Oh my I never thought of momentum is one of the M clones. I can't even related both songs together except 1) both titles started with "m", and 2) both are winter songs. M is more epic than momentum of course and I never liked momentum somehow. It sounds a bit lackluster.

For me, the only M clone exists is Free & Easy.

I dun expect her making something same as her older ones. Rather I think the excitement of using the old composers is that they may give some promising music that has been lost in her recent music. And I believe this is rather about personal feeling. In addition, who knows what the arrangements of those songs will be? They may have nostalgic feeling, at the same time they are rock tunes. Or maybe they have indian/middle east tunes again, or another Slt type arrangement.

There are just too many possibilities. I wouldn't mind if there's a song that has ASfxx powerfulness with new fresh melody :D.

OMG I love momentum!!! Its sooo awesome!!

But yes it is M ~episode II~ lol

I don't think anyone ever thought of any song other than momentum as an M clone.

My feeling about her using these older composers is that we can get a little more variety when it comes to compositions. It's usually pretty easy to sniff out Yuta or Yukumi stuff since she's worked with them so much in the last six (or two) years. Kunio Tago's revival was refreshing, and I think Yasuhiko and Kazuhito coming back can only be a good thing for her songs from a musical standpoint.

i like!!

Really? I've always loved momentum; I suppose in where it's related to M, aside from what you mentioned, the sort of power and desperation in the way the choruses are sung.

And really about M and Free & Easy? I never really thought of those two as that alike at all. I suppose it's interesting hearing about other peoples opinion of things; I never thought about those two songs like that :D

M and Free & Easy were released fairly close (Dec 2000, April 2002), both composed by her. When F&E was out, many people were like, "omg it's so similar to M..." Even tho the melody was different, the tempos and the themes were similar. Can't really blame us having that thought because she rarely recycled themes back then, even tho back then we've already noticed she'd been recycling her compositions. Can't blame ayu tho because she's never been trained to be a composer.

I guess my mind was doing something else while back when she released Secret. I never seen momentum as M clone until today.. LOL. What was I doing in AHS back then?

And I dunno how AHS members responded when F&E was released, as I was in another newsgroup and everyone practically treated F&E as M~episode II~.

I don't memorize names of the composers except probly D.A.I., HΛL, 菊池 一仁 and probly 星野靖彦(and LOL I dun even know 菊池 一仁 = kazuhito kikuchi.. shame on me). I knew those four because I always looked at booklet back then. Now I just look at the pictures. I guess I should study the recent booklets. :P

IMO, it's interesting that they ended up choosing an M-ish feel from HAL after having a bunch of arrangers do their take on it.

[Yuta Nakano and ats- were still in HAL at this point, IIRC]

...huh?
Sorry, but I hear no resemblance AT ALL.
Have I been listening to a different "momentum" than you? :laugh

How should I know? I'm just mentioning what I've read.

The presence of HAL's arrangement in both and the use of similar sounds in both M and momentum is probably what leads people to feel that they are quite similar.

^ :rolleyes

Well I guess I have bad ears. I don't hear any serious similarities :shrug

It's the echo piano / guitar / synth-beat heavy arrangement.

If you can't hear it, then I don't really know what to say, haha. M starts off without much, but when it starts picking up, that's when the arrangement starts to get a bit like momentum's. (Or the other way around.) Now that I think about it, momentum kinda does that "starts off soft" for the verses and gradually gets heavier as the song goes on thing that M has going on too.

**It's especially evident when momentum has that weird ~drum synth~ around the bridge of the song where in the PV all the candles get blown out and she looks amazing.

I'm about to listen to both now to try to hear any similarities lol ;)

Oh... that's the moment when ayu's arrangements were saturated with HΛL back then. Honestly I loved HΛL so much because of those HΛL Mix 20XX series :P. But again ayu loves using the same composers/arrangers for over a period of time.

and I just looked through Yuta Nakano's Japanese wiki. Well most of his compositions are not bad, and some of them are really good (Don't look back, sexy little things, EnergizE, Bridge to the sky, Mirror). But he has been doing most of ayu songs' arrangement, esp the periods between GUILTY and R'n'RC.

She should hire D.A.I. to arrangement songs this time... Since she hasn't done that for quite a long time... :)

I don't think D.A.I does arrangements. Or at least, as far as I know, Dai Nagao has only done compositions for Ayu. (And if he did, it was with Naoto Suzuki who has disappeared, never on his own.)

Kazuhito Kikuchi arranged HEAVEN with Yuta and it was just... amazing, haha. I wonder if Kikuchi will be doing the 50th single since it'd probably be the more likely to be ballady of the three.

IMO, Ayu's best arrangers seem to be the ones used often with the exception of post-2003 HAL. I just don't understand why they were allowed to basically use the same arrangement 5 times for some songs. -sigh- CMJK, tasuku, and Yuta Nakano have all proven to be really competent and varied with their arrangements, often leaving HAL in the dust with their variety. HAL would never have been able to create something like Don't look back imo, haha.

With you detail, I can see the similarity :P. That's also applies to F&E. Soft verse, stronger bridge, then powerful chorus... Plus the gothic theme (I kinda feel it's a Joan of Arc theme instead...).

Why do I feel like he's done more songs than that? o.O Ugh, I gotta stop mixing up composer's names... Haha.

Well, that's exciting news! He seems to compose some good melodies. :)

Yeah... usually Dai Nagao arranged her songs with 鈴木直人 (Naoto Suzuki rite?). I wonder where this guy is now...

Hmmn, looking at wiki rite now (again lol), I like most of CMJK's works, but I think they've reached a saturated level in ayu's recent works.. Oh well I dun mind seeing them again, but Yuta is a better arranger IMO. They're better than HAL anywayz (omg no wonder I hate the songs in GUILTY so much...).
I dun really like Tasuku (looking at his wiki.. of the songs he did for ayu). Of all the songs he did for ayu (see wiki), I only love 5 or 6 of them.

Btw she hasn't used BOUNCEBACK for a long time... I wonder if she'll use them again.. :D

Kazuhiro Hara and Kazuhito Kikuchi seem pretty easy to get mixed up.

Kinda like Kazuyoshi Takahashi (Her ZACC hairstylist) and Kazuyoshi Shibleeeeeeeeeep (her photographer from 2008-end of 2009 basically).

Yuta Nakano was a member of HAL before he left for whatever reason. tasuku tends to have a very rich sound with his arrangements. I mean, he did Memorial address come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Yes that's one of the songs I love from tasuku :D. I dunno which songs he arranged or composed tho since the person who did the wiki didn't list the detail.

And it's good that Yuta left HAL. HAL was only good till RAINBOW...

PS: Oh my I mess up tasuku with Tetsuya Yukumi!!!! LOL

Wow, that's a big mess up, haha.

tasuku's only composition with Ayu is fairyland (which is amazing) haha but he has a lot of arrangements done with her since... RAINBOW?

http://www.discogs.com/artist/tasuku

All of his arrangements are just so... LOVE.

tasuku's arrangement work with Ayu:
* I am... （共同編曲）
* Daybreak （編曲）
* taskinlude （作曲・編曲）
* no more words （共同編曲）
* independent （編曲）
* July 1st （編曲）
* Heartplace （編曲）
* taskinillusion （作曲・編曲）
* HANABI 〜episode II〜 （編曲）
* Memorial address （編曲）
* About You （編曲）
* Will （編曲）
* (miss)understood （編曲）
* In The Corner （編曲）
* tasking （作曲・編曲）
* Beautiful Day （編曲）
* Ladies Night 〜another night〜 （リアレンジ/rearrange）
* It was （編曲）
* taskinst （作曲・編曲）
* GREEN （編曲）

Looking at Kikuchi's list, his only arrangement work with Ayu seems to have been HEAVEN, haha.