Ayu is not the only artist spinning around on fabric for a few minutes during a show. There's nothing wrong with her doing that in a show, but it's not the whole show, and one song is not the whole album, and one scene is not the whole PV.

That's what I'm shooting straight on. Ayu has this attitude that she's been there, done that, and got the jacket. But her shows are playing between artists who feel they do have something to prove; her albums are on the shelves right next to artists who feel they do need to go on television and radio to promote their career; and her PVs are sharing the same social media as artists that who feel they need to be more engaged and responsive to their fans.

Ayu is good at what she does, but like Oprah said on her final show, you have to stop to listen, wait and hear when doing something is going in the right direction. Ayu is good at what she does, but she hasn't stopped to ask if what she's doing is good.

^If she result of her asking that would be she releasing a new different version of MY STORY or I Am every single year, or all of her tours being like AT05 or Dome Tour like some people around here seen to wish, I'm glad she is not asking.

I still don't understand why people around here seen to think something they don't like is universally bad, instead of just not being of their taste.

If you're speaking universally, that's when you begin to look at sales and the general opinions. Which haven't been the greatest. It's also a matter of, by comparison, is she the best at it? Are there others out there who do it better? For example, none of the tracks off CoLOURS were great songs in the realm of EDM. You have to look at how she's competing in the category. Take her name off the releases and or activities she's involved in and can it stand on it's own as a spectacle? That's really how you should begin to look at things.

I agree so much! Colours was nice for a change for Ayu, but as a whole it's a mediocre release.
I feel as if she isn't making music anymore to challenge herself and to create something really amazing but to just make music as some kind of a hobby and therefore putting out whatever appeals to her in the moment.

Even if we are to argue about the music and what we like and dont like, I think most of us agree that the production and arrangement quality has not been up to par in the past few releases. All of that adds up. I honestly cant understand how she can look at some of her recent work as a whole and be satisfied with it to put her name on it. But again, I think she truly believes shes putting out a good product, which is a little scary.

I'm sorry, but this is just a symptom of what I mentioned. I think Ayu needs to drop the yes-men around her, and get some people who aren't afraid to tell her that an idea isn't going to be a hit, or that she's putting too much attention on something that doesn't sound like the product of that much attention.

EDIT: Like The GIFT. The song sounds like it was written in 22 minutes, the production sounds like it was written in 10, and the PV looks like Ayu spent 6 days posing on a piano and in front of a window. That's just an example, but I think it's a really good example of Ayu pouring time and money into something that doesn't look or feel like it got that kind of time or money.

Only if you ignore other variants such as market curve and generation shock. For someone who peaked the way Ayu did and who had constant massive sales for a very unusual time spam, she is actually doing pretty good.

For example: One generation always negates everything related to the imediatelly past generation and rediscover stuff from 2 generations ago, that's why the 80's were so trendy during the 2000's and that's why the 90's are so trendy now. Ayumi is a HUGE icon from the 2000's, probably the biggest one in Japan as far as music is concerned, the teens (major music buyiers) from the 2010's generation will find her tacky and old and will rediscover artists that were huge during the 90's (Namie's and Yumming's revivals, for example). This is a market aspect that can't really be controled. If you need a western example, that's why people like Madonna and Kylie Minogue, who were first big during the 80's got mostly under the radar during the 90's to later release some of their biggest hits during the 2000's. But neither Namie, Yumming, Madonna or Kylie were trying to replicate their past hits, they move on to new aesthetics, something Ayu is doing at least every 2 years. You will only find a handful of artists in the whole world who could actually have two or three decades in a row were they had massive sales, most will enjoy alternated good and bad decades. For someone going through a bad decade Ayu still is out performing most acts and getting gold certified songs from times to times, this is VERY hard to archieve.

This isn't some new artist who needs to have a million seller to prove she is worth of being around (and talking about million sellers, how much newer pop girls who once came to "take her place" are she overselling now? Pretty much every single one who is around for 5+ years), and there's no way to look at her career success and overall impact and influence on the short therm.

Best case scenario? She will become like Yumming and have several good and bad decades over the years.

Worst case scenario? She will become like Seiko Matsuda and have poor sales, but will be regarded as a legend and people will still be willing to spend their money on watching her perform, making possible for her to still out perform tons of younger pop starlets.

I got to be honest with you, I think you're placing too much credit on an artist's niche and not so much on the artist's overall direction. Watch an Ayumi PV and watch a Namie PV... which artist comes off driven to entertain and impress? I bring up Namie because she's still selling 100,000 DVDs and 250,000 albums... 23 years into her career. So, you know Namie had a wake-up call after STYLE and had to accept that the direction she was taking her career in wasn't working for fans, wasn't working for her, and wasn't living up to her passion.

Ayumi needs that wake-up call. And that's what I'm getting at. If not, she will be just as legendary as Seiko Matsuda fingering herself while holding a Leek for the cover of an album. That's not something I'd want to look back at.

EDIT: http://s12.postimg.org/d404pu9a5/Sunshine.jpg

It seens like you didn't read what I wrote at all, so, here we go:

-Namie is from the 90's and Ayumi is from the 2000's. To the 2010's generation, the 90's are good and classics and 2000's are tacky, old and evil.

- Namie, as a part of the 90's revival, outselling Ayu, as a part of the old boring 2000's, is the most natural thing ever.

- Most artists (99% of them) doesn't get two good decades in a row. That's why several bands end after the first decade and lots of soloists retire from music.

- The ones that keep around tend to perform better on their third decade, when they stop being boring parent music and become classics to the current teenagers. Happened to pretty much every single act that have a long career, even with Namie.

- And again: Ayumi is going a totally new direction aesthetic with at least every two years. Albums like A One, Colours, Party Queen, Love songs, NEXT LEVEL, (miss)understood are nothing alike. And if you watch Premium Showcase, Rock'n'Roll Circus, Power of Music, Hotel Love songs and Cirque de Minuit, they don't even look like a concert from the same artist.

- Namie is an idol, Ayu is an artist (and I'm not saying one is better than the other for it). Namie is about entertaining radio friendly tunes with tons of gloss and very little depth, Ayu is about social comentary and challenging social norms. Of course Namie is by far the most fun of the two.

edit: Also, Ayu is not trying to be a 50 years old lolita like Seiko so far... Actually, everything since Love songs are firmly on the adult helm.

She definetely was. I am not sure if she still is... That's the saddest part.

^If you think putting a trans woman on the spotlight both on stage and music videos, something she recently did on Colours, isn't challenging social norms, that's your call. I found it to be really baddass :P

Let's also not forget the orgy on WARNING and the whole "sleeping around with a butch of guys" on Sayonara.
Or the feminist theme on Step by Step...

I bet all you want that "tomorrow" if she puts an album with a major change in the style nothing will change regarding her sales and her career ... since it's obvious we are drifting toward the reasons of her successive commercial echecs what she needs is a new marketing team in order to rebuild her image which is completely misunderstood by a lot of Japaneses...The music only plays a minor part ... A One was globally well received by Japanese critics ...

Brings out Namie is useless their career trajectories are totally different and the situation was much more favorable for Namie than it's today for Ayumi ...

the funniest fact for me is that her music around Duty till MY STORY sounds more mature (fits for her age right now) than the music she is doing now. the fact she is experimental with such music videos and music like whole Colours and PV's like WARNING/Sayonara makes me think of Madonna, I hope she will not end up like that.

ps: I dont have anything against "sexy Ayu" cause she is damn fine for me, but well, she could do that 10 years earlier lol

^IMO most of the lyrics she wrote around Duty to My Story sounds like angry teenager that thinks the world is against them...

plus Ayu is famous for a reason I guess. Her voice and music arragments was kinda "fresh" in japanese pop universe. Her voice was always diffrent (when I started listening to Ayu I was kinda like "she is japanese hippie") and the songs was japanese sounding, yet VERY diffrent from the other vocalists I started to listen (Koda Kumi was my referent to "US/JPN rnb sounding POP" and Ayu was my "ROCK/POP" queen that doesnt had any influences in other countries like Ku)

I will never believe she could smash fans with "US influence" hit. Also she will bore her fans to death with all the "same sounding ballads" like the all j-pop stars do. She sounds the best with her unique "hippie" sound I found back in 2003. She had sooo many "flashbacks" in her last albums when I felt it. Love song, Last minute, NO FUTURE, Microphone, November, BRILLANTE, etc etc etc etc. So many good songs, but no strong reference in a whole album. The closest was Party Queen for me. Yet this album also sound "not complete" (sum people will know the feeling).

well not only teenager feels that way, plus Ayu is a one massive product, so it would fit her even right now :)

And what if she wants to fight the sexism in her society which is frightening with regard to women over 30 years ? Break the rules of conservatism etc... I remember reading her old interview where she says she likes to break the rules ! so here we go !! Considering the massive people's reaction good or bad they are not insensible...

She's definitely defying social norms and breaking rules in things like who she hires, who she hangs out with, and who she marries, but where is the rule breaking in her music? Cuz i'm certainly not hearing any.

I'd love for Ayu to be the adult-oriented personal singer-songwriter with beefy, powerful arrangements that make you actually FEEL something when you listen to it. If ANYONE coulda played that role, it coulda been her. And it SHOULD have been her. But it seems like the more daring she gets in her social sphere, the more she seems to tone down her music to compensate.

Her sound is just too smooth now. Where's the Ayu who wasn't afraid to sound rough around the edges? These days she'd rather sound like a MIDI file than offend anyone's sensibilities, and.... that offends MY sensibilities, I dunno about you guys lol.

Not that I don't find her current direction boring, cuz I do (even if I do get why she is doing that, and considering the public reaction, she isn't wrong), but her concerts and PVs are part of her artistry, and she still is constantly breaking the norms over there.

I don't know why people still bring up the Namie vs Ayu comparison there is just no debate at all. Namie has a clear idea of what her brand is, what her niche is, and a defined perspective of what her music should be like. It is clear that Ayu is just recording whatever. Which is ok, I mean, I'm pretty sure she's mostly living on royalties from touring anyway.

As a fan I'd still like her to care about her music again.

I don't know where you got this from, but because of my studies I have some Japanese friends and at a party I got to discuss Ayu with them and other Japanese people, none of them thinks of Ayu being from the 2000's. Most of those people were around 20 - 25 years old and three of them were around 30. For them Ayu clearly belongs to the 90's, same goes for Hikki btw. I asked them which Ayu songs they remembered, those were: A Song for xx, Boys & Girls, M and evolution (after some time some came also up with other songs but those were the ones named at first). Even so M and evolution are from 2001, for them Ayu also belongs to the 90's. I guess it's like with Britney, at least here in Germany, when you bring up the 90's, everyone is like "remember baby one more time and crazy?" and actually those songs get played at every 90's party. Sure Britney had a lot more hits in the 2000's and her peak was during that time, but that's not what people remember somehow. They remember what she became famous for in 1998. I think same goes for Ayu, she became famous during 1998 and 1999, even though her peak was at the beginning of the 2000's.
I mean, when A BEST was released, it basically got released because Ayu's time could as well have been over already. That's why avex wanted to release it and Ayu hated to release it. That was in 2001 and her really relevant years where from 1998 - 2000. What she managed to achieve from there on isn't what the general public remembers because her image amd peak were set.
The reason why the public doesn't care for her anymore is not because she's "old". People saying this are some bored haters at 4chan. None of the people I spoke to said she was old or hated her. Actually they had a lot of respect for her and liked remembering the old songs. They were quite nostalgic about it.
The reason they don't like her anymore is that the image Ayu adopted somewhere around (miss)understood does not appeal to them anymore. Until then they liked her because of her rawness, her lyrical talent and themes and her down to earth girl next door image. None of them was a really big fan but a lot of them liked to listen to her and also bought some singles/albums. They said that they simply stopped to like her at some point. I tried to figure out when and why this was. The longer we talked about it it became clear they think she became like everyone else in the industry. They think of her today as a stuck up diva surrounded by a bunch of dogs and fancy stuff and so they aren't able to relate to her anymore. They don't care for any of that. Furthermore they find her music not to be unique anymore. Two of them said that when they go to karaoke with their friends one of their friends often sings newer Ayu songs and they could as well listen to some newbie's music who is hot at the moment and it would be as unimpressive as Ayu's recent stuff.
Because everone at ahs was like "A ONE is sooooo old school Ayu" I asked them if I could play it to them. They really liked WARNING and NO FUTURE as well as Last minute. But that was it (oh and they were interested in the Hikki cover). But mostly everything else did not impress them at all. They said if it would be some song from someone else who never released impressive music they might listen to it because it's easy to listen to. But if they ever go to actively listen to Ayu again they would always listen to her old stuff. That's what we did in the end. They had a lot of fun searching for Ayu songs in my music library and remembering all the songs they didn't listen to since quite some time.

This so much. She is so proud and satisfied with The GIFT and it's one of the worst songs sge ever made. Lazy composition, lazy arrangement. It's just kitschy and boring but she treats it as if it's the best thing ever.

Namie herself doesn't have an idea about anything. I'm fairly certain about that.

You know, I used to find your posts credible until you said something about "You & Me" being an excellent song.

I wonder so bought enough copies of her albums so she could sell over a million copies until half of the decade and ended on the yearly top 10 until 2008... Maybe it were ghosts?

Those kind of stuff, the way generations act towards cultural phenomenons isn't something you can just ask directly the person because nobody will answer "oh, I dislike this artist because they are too old now". This is something based on numbers. Those are market curves of products.

But I guess numbers have no place on a discussion were the arguments are based on what friends think about this or that.

This wasn't my point. My point was that the very early years of Ayu's career as well as Britney's were the one's which shaped the actual image of them for the general public. Both established themselves during 1998 - 2000 and their image and music during THAT time was what made them popular in the first place. At the beginnig of the 2000's both were popular for what they did before. In Ayu's case her peak was when A BEST was released. So the album which celebrates the early years of her career is the one which sold the most amount of copies, is the one which established her in jpop and is the one for which she is best known for. No wonder it does well online and it's also a smart move to celebrate its 15th anniversary. Ayu was at the peak of her popularity during the release, her image and music at this time are what the general public know her for.
And talking about numbers: calculated roughly she sold with her first three releases plus A BEST around 11 million copies. That was in just four years. From there on she sold around 13 million more copies of studio albums, minis and best ofs. So she almost sold as much in the first four years of her career as during the following next 14 years.
I actually think that backs up my argument that she reached out to a lot more people with the music from 1998 - 2000 than with the music she released after that.
Everything after I am... does the general public not really remember, simply because the hype and phenomenon was over. Sure she achieved a lot from there on too but since the hype was gone she wasn't in the public eye as before.
Casual listeners do not check every career move and every single that gets released. They may hear a song in the radio or elsewhere and if they like it check it out. And if something appears in the media about Ayu they may read it because they know her name and used to listen to some of her songs. When everything they see and hear from her is the complete opposite than what they remember her for, well chances are high they won't like it. Ayu's image was that of the rebelling girl next door being true to herself and also for her unique music and sound compared to other releases at that time.
My friends now simply said that they lost interest in her years ago because she changed from the rebelling girl into a stuck up diva and that they simply don't find her music and overall sound to be unique anymore.
Furthermore I thought it might be interesting what normal Japanese people think about her and what are their reasons for not caring about Ayu anymore in contrast to some haters on the internet.

That's okay you're entitled to your own opinion.

You & Me has a good hook, good beat, and is a huge crowd pleaser at concerts. Can't say the same for duds like Sorrows or Anything for you.

Mmmm, idk. I wouldn't consider myself a Namie fan, but the quality of execution in her music, album concepts, shows, have all been consistent and defined for the past 10 years. Even if she doesn't mastermind her work (and honestly who gives a fuck if the output is good), at the very least she's working with a team who knows how to turn it out.

I love Ayu a lot obviously cos I grew up with her, but I honestly can't say the same for her.

^To be fair, it's far easier to execute a concept when it is limited to how good someone looks while taking photos. It's like saying "oh, but that person executed that glass of water better than that other one executed that berries smoothie".

^^Yeah, Ayu sold a lot between her debut and 2000 (even if her best selling release was actually from 2001), but so were half of the 10 best selling albums in Japan. Part of those huge sales were due Ayu's popularity, and part was because she (and Hikki) were lucky enough to get big during the peak of the japanese music market. She obviously started (very slowly) to sell less because the public were losing interest after A Best and it can be said that RAINBOW was the last album released during what we could call her peak, but she still sold well enough to have albums among the 10 best selling of the year in the 2nd music market of the world for 6 years after the end of her peak and some of her signature tracks like evolution, M and Voyage were all released during the 2000's, and it was during that decade that their influence were felt.

It's a very simple concept: Ayumi (and Hikki, and Shiina Ringo, and Britney) can't be considered an icon from the 90's because her real impact wasn't felt during the 90's, as her releases that had that impact debuted on the very final period of that same decade on the first place. It's like saying a song released in december of 2015 that becomes a huge hit playing all over the radio for months was a 2015 hit based only on when it was released and not on when it was playing.

Namie on the other hand peaked halfway during the 90's, and her influence was all over the place during 5 whole years of that decade.

I really question if people who think Namie's popularity is exclusively because of the nostalgia factor (i.e. because she peaked so so so long ago, right? >.>) have been living on the same planet as everybody else......

I'm fine with people trying to defend Ayu cos this is an Ayu fan forum after all but honestly there's no need to demean or undermine another artist's achievements.

^I never said Namie's popularity is exclusively because of the nostalgia. If that was the case she would be singing her TK era songs at any oportunity she had, and if I respect her for something, is for focusing on her new material. And I'm not undermining Namie's archiviements, I'm stating a pretty clear fact: Namie's material isn't complex or deep and 99% of the time it's the safest opition possible. Is this a objectively bad thing? Nope, she is not under any obligation of releasing anything creative.

But she went to the same process I described... Had a huge peak, became a symbol from a decade, had a low period (and really, the jokes and coments I read about Namie back them on the jpop fandom weren't much different from the ones people constantly make about Ayu now), had another peak, that is ending to most likely start another low. Anyone who stays around long enough will go through that.

And guess what? She peaked during the 90's, went down during the 2000's and got up during the 2010's, a time when the 90's are trendy.

^I wasn't arguing that there wasn't an impact on popular culture from Ayu in the 2000's, but that what she is known for by the general public is music she released during 1998 and 2000. From A Song for xx until Duty, which was cemented by her peak in 2001 with the release of A BEST which is again her music from the mentioned period. So at least for my friends who were born in the late 80's/early 90's Ayu was very present in the 90's. Same goes for Britney. I'm almost going every month to a 90's party. Most songs which get played are songs from the second half of the decade, simply because the audience is between 20 and 30 years old and they would not remember songs from 1991.
Ayu will never be popular among teenagers again, and in this case she really is too old. Not because she is old in general but too old so that a 13 year old girl could identify with her. And that's perfectly fine. And when watching a Namie concert at least I don't get the impression that her fans are a bunch of teenagers but mostly people being between 20 and 30 years old.
Most of Ayu's fans have the same age from my impression, which makes sense since most of her fans are long time fans by now and have grown with her. And to be popular again Ayu would need to appeal to much more people being between 20 and 30 years old. Because there is no way to appeal to teenagers and people who are between 30 and 40 years old have other idols, mostly from the 80's and early 90's.
So all I was trying to argue with was your point that Ayu isn't popular because she's from the 2000's but Namie is becaue she's from the 90's.
I simply don't agree because for an audience being between 20 and 30 years old, both were from their point of view as children pretty relevant in the 90's and think of them as big artist from the 90's.

You are being simplistic with something I never said was THAT simple... Ayumi and Namie never shared a good part of their fanbases because their peaks were 5 years apart, and the music market is mostly moved by a public of age were 5 years makes TONS of diference. A 30 years old person and a 35 years old person are most likely +- at the same moment in life, while a 10 years old is VERY diferent from a 15 years old who is VERY diferent from a 20 years old. What those people perceive as the cultural works that formed they taste most likely wont be the same on the same way that the 2000's had the rise of popstars like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Avril Lavigne and Lady Gaga and even if they all debuted on the same decade, their impacts towards people who were between 10 and 20 on that decade is not the same... Someone who was 15 during the first half of the decade, for example will have founder memories of Avril than they will of Gaga, on the same way someone who was 15 during Gaga's peak were probably too young to pay attention to Avril's existance.

That being said, I was talking to Pimenta about the audience of the concerts she watched in Japan... She watched Ayu, Namie and Koda, and said their public actually were pretty different. If I remember it right, Ayu had from young people and teenagers to people on their 40s and older, Namie had mostly teenagers and Koda had people around their 20s.

You are pointing something really interesting here !! The changes in her image have started with the single Bold & Delicious and unfortunately this song had a really strong impact in her japanese fanbase and the japanese listener in general but in a BAD way I don't know if you know the "Bold & Delishock" ? I assume that the change in image and sound was too much for them even though it was bold lol
That's why I said earlier that her biggest problem is her image she and her team really need to do something about it ...It would be something difficult but it's not impossible ! Only if she cares... I wonder ? she seems to be the kind of person who wants to be accepted the way she is instead of adapting her to what people think !

Namie's case is more complex her image have been completely revamped once idol of the mid 90's never again she will be called this way by the Japanese medias once she stopped to work with TK while fundamentally nothing really changed ! She makes a lot concerts in smaller scale and never cease to appear at TV which allow people to accept her new image etc... but I still think the comparison is useless ... Namie was the best exemple of a fashion trend in the 90's ! Her solo activities started in 1995 and her 1st album released in 1996 was a HUGE success but she faced the decline right after while Ayumi began slowly from 1998 and started to become increasingly important years after years until 2002 ...they can't be compared it was easier for Namie !

I know right? Like does it even matter as to what Namie's doing? I mean everybody can compare Ayu to whatever Koda and Namie is doing, but does it really make the difference? Nope.

Ayu looks really good nowadays tbh, a lot of her new songs are boring as f*ck and I do agree with that but there are a lot of gems (songs like Sayonara, Merry go-round, her Hikki/Globe cover and that remix for Wake me up) that really worked for her and fit her voice very well imo... If only she can like use those kind of sounds for her next album tho I have a feeling we're going to end up getting another TK album lol, not that I hate it but a little change is nice.

^ exactly. I think she is still a very good performer, and she's capable of putting out good tracks when she works with the right people, she just needs to carry something through instead of trying to please everybody.

omg THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS XD!!

I just wish Ayu could read it.

Having analyzed Ayu's lyrics and read every interview & report I could get my hands on over the years, Ayu has always struck me as a very insecure person. Back in the day her rebellious nature gave her this attitude of "Yeah, I'm insecure - so what? That's who I am! I'm gonna show you my insecurities and that's that!" and Max's comments that that's exactly what she should write lyrics about definitely helped.

But nowadays it's like she's trying SO hard to hide everything she's insecure about. Rather than honing a skill, she hopes from new skill to new skill, and each one is based on stuff other people are already doing. Because she doesn't want to take the risk of working REALLY hard on a particular thing for years and still failing at it. She doesn't want to be vulnerable to her own pursuits, I guess. And she's certainly not FAILING at making her concerts or making the music she's making, she's just not really succeeding at doing anything interesting. She'd rather be safe & "meh" than dedicate time & energy to something that people may not like, because the criticism & rejection will hurt more.

She'd rather be a circus performer than a singer/songwriter, which is really unfortunate to me because her talent lies in being a singer/songwriter. She'd rather be a stage show producer than a composer, which again is unfortunate because she's far more talented as a composer. She'd rather use compositions by established songwriters who aren't her like TK, GEO, JJ Lin, etc. then write songs herself or hand-pick compositions by newcomers that REALLY work for her material.


Holy hell yes. I don't doubt that Ayu did love the song - she does enjoy simple, straighforward ballads and midtempo songs - but I think its power was probably HEAVILY dependent on the way JJ Lin sings, and the demo probably had a much more stripped-down sound. Her voice sounded fabulous on the song, sure, but it wasn't suited for the song and didn't feel honest in its delivery at all (because Ayu is so reluctant to let flaws show through anymore)... and the arrangement was so layered and so evenly mixed that it's just.... meh.

Ayu needs to stop choosing songs to record based on what she likes to listen to - that's been a problem for her for YEARS now.

Wow, this thread has really taken a detour. There's SO much in here that I want to react to, but I'm not even sure where to start.

I guess I want to start with Namie -- not as a comparison to Ayu, but to just put my two cents in. We (probably) all know the history with the super monkeys, her being the breakout star, yadda yadda yadda. She was huge in the mid-90s for being an IDOL. That said, she did have a huge cultural impact, whether purposely or not because being Okinawan, her darker skin helped to influence the Ganguro/Ko-Gal/Yamamba trends in some facets. It's not that she just naturally fell out of favor over time, but rather her life became surrounded by controversy and drama - her mother's murder, her getting knocked up, and then a shotgun wedding (and shortly thereafter divorce) to Sam from TRF. The drama is what killed her career, and nothing else. She took some time away from the limelight (which had no interest in her), and slowly built things back up with Suite Chic, Style, etc. It really wasn't until 60s/70s/80s that we saw a real revitalized interest in her -- years after all the drama. The smartest thing that Namie has ever done is to keep her private life LOCKED DOWN. When have you ever seen her with her son? With a romantic interest? The collective memory of her earlier years has forgotten the drama -- out of sight, out of mind. Then, mixed with this, she has been extremely safe in everything she does. She puts out formulaic, generic, b-side American releases. At this point she barely even sings in Japanese, not that you would know by listening to her awful Engrish. But she's fun, she's carefree, she appeals to the party spirit. That's all anybody wants from her, and that's all she's giving. She is the perfectly marketable product that falls in the middle of every road.

Ayu, on the other hand, has some similarities, but far more differences. When she debuted Ayu was the voice of a generation in so many ways, especially once she gained her stride. She really represented what the "lost generation" in Japan was feeling. She has had several turning points in her career. One of the first was the release of Voyage as a single. This was one of the first times we really saw a happy love song from Ayu -- it was SHOCKING at the time. This was the first departure in her lyrical norms, and it was embraced, but more mildly than other singles in the past (and largely benefited from the huge success of }{ being the only million-selling single that year). The next departure was the Rainbow album itself. This saw her use English in her songs for the first time. This immediately alienated a large portion of her fanbase. At a time when every Japanese song contained some nonsensical Enrish lyrics, Ayu was alone in being a Japanese-language-only artist. I love Real Me, but the English lyrics, the Britney-inspired video, etc. all alienated people, and we saw her pull back a bit for Memorial Address (other than Forgiveness). Post-Memorial Address we really see her image and persona change. This is when she started to move in a more mature direction in her styling. No longer was she "cool & trendy" in her styling, but she became much more "rich & refined." This again created a shift in how people could relate to her. My Story was transitional, but otherwise her music became much more pop-oriented and started to get a less heavy atmosphere. Ayu was growing up, as was her fanbase. Ultimately, I think some of her fanbase have grown up with her (perhaps departing at times, but coming back), while much of her fanbase have grown up in a divergent direction from her. I would love to hear something fresh from her -- listening to I Am... I think it could be released today. Her music was always going in a direction that deviated from the norm and was ahead of the curve -- that isn't true any longer. That said, I can still really love a lot of her music, despite some misses (much of Rock'n'roll Circus and Party Queen and Five are completely forgettable). Even if she put out something like she did years ago, I don't think that I, almost 16 years later into my fandom, would relate to it like I did back then because I'm not longer an angsty teenager.

I'm losing my point in all this, I think. But I think that she could make music with more mass-appeal, and that would help some. She could improve her image to be more relatable, and I think that would help more. However, I think that she was a moment in time that can never be replicated, and no matter what she does she will never have the same impact that she did. And that's fine! I want to see her keep moving forward, to have a resurgence, but I don't think there's consensus as to what would make that happen.

In the recent StarTalk interview, she expressed that she didn't like to have direction in her music as she felt it impacted upon her creativity (or something along those lines).

I remember the first time I listened to SURREAL and read a translation. I was completely floored, I couldn't get over the degree to which I could relate to her, and while other songs have a similar effect (Last minute is a recent example), they just don't go above and beyond, they're not complex in their nature. Ayu had a master ability to describe and explain her own life, whilst also shrouding it in enough mystery and abstraction to allow others to relate. Her internal conflict has manifested differently nowadays, and I think may have stagnated? She seems quite stuck on love, as opposed to her past self, who while also wrote extensively about love, also divulged into social issues as others noted.

I think we are seeing changes with Ayu at the moment though, from the TA Tour, to making amends with her fanbase, to quitting Twitter, to firing Alvin Goh, etc. Perhaps we'll see larger changes this year. :shrug

No matter what, however, I'll be always interested in listening to an Ayu album hahaha.

When was Alvin fired? Lol

It's probably gonna get harder to relate to her songs and all, after she recorded WARNING. After all Ayu seems to be the woman who doesn't want to people to relate to her anymore.

My conception of the decade thing that you guys said a pages ago goes around this: after the first 10 years, most of the artists goes to a time of their career that they try too hard on things. Madonna had her "try hard" years with the 90s (Erotica, her book Sex, Evita, and other things), Kylie Minogue had her "try hard" years during the 90s as well (her pop princess image, trying to go to as a deep artist, which failed hard) , and I think this is the case with Ayu right now.

And I think people missconcept the idea of fighting the sexism in todays society, saying that what Madonna is doing today is great. There is a line between being a mature woman expressing her sexuality and being beyond people expect, and still tastefull, like Girls Gone Wild, than being like a party hard girl trying to appeal to a younger generation and making a fool of herself like Bitch I'm Madonna. And I understand people making the connection with Ayu's PVs like WARNING/Sayonara and Madonna, but I think that Ayu's style was always more 'in your face' and tastefull, even dealing with concepts that people might find weird or 'too much', like 1LOVE.

The thing is that she needs to find a good concept for an album or a video, and work with that, because at this point it seems like Ayu is trying anything without a good perception or direction on what she wants.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter that much if the fans will go and buy her stuff anymore, of if her popularity goes back with her being the it girl again, but it's about the quality that she's not delivering anymore. Nowadays I tend to get her newest releases and make maxi singles of them, with around 3 or 4 songs each album, because the rest is so bland and not interesting, that I just don't even care to have them in my iTunes.

I do not agree she isn't delivering....

This so much...

^She is cleaning her image to enlarge her market share, that's why her sound since Colours is far more radio friendly, why her last 2 tours are focused on her older material and that's also why she has been far less personal lately, because the more personal and specific you get, the less people relate to you. Her early material was personal, but she talked about how she felt, not about what made she feel that way, while starting with Rock'n'Roll Circus she was openly discussing her personal issues on her body of work (deafness, divorce, alcoholism, fear of not being capable of loving, wanting a traditional family, etc.)

Everyone can relate to feeling insecure, lonely or that your voice isn't going to be heard, but how much people will go through a body issue that can make it impossible for them to work on what they love (like her deafness) or is such a powerful, rich and public woman that it's nearly impossible to even have a normal family life?

Starting with Colours she went to the current market trends (even if with her own twist) and her lyrics became more vague so more people can see themselves on them. Her albums also ceased having complex concepts to go back to the usual simplicity that is expected from pop music (and nops, the concepts of her earlier albums weren't that deep... they generated impactful images but could be explained with 2 or 3 lines). The current lack of impactul images is probably to be in line with current trends (and if you look through current pop album covers, they are mostly boring as fuck).

So, what does she want now? Have a safer image to appeal to people out of her core fanbase and have bigger sales. The reception both Colours and A One received makes be believe she is playing her cards right (and I hope Maro's porn career doesn't ruin that)

Give me some bussy popping bops, Godasaki!

A ONE was a great album, and i do love almost all the songs (except The GIFT because it's just so blah to me, but i do still listen to it and i like it i just don't LOVE it like i do normal ayu songs) sixxxxxx was a really great mini album, i don't know but i really did love Colours, although it got old after a while too, which has never actually happened to me in an ayu album. Winter diary was weird and even now i still can't get into that song. which makes one of like 4 songs on ayu's whole discography that i skip.

i would love another album like (miss)understood or GUILTY those albums were epic to me, but i also really loved NEXT LEVEL, Rock'n'Roll Circus, and Love Songs and also Party Queen. basically 2006 to 2012 was like my favorite Ayu era. Whatever she comes out with next i'm sure will be awesome. but i honestly would like more upbeat songs than on A ONE.

Even her concerts are not about the music. Bad vocals with lots of shouting, lip syncing 3-5 songs every show. She clearly focuses on visual aspects of the show, she wants to entertain. After all these years she fails to learn how to sing properly. It's rather disappointing for me, because music and sound always come first for me. Voice is the main instrument of an artist. It should be taken care of. It doesn't matter how good your band and back-up singers are, how epic your show is, if you fail as singer, your whole show fails. That's how I see it.

^ There is nothing wrong with lip syncing a few songs, if she wasn't lip syncing to rest her voice it would be even worse.

But i agree with you that her voice if def one of the most important thing to enjoy the show. I think someone saw her for the very first time during CDL 15-16 but unfortunately couldn't enjoy the show because of horrible vocals and was really upset about it. That's like one of my biggest fears so i hope she manages to not shout too much during the upcoming tour.
You could see a difference during CDL 14-15 and AT2015, she wasn't screaming anymore like she used to, not so sure about TA tour, i heard a few songs of the recording and she was struggling with UNITE! And well during CDL 15-16 it was a disaster.