choice :laugh

Time to twerk to æternal

^^ I just spat out my drink!! :spew:roflmao

The message from Ayu got added
https://open.spotify.com/track/5WvIn...taasEEh9G?nd=1

not too sure about this but i suspect this might be because the finished song, which is meant to be sold to the public, is usually of a better quality than a demo, which is just used to give a rough idea of what the song might sound like.

All the acapellas are now on Spotify

I keep forgetting to share this here.:tipsy

It’ll take more than Ayumi Hamasaki to help streaming services in Japan

Funny to mention but Taishaku did bring it up, the official account for Ayu was listening to Utada's Fantome, Hanataba wo Kimi ni specifically for some reason two days ago. You can see the 'friend/followed' activity when you follow the account on the PC app. Whoever updates for them must have forgotten to log out!

https://i.imgur.com/SzURQwc.png

I'm losing hope that they'll ever fix the incorrect tracks being used on spotify. The two stand outs to me are the non-mixed versions of "Fly High" being used on Ayu Trance 2 and Ayu-mi-x II but I'm sure there are more. It just completely destroys the flow of the albums.

I've reported it multiple times to Spotify but it seems they can't do anything about it although I'm not sure why. I've even emailed Avex but with no response.

Any more ideas how the issue can be fixed?

It's up to Avex fix not Spotify — for all Spotify know, that's how the album/flow should be...

I wouldn't hope for Avex to fix it..this is the same company that somehow forgot to include the guitar track for M on A Complete.

That missing guitar track was a mistake!? ������

Right though! I need that Green CMJK remix in my life!

omg wait that was a mistake? I thought it was intentional?

it's kind of like the A BEST 2 version of Greatful days, right? the only difference is in the very beginning (longer percussion intro thing, idk what it's called). it's similar to the A BEST version of Boys & Girls, too, although in this case the difference is more noticeable.

it's weird if it were intentional without a specific label acknowledging the difference, so it could be a mastering mistake/sloppy proofing on her/avex's part.

It's quite possible. Madonna's "Celebration" greatest hits album was riddled with errors. Random clicks/pops in tracks, intros cut off etc. I thought I just had a dodgy download until I bought the physical album and realised all versions were like that. It ruined the album for me 😪

I'm pretty sure it was intentional. I actually like that version without the guitar.:yes

So I was curious about how many streams in total she has in Spotify and so far she has over 114,777,343 streams in general and also this is what her TOP 20 most streamed songs looks like :yes (I did the graphic for my fanpage, sorry lol)

https://i.imgur.com/7Q9KsQF.jpg

Nice thanks for this!

It might be tricky to answer, but for people having firsthand knowledge of the Japanese audience / previous charts, how different is this from what you would expect her most played songs to be in Japan?
I think I remember people discussing the fact that Spotify isn't largely used there, which is why I'm asking! I can obviously see a lot of the absolute classics on this list, and somehow I would have expected at least a couple of newer songs in there if Spotify is more used in the West.

^According to her Spotify stats her Top 10 listeners countries on that platform are:

1. Japan
2. Taiwan
3. Indonesia
4. Singapore
5. Hong Kong
6. Malasya
7. Brazil
8. United States
9. Mexico
10. Chile (yay! lol)

(Bonus)

11. Canada
12. Republic of Korea
13. China

So maybe now Japanese people are using it more than before but you can still find more recent songs with a lot of streams, a lot more compared to some classics, song 4 U and aeternal are on the TOP 30 with almost 1 million streams each (well, Song 4 U is pretty popular outside of Japan thanks to the Tales of Games, same as progress which also has a lot of streams compared to other classics) :yes

Amazing that Brazil is the #1 country outside of Asia ✨

^Yes! I'm glad to see 3 latin countries on the Top 10, and I'm surprised about Chile since we're SO small compared to Brazil and Mexico lol

Brazil has a sizeable Japanese expat community, as far as I'm aware. They seem to be big on kpop as well.

Those numbers are pretty incredible! SEASONS with 6 mil is amazing, and so many over 1 mil as well!!

ˆ That's true but the funny thing is: none of the brazilian Ayu fans that I know are japanese descendants lol

A lot of those people knew her because of InuYasha (like myself), but it's really funny indeed, cause many of them still follow her even they aren't attached to the anime universe anymore (like myself again lol).

Yeah, a lot of Brazilian fans seemed to know her from stuff like that or Thousand Arms or even Tales games.

Yeah, I first found out about her thru Inuyasha as well. Also it was common to have her bootleg DVDs on sale at anime events.

I remember a couple of spanish (I think) magazines called "Animanga" and "Minami" they had this j-music section and sometimes the issues included a CD with some random j-music videos, I had a couple with Ayu, L'arc en Ciel, GACKT, Do as Infinity and other artists ^^

Same here :yes

Quick Spotify stats update:

Followers: 495,170 (she has been gaining near 1 thousand followers each day this past week :shakehead)

Total Streams: 118,011,881 (over 4 millions streams since the update earlier this month :yes)

Also "vogue" is her 26th song to reach 1 million streams! but there are 10 more songs really close to get 1 million streams, they should do it by next week probably ^^

EDIT: Followers on Spotify aren't the same as Listeners! Listeners change often since it counts how many people have listened to her songs during the current month :yes

The japanese descendants I knew were bigger on Namie, usually. Mostly introduced to her by relatives living in Japan and mailing them japanese stuff back in the 90's.

Thanks for the summary!

^Welcome!

Guys, I made a Spotify playlist with her top 50 songs on that platform, the idea is to help her digital performance :yes I checked and added the exact song for this, I mean, Days (single version) has 1,405,804 streams so I added it to the playlist but Days (album version) has less, and this happens with many songs, you will find some even from the Anime & Gaming selection lol I also made a cover with the Spotify style just for fun :D

https://i.imgur.com/kBux1M3.png

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1l...U3c2ZM7qwqIFPR

It's that time of the year again... guess who's my top Spotify artist lol

https://i.imgur.com/6qo3Nr6.png

top 0.05% yall

https://i.imgur.com/zUFF8CA.png

https://i.imgur.com/9jvjJjx.png

LOL I have the same results as you except for the last one.

All my top 5 songs are Ayu songs and I'm in the 0.05% of Ayu's listeners.

I'm jealous, all my Ayu music is ripped from CDs so she is never on my Spotify Most Played Playlists lol

Good job guys! I'm "only" in the top 2% of her listeners which is not bad at all :D !
https://i.imgur.com/bCg4pQ2.jpg|https://i.imgur.com/dggqlpP.jpg

So proud of my top 0.1% position :luv2 surprised my top song is Mad World, though.

I didn't have her in my ranks at all and I feel like I'm not myself...lol

She's my Top1 as well, didn't think she would win against Kygo haha
And I'm on the top 1% listeners, though not sure what it means...

I made top 0.5% too! Dreamed a dream is by far my most listened to, I wouldn’t have thought so!

wuhu Top 0,1%^^ And my Top Song is Dreamed a Dream XD

Quick update!

Followers: 500,938

Total Streams: 119,806,111

Boys & Girls just hit 6 million streams (her second song to reach this mark)

Hanabi is her 27th song to hit 1 million streams.

Ayu is my... Idk because my subscription ran out in late summer and I haven't used Spotify since then. Plus, I listen to so many (ripped) live versions of songs that it's never accurate. :laugh

Any chance you have the list of those?

^You mean the songs that have reached 1M streams??

This is the full list so far:

SEASONS 6,502,388
Boys & Girls 6,040,174
M 5,977,600
BLUE BIRD 5,514,277
Dearest 5,394,017
Voyage 4,181,438
A Song for xx 2,687,964
Moments 2,452,816
evolution 2,265,086
a song is born 1,912,417
SURREAL 1,653,590
Who... 1,616,626
appears 1,588,720
TO BE 1,571,341
No way to say 1,433,685
Days 1,433,248
HEAVEN 1,415,909
JEWEL 1,361,463
Fly high 1,324,403
MY ALL 1,310,930
CAROLS 1,235,537
STEP you 1,221,114
Trauma 1,181,746
Greatful days 1,066,575
vogue 1,028,946
July 1st 1,028,360
HANABI 1,007,210

BONUS:

Startin' 992,526
momentum 989,130
Song 4 u 984,170

These 3 are really close to the 1M mark as well! :D

Thanks hoping we'll see more post 2009 songs there someday!

I know aeternal is at 961k mark :)

^Yes! Some songs post 2009 that have good stream performance are:

aeternal 961,961
progress 960,930
Love song 956,582
Movin' on without you 931,479
Last minute 856,951
WORDS 691,407
Zutto... 661,924
Mad World 572,476
Pray 534,832
The way I am 532,615

:)

I never realised momentum was so big, those numbers are quite impressive!

^Yes! Now it has about 995k streams, so close to hit 1M! :yes

Startin' has 1,000,501 streams now, it's her 28th song to reach this mark.

man, why isn't apple music participating i something like this. Poeple should organize listening parties with playlists to boost certain songs lol

Secret seems to be one of her most popular albums.

^ I guess it got a sales bost from international asian fans as it was the first time Ayu toured and actually promoted overseas.

It's a hell of an album, isn't it? Two big popular hits ("Jewel" and "Blue Bird") and several staples she still uses all the time. Lyrics and music both knocked it out of the park.

Yes, secret is one of her most streamed albums :yes

Her Top 5 albums

I am... 16,790,198
Duty 12,384,566
Secret 10,014,274
LOVEppears 8,744,494
RAINBOW 7,727,593

momentum is her 29th song to reach 1M streams!

Song 4 u is less than 3k to reach that mark so let's stream it :yes

Song 4 u and Depend on You both reached 1M streams so now she has 31 songs with that mark.

Number of followers: 512,806K
Total Streams: 123,268,066M

To clarify, the numbers next to each song is the number of unique listeners of that song and not the total play count, right?

^no, should be the playcount?! Otherwise it would not make sense at all (why should SEASONS have 6 million unique listeners and other songs not even one?).

It's the number of plays, it shows that after hovering over it. And yay for Depend on You and Song 4 u. I listen to the latter frequently :)

^Me too!

Urgh I so wanna switch to spotify just for that, but I like the interface of apple much more and it works easier with all my devices.

Yes, it's the total playcount, if you use Spotify on a PC you can check it, the songs that share the same tittle share the same ammount of plays, SEASONS (single, duty, a best, a summer best, etc) all of them have 6M (almost 7M) streams in total, but every version of the same song with a different tittle (SEASONS - So Happy So Sad remix, SEASONS A Classical Version, SEASONS live from PoM 11, etc) have their own total playcount :yes

The next songs to reach the 1M mark are:

progress 989,544K
glitter 984,500k
Love song 979,612k
aeternal 977,316k

I'm so happy for aeternal being kinda popular lol

Love song would have made a fine single!

Also very surprised to see Song 4 you reaching the milestone before progress.

yay for aeternal! the streams are very good.

Go Love song, it’s probably my favourite song of hers! I’ll go listen to it now to boost those numbers hahaha

Ohia no Ki seems to be doing really good as well, it has around 455K streams :yes

Yeah think the newer songs would have a much better chance if they were promoted outside of her fanbase.

^Agree!

Guys I made a playlist with Ayu's "rare" songs (I wanted to name it "B-Sides" but most of these are not really B-sides lol)

I included:

-Two of Us
-LOVE~since1999~ (feat. Tsunku)
-WHATEVER - J VERSION (I included this one since it's different to the PV and album version)
-ever free
-theme of a-nation'03
-teens
-teens - acoustic version
-Life
-Happening Here
-My Way (M-Flo)

I wanted to include songs like 『A』~La French Mix~ (m.c.A·T) and Tell All (studio version) but they don't seem to be on Spotify :no

If someone has any suggestion feel free to tell me so I can add it! :D

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4w...nHGVEaCfWAtUhx

https://i.imgur.com/yN6WA4v.png

^ Omg thanks!!

Iirc Tell All was supposed to be a TA exclusive song (the first version was only available to download on her website if you bought all 4 releases for her 15th anniversary celebration, and the other version was a bonus track on the TA version of A ONE, cmiiw), so makes sense that it's not on spotify

Well, at least we can find the live version of Tell all in the 15h anniversary Tour live album

Seven days war might be something to include?

@rainbow_smile I think you're right! there's the audio from A Best Live but I wasn't sure if add "live" songs, but maybe it's a good idea!

@Ruan Borges Yeah! Wasn't sure if to include "live" versions but I'll do that!

@tokyoxjapanxfan yeah I forgot about that one lol thanks!
So after this I decided to include:

-Tell All (Live from A BEST LIVE)
-Seven days war - crossroad single
-Sotsugyou Shashin (卒業写真) - A Ballads

I was thinking on also include the 10th anniversary versions of Who..., YOU and LOVE~Destiny~ what do guys think?

maybe the SEASONS H-H Remix? Since it features the "ayu ayu ayu" that they always play on the tours but many people don't know its actually a released remix. The chinese version of MY ALL as well? a song is born feat. KEIKO might be considered an "rare" song? Since it's one of a few featurings she ever released and is only available as a single. dream ON can also be considered as rare? the single version of monochrome that is slightly different from the album version.

^Yeah those could work as well! I'll add them later today, thanks ^^

Quick stats update:

progress has reached 1M streams, this is her 32nd song to reach this mark.

Number of followers: 516,527
Total Streams: 124,483,480

If you include that you also need to include: Winter Diary, +. flower garden, RAINBOW, part of me and Memorial adress, Why feat. Naoya, Endless sorrow (from the single)

maybe also appears 99' greetings mix

edit: also the single version of some songs are different, like alterna

^I'll try to update the list once I have some free time!

Stats update:

Number of followers: 520,277k
Total Streams: 125,759,739M

a song is born is her 10th song to hit 2M streams!
glitter is her 33rd song to hit 1M streams!

Next one is Love Song with less than 2K to reach the 1M mark! Keep streaming her songs ^^

I appreciate all your Spotify Updates, don´t you want to open a new thread and make a nice overview in the first post?
We are hitting 500 posts in this thread anyways in a few posts^^

^ I second this, loving the updates!
And I am ON IT, Love song is my favourite Ayu song ever so I can’t wait for it to reach 1M!

Yes, sure thing! I'll wait until tomorrow so it doesn't feel like spam lol I have never opened a "continuation" to an already existing thread, is the same as usual just indicating in the name that is "part 2" or do I need to do something else? I'm kinda bad at using forums tbh even now I struggle a lot trying to post YouTube videos here :laugh

^So sorry I posted a thread before reading this lol can you delete it so I can open the new one as you just said? so sorry :laugh