Ayu - Anything Goes Thread -XI-
 

More A Nything.

I wish she had more remixes of recent album tracks.

The anything goes thread can mean N E Thing.
I just had a thought. This forum has been around for a long time but this thread didn't appear until like 2012. Hmm.

^Maybe back then we just talk things according to the available topics and make scattered thoughts threads individually.
With this we can just post random things about her without having to follow certain context/theme or make a new thread.

I want a fun song from her, and if she do ballad please do another one with twist like HANABI.

Anybody have any Ayu running/workout playlists? I have a big one with a mix of j-pop songs but sometimes I just wanna spend some quality time with my main squeeze, y'know?

I have one that is mostly remixes and changes periodically.

The one I currently use is:



I have a habit of making lists for anything. So I always enjoy making playlists on my phone for different things.

I know, I love this thread! So thanks to whoever started the first one! Loving the Gaga reference btw!

Thanks for the news about the remix album ExodusUK - can't wait to hear more! Speaking of remix albums, I'd love a chillout album!

Gonna add some of these remixes to mine! It's full of kanariya remixes by now hahahah Thanks for sharing! Gonna list the songs from ayu in my workout playlist, sorry if there's anything doubled that I didn't notice

I think it's because there were more threads in general up until 2011... then this popped up as a 'chat' thread of sorts for whatever didn't fall into the active threads at the time.

I'd call this "Ayu -Anything Goes-: The General Ayumi Hamasaki Discussion Thread", though the current title format still makes more sense right now.

That's it, i've prepared my knife, I'M COMING FOR YOU :D

I haven't listened to ayu that much this week because i'm too busy with school related things, but now i can finally dedicate some time to her and it feels so good

I was thinking the same thing. I've been busy these days and now it feel so good listening to Ayu. I'm obsessed with Zutto.. and Pray right now, and I'm amazed because I've never really loved Zutto.. I remember when it was released in December, I completely ignored it.

Omg, this morning I dreamed that I was going to Uk to see Ayu in her tour. And when I entered the arena everything was so beautiful. She sang Microphone and then surprise...Sweet scar!! When I heard his song I began screaming like crazy, thing I would never do in real life. And before starting, they showed a special screen with goblins lool, which was the intro for Sweet scar. And she kept mentioning somethng about friends.
And then I woke up x..........x *crying for the forever lost mp3s*

I'd even settle for a digital release of ayu trance 5 or ayu-mi-x 8 at this point. I don't even care, I JUST WANT THEM.

This performance made me want a disco ball real bad.

Is there anyone else on the forum who feels ourselves is overrated? Even slightly? It seems this is a highly praised track, but it's never been one of my favorites. Actually, I found it annoying and awkward for some time before I began to enjoy it. I like it now, but as I said, it's not a favorite.

^idk if it's overrated but initially I kinda dislike it, but now I'm in love with singing the chorus lol

I think ourselves has a lot of love due to the PV.

I don't think it's overreated because i've been in absolute love with it since the first time i listened to it *plays it at full volume*
I guess the pv did help, i also love the lyrics and her live performances of this song.

Yeah it was never that great of a song to me. It still annoys me a bit. I only really will listen to it when I'm watching the PV.

I always loved the song actually lol... It sounds like something that like... Tak Matsumoto would write and Eric Serra would produce, haha. I always liked the eastern sort of sound and the rhythm of it, although I do think Ayu delivers the lyrics along to that rhythm a bit clumsily in places.

I love ourselves...and I think it's one of the best PVs she has ever done.

I also love ourselves, It was one of my first Ayu PVs and I was so obsessed with it back then.

Btw, Ayu said on her latest tweet that she'll definitely go back to Sendai next year for touring. Nothing major, but it kinda makes me happy she already decided there will be a tour next year too. Her career seems so on point to me now.

The Chinese Orchestral ver. of Ourselves is so good.

omg I totally forgot making this and found it in my YT channel on private


I should make an updated version.

I know this is a unpopular opinion around here... But I still get surprised about how well most of her material aged...

^ some people say it hasn't? I mean ASFXX sounds like junk but a lot of stuff after that still sounds good today.

I was very scared of ourselves PV back then. Now it's the most inspiring PV ever :)

When you talked about it, I realized that even things in LOVEppears or Duty doesn't sound that dated to me.

Indeed

I though the popular opinion is that everything post 2005 is garbage and that her stuff are already old when they are released. :P

Taking A Song for xx and a bit of MY STORY aside, I also agree that her stuff aged well. Specially Duty, that album is beyond our human concept of time measuring.

I was just thinking this the other day because I was listening to some of Kumi and Namie's older material. Namie's first several albums all sound like they exclusively belong to a specific era... I would even argue that all of her albums up until style have this characteristic. And you can tell that Kumi's first four albums come from the early to mid 2000's. But If I was to listen to I Am... I would honestly think that it could have been made fairly recently. Even songs from LOVEppears and Duty seem to sound pretty modern to me. Even comparing Duty to Genius 2000 you would think that Duty came years and years later even though they were released in the same year. To me, Ayu's music is timeless. It's not a bad thing that other people's albums have a sound that is specific to a certain time period because, after all, they were made to fit that specific sound at the time. But, it's just super cool that Ayu's sound has remained so fresh. I guess RnB tends to evolve more frequently then the styles that Ayu explores, but still. I find it easier to listen to Ayu's earlier albums whereas I have to be in a certain mood to listen to the earlier albums of Kumi, Namie, Utada, etc. GO AYU :)

I don't think there's any such thing as "popular opinion" regarding anything to do with Ayu... lol... to say this fanbase has some fractured and fragmented opinions is like saying Ayu was kinda popular in 2000. :P

I agree that a lot of her work aged very well. So well that if she released something I don't like, I could just listen to her ~200 older songs in her discography instead haha. That's what kept her my favorite artist even when pq, la, & c album happened.

ASFXX had been a little bland for me, but hearing it at this year's tour made me love it. I don't know, something about that atmosphere felt powerful. I know it has been re-recorded a bunch but I would love a version with more powerful vocals and guitar.

Though I know, how many versions of one song can we possibly take? :P

I guess SEASONS and Dearest have even more versions lol I was kinda surprised there was no A Song for xx (10th Anniversary Version), but I was happy with what we got anyway

I was surprised as well but that's because her A ballad version is very powerful. Specially at the end :love

Looking back at the Colours PVS
Just damn.

I really love Merry-go-round. It's so perfect for the mood. And FTL is whatever.

But lelio and Xoxo....just why? I think I tried to appreciate them when they came out. And I guess I still can. But there was just so much potential. And it was just a no. Angel is my least favorite song in her disco so I haven't watched the PV enough to remember much.

^ I feel the same way about Merry-go-round, it just captures the whole vibe that the song is giving. When I hear the song for the first time, time lapse videos popped into my mind.

I came to appreciate Merry go round better lately. Its really nice made.

I also feel like a lot of her music is timeless. LOVEppears and Duty especially!

It does make me happy to hear LOVEppears and Duty are still considered legitimately solid by people even now - those were my first two full Ayu albums and sometimes I'm not sure if my love for them is just nostalgia or if they really are that good! hahaha.

They are IMO genuinely solid genre-showcase worthy albums and should be considered as such.

Does anyone have the scan of Ayu's (/official) English translation of "Tell All"? I think it was included in the 15th Anniversary photobook.

I always get my ass chewed out when I refer to certain Ayu tracks and eras as timeless, because "that's a very subjective term." :rolleyes

I see Memorial address and her singles from MY STORY (+the album tracks that received PVs) as being the most timeless.

Nop, you usually gets your ass chewed because most of the time you seen to be unable to say something is timeless without saying everything else is stinky shit. :P

Memorial Address I still love to this day. Timeless...
My story, not so much, but it has aged extremely well.

Lmao.

(miss)understood and Secret, I think are.

I don't feel (miss)understood has aged that well. I still love it, but I go to it because it has a certain feeling. For example, In The Corner is severely dated by today's standards (but it was already dated by the time it had been released).

I guess I wouldn't say it hasn't aged well. What I mean is, in my opinion, it is not as timeless as other releases.

I guess it depends on how you define "timeless." The way I look at it is, if a particular song from the past was released today, would it feel out of place? Would you bat an eyelash? For me, songs like Moments, walking proud, Because of you, STEP you, is this LOVE?, About You, Memorial address, fairyland, ... those songs don't feel held back by a particular time period. Maybe it's because most of them used a lot of real instruments along with studio work/synthesis. I mean, these songs sound fresher than a lot of her more recent material.

My friend who's a new Ayu fan says the same thing. He says how did she produce such timeless materials in the early 2000s? It's freaking amazing!

Hmm..interesting discussion. Ayu definitely has a lot of songs that sound timeless without being put in a certain era. For example lets take some recent tracks. Songs like Party Queen and Shake it could be definitely fit in a certain timelapse. But then you have songs like BRILLANTE or Sweet scar that don't belong anywhere.

Hasn't anyone felt this, when ayu preforms an old song like from duty onward, it doesn't really feel like she does?? i personally don't!!

Was it truly a translation tho? I remember some verses differed from the translations people did before

It was probably the original set of lyrics. Tell All was likely written in English first for Ryan or something.

No, it looked from the photos like Ayu was translating them with Timmy... there are notes jotted down on the white sheet of paper where the lyrics look like they're printed out, and the work on notebook paper is shown as being incomplete. It looks like she started translating on the white printout of the Japanese lyrics, and then transferred the first few lines onto the yellow paper, then fine-tuned it after that.

On top of that, the English words here don't even come close to scanning the same way the Japanese lyrics do, and the photos show them doing the translation work at Record Plant Studios, where Tsuriko is writing that Ayu is recording "Tell All" during this whole session.

Also, Tsuriko just says flat-out "The mood while waiting for the recording session to begin was unusually calm, as she translated the lyrics for "Tell All" into English with Timmy." according to Misa's translation of the book. So there's no way the English is the original.

Gustavopc: Translations are always gonna differ from author to author, and that's especially true with languages from ENTIRELY different families, like Japanese to English. There's a ton of written Japanese terms and grammatical points that only have English equivalents when you're speaking English aloud - "nante" in Japanese is sorta like speaking the previous word or question with a raised pitch & higher volume in English. You can't really translate that. There are also really short Japanese words & verb endings which, when translated into English, become a crapton of words instead. And there are some Japanese words and phrases that have no English equivalent at all.

The ~"te miru" verb ending, for instance, is probably best translated in English as "give something a shot and see what happens." That's WAY too long. In English that also often gets shortened to "try," but translating "~te miru" directly to "try" makes it seem like you might mean "make an attempt, and see if you're able" which isn't exactly what "~te miru" means. So it looks like Ayu and Timmy skipped translating instances of that altogether.

It appears that Ryan probably asked Ayu to translate the words for him so he'd know what she was saying, and Timmy was helping her with the correct English word choice. He probably couldn't call on exactly the right way to say every detail she includes, but she would have been able to explain "I use this word here, but this is what I mean, so what should I put here?" and he would have been able to give far better input than someone with only a basic grasp of English. Details have been omitted, but the point of what Ayu is trying to say does MOSTLY come across. Some translators go more literal and try to include more detail; some translators go as far as replacing Japanese metaphors & idioms with roughly equivalent English ones. This one is kind of in between. The tone of the lyrics is roughly maintained, which is something many fan translations don't even attempt; the trade-off is that details are dropped.

I don't think there's any such thing as a perfect translation when you're dealing with languages that are as different as Japanese & English unless the sentence is REALLY REALLY BASIC, hahaha.

^ I loved your post, truly! I remember the last verse was is the most impacting one from ayu's translation, but it didn't seem that deep in early translations and had a quite different interpretation, so that's why I wondered if it was truly a translation :)

Ah, I see. It's been a while since I've read the Tell All (book) translation.

On my blog I mention that last line in particular... I'm just gonna copy what I wrote lol

I translated the lyrics here if you wanna see what I ended up coming up with: http://www.deliriumzer0.com/ayu/daily-tellall

Ayu could perform Because of You every damn tour and CDL and I would love it EVERY SINGLE TIME.

^ agree.

I think that my absolute favorite uptempo song is Angel's Song.
I can't choose just one song, so I divide them into categories lol.
Favorite ballad is Rainbow.

Right now I'm still loving The Show Must Go On, though that'll be an unpopular opinion lol!

I think most people still do like it other than certain parts during the chorus.

I totally LOVE this post. I always thought Tell All was awesome, but now I've got some of the deepness behind it and I feel like it has already grown even more in me hahahah thanks a lot for this :)

I love when I don't listen to a song for a while, and then randomly play it, and it reignites my love for it. The most recent song this happened with is my name's WOMEN. Started playing it to get pumped for the concert, and now I'm really looking forward to it being performed! :D

I was on Buzzfeed today and noticed they had an article/list on Emo Lyrics You Can Relate To In Your 20s and it made me wish there would be an Ayu article on there.

(I think they had a pretty good Mariah lyrics list/article too)

It happens to me quite often and I love it too! :) Sometimes I leave my iTunes on shuffle mode and I discover beautiful gems in her discography, like ever free, theme of a-nation '03, HAPPY ENDING (songs that I probably listened to only once a few years ago and didn't pay much attention).

I think of all the songs that has just out of the blue captured my attention recently has definitely been SEASONS. I never hated this song but I never loved it. I kind of thought it was boring. But, listening to her version of it on A Ballads, I suddenly love it. Like...enough so that I want to keep listening to it. XD

The A BALLADS one is SOOO good. I felt the same as you about SEASONS and then it just like became cemented in my mind as a lovely track. So perfect on days with nice weather.

Does anyone have the translation of one of Max's blog entries about Ayu? I'm not thinking about the one he wrote about the Fairyland PV but the one where he mentions people telling him "Don't invest in this Ayu girl..advertisers won't like her face..tv stations won't want her to perform.."

I think someone translated it back when it was posted. I think it was in the Ayu celeb news forum.

http://ahsforum.com/forum/showthread...light=velfarre

http://ahsforum.com/forum/showthread...light=velfarre

It's funny looking back... I wonder if those people were angry at themselves or admitted they were wrong post-debut.

Yes, you are my soul twin. I can't believe it's the song I look forward to more than any other right now. It's just so...melancholy with a hopeful melody to it.

I am also stuck on Two of Us. I prefer HAL's mix but I can stand the original.

Listened to NEXT LEVEL (album) today, I'd forgotten how deep her voice got around that time. I'd listened to some of A ONE before and it really surprised me. When I'm not in an 'Ayu mood' it's only really Loveppears/Duty/I am... stuff that's on playlists so A ONE didn't seem that high, but woah, listening to NEXT LEVEL was surprising.

I got that PS2 Ayu game today!!!!
$5
She's aslo selling the missunderstood tour photobook for $40. Is that a good price?

Not really.

http://page3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c513369397

^ thanks!
You saved me a trip back to where it's being sold

No prob, bae. There's a few of them on Y!J right now actually.

It got really deep during GUILTY era. But GREEN you can really tell as well. I actually adore her voice in GREEN. It didn't sound damaged. To me, it sounded more natural for her.

What game is that? I'd be way curious to see it! :D

It's a "DOME TOUR 2001" themed 'game'. I think it was called A VISUAL MIX or something and had various angles of that tour along with some other things.

I don't even know what to expect
It's 2 discs

I've been really into vogue and ourselves lately. I love how she has such an extensive discography that I can keep rotating different songs in and out and never get tired of them!

I found download links of 2 discs. Total size is 7GB but I don't have PS2. Is there anyway to play in my computer?

I guess you could try using an emulator mainly PSX2

I have game. It's not that exciting. Lol. I got it brand new for like $5 from play-Asia when it was on sale years ago.

^Me too! Just to add it to the collection. I've never played it. lol

Since this is a anything goes thread I will ask a stupid question just bc it has been forever since I followed more closely Ayu`s career. What happened to the white guy from Brillante MV? They used to be together all the time.

^ They're still friends, he's a background singer during the tours and you can see him around her sometimes in real life, it's just not as obvious as it was in 2012

Oh thank you.

I've always thought of songs that I think Ayu would do well covering, more as just wishful thinking but not ever really expecting it to ever happen. But, I've been thinking recently about how I kind of wish the GazettE could cover a song of hers, which of course is ludicrous. But, I was imagining them doing a version of Ever Free and it just sounded right in my head, especially if they did it similar to Without a Trace or DLN.

And then I started imagining Shiina Ringo doing Ayu's songs.... <3

Now that you say so, a GazettE cover if one of her songs would be awesome. I can already hear Ruki's voice on ever free lol. I remember when I thought An Cafe would cover an ayu song one day since Miku was supposedly a big fan and they had a song that I thought sounded similar to an ayu song. But I'd rather hear the GazettE lol.

I always want to hear ayu cover other types of songs. Movin on without you was great. I wish she'd cover a MELL song but that will never happen.

I'm glad you agreed. I actually am surprised anyone did. XD

Well, my prayers were met pretty well when she covered and Utada song. I was so excited about that. I would love to hear her do a Gackt song but I don't know which one.

I've always wanted to hear Gackt do a song of hers but I can't remember at the moment which one it was >.<;

GACKT covered SEASONS
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1...12-22_creation

The PS2 game does not emulate well at all on PC...it might be possible to rip the assets from the game ISO...the multi camera stuff of the selected Dome performances would be fun to edit.

It was GREEN where I really noticed the difference. I used to listen to GREEN loads, so it was weird to hear this really familiar song with a voice so different to A ONE. The deeper voice really works on tracks like Sparkle and Rollin'. Makes Energize way less cuter than I remember it too.

GUILTY would have been just as surprising too, I hardly listen to it too. Never been a big fan of it I guess.

I just saw that the game only has like 5 songs to play with and the only one I'm interested in is vogue.
Guess I'll pop it in and give it all a shot as soon as I can. Don't know how to feel about this lol. I remember seeing it in Japan and passing it up. But I saw it again at a con and I guess it was fate. It's like how I've passed up eternal darkness like 10 times and now I got it for cheaper than you would find it on eBay.

^Same, I've never been a fan of vogue. It's not close to the worst song she's ever done or anything, but I've never really enjoyed it.

I'm into far away right now and I love the chorus, what a beautiful song...

I don't listen to vogue that much but I do think it is an amazing song :)

i love vogues PCDL performance! didn't care about the song before i saw it :yes

Vogue is in my top 20 all time favorite songs. It's definitely the best of the trilogy IMHO.

I just realized, as of this year I've actually been a hardcore Ayu fan for OVER half her career, which doesn't even seem possible. I was looking over her discography and the fact that the time between A Best II and now is greater than the time between "A Best" and "A Best II" doesn't seem possible.