Ayu: Anything Goes [XXII]
 

Going to get this thread started as the previous one is filling up and we're coming up to the holidays.

But I really miss the old Ayu - it turns out though when I first heard of Ayu eleven years ago (when I was 13; you know, 'JEWEL' and the "Secret" album, before the Asia Tour the following year), she was 28 years old - next year are Ayu's 20th anniversary and 40th birthday, but based on what we've been seeing, she's not in a strong position...

And, whoever said in the previous thread about A BEST 3 - I don't think it makes sense anymore.

Hey, we're the same age and pretty much fans at the same time xD (miss)understood was around the time I found out about her. Funny how fast it's all gone, huh?

Anyway, I don't know about A BEST 3 but I wouldn't mind another release a la A BALLADS. I actually never listened to A BALLADS because I just thought it was another compilation album and never saw the point of listening to something I've heard all the songs for. God, was I in for a surprise when I did decide to listen to it -- just this year. Now I'm psyching myself up hoping that we'll get something like that but at the same time I'm trying not to overthink anything and will just be happy with whatever we get.

If we’re on the topic of “I miss the old ayu”, I gotta say I really miss when ayu’s nails were like a gyaru’s bible. Her nails were always so unique and stylish. I think I’m just bored of how short and plainly boring her nails are now (considering she has to do the aerial performance).

RAINBOW is 15 years old today. Can you believe it? I actually can) I wasn't fan at this time, so this album feels as old as it is.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRTwZl9X4AAbP8T.jpg

I don't like this album. Don't know why. It contains many good songs and I like more than half of them but full album doesn't feel solid

Happy anniversary RAINBOW! It's actually my favorite Ayu album, or at least one of my favorites.

Heartplace, HANABI, Free & Easy, Real me, Dolls... :love

It was certainly a strange album by Ayu standards but it works IMO. She'll never make anything like it again.

RAINBOW is my first Ayu album so it'll always be a fave in my heart <3

The older I get I can see how this album isn't as cohesive as others. I feel like if RAINBOW came out in the modern era it would be a two-parter: RAIN and BOW......lol

RAIN might have collected the more etheral and dreamy tracks like everlasting dream, everywhere nowhere, Over, but finish on Free & Easy and then BOW might have had the "harder" tracks :rolleyes like WE WISH, and some more upbeat and lively-sounding tracks like independent, Real Me and finish with July 1st.

Then she'd release RAINBOW and we'd all rage at it..... ;)

RAINBOW! Love it so much! The album wouldbe perfect if the title track was there. <3

Switching the topic, It's pretty much confirmed that we won't have CDL this year but I wonder if they will do something related to CDL in those dates. What you guys think? I would love if they did a special playlist on YouTube with the best performances from CDL.

RAINBOW had amazing single tracks and brilliant album tracks. Love it.

Im my old burned CDs I’d always have RAINBOW as track 1 followed by Everlasting Dream, haha. Some of those songs are so atmospheric and just ...beautiful. Even the interludes are great.

If we’re talking about missing the old Ayu I’d say that I miss conceptual photoshoots for her covers and her PVS with storylines.

RAINBOW isn't one of my favs at all but it HAS one song that everytime I listen to it it goes traight to my heart and feelings... HEARTPLACE. What the hell has this song? It makes me go to another place.

The strings in this song are fucking heavenly!
Its really corny, but I feel this sense of inspiration when I listen to it.

On another note, Born to Be is great for inspiring me to get on a treadmill <3 Listening to that and Beautiful Fighters in succession is my secret to getting thin.

https://media.giphy.com/media/GBF4acc9jwESY/giphy.gif

I agree with this. Heartplace is just something else. :luv2

Happy Birthday Rainbow! One of her best album covers.

Also, I would love to get a studio version of Wow War Tonight.

So I was looking into the doll Licca's instagram account and I found out they did a homage to Ayu! In cellebration of their 50th anniversary, the account is doing a especial with facts from the last 50 years. And 2001 is about Ayu! For those who don't know Licca, she's the most important doll in Japan (just like Barbie is for the rest of the world).

https://i.imgur.com/CjVVzy3.jpg

@bonjour_licca #50yearsTimeTravel in #2001 : The girls were influenced by J-POP divas such as Ayumi Hamasaki !

RAINBOW is one of her masterpieces, period.

Rainbow is surely one of her masterpieces, I wish was a fan already back then,

and still want a PV for Hanabi like the Tu-ka CM omg!!

RAINBOW has some of my favourite songs on it (Heartplace is epic) but I rarely go to it as an album. Maybe I'll try it again today :)

I believe RAINBOW is my favorite album also.:heart
The beauty of Dolls cannot be ignored. I can't say I dislike any of the songs on the album. I do wish there were maybe 1 or 2 more music videos created for that era. Imagine what a PV for HANABI would be like.:luv2

RAINBOW is one of my favourite albuns :luv2

listening to her Winter ballad selection album on Spotify, it really fit into my mood right now, looooveee it

I am so into CAROLS lately. I don't even really like the song. I guess it is the holiday spirit

Ayu makes those seasonal anthems like no other.

Wasn't sure if it would be but You were... is still solid after all these years :yes. That whole single was one of her best winter singles. Was rewatching the BALLAD PV, also one of her best, so beautifully done and emotional. Whoever directed it should direct all her videos.

11 years to the day Ayu sang JEWEL on Music Station Super Live 2006...one of my favorite Ayu performances at that time while disregarding pre-autumn 2006 material. I, once again, seriously miss the old Ayu days. :cry

Finally. A positive post about You were... .:heart
I remember the first time hearing/watching it on youtube for the first time when it was released. I thought it was beautiful. The BALLAD/You were... single is such a solid release. Very beautiful artwork for the single as well.

It deserves so much love. It's such a beautiful and well written song :yes
I remember when it first came out too, I was obsessed and had it on repeat a lot that winter. I agree, the single covers were all gorgeous too.

Do you guys have a favorite winter PV from ayu?
Mine is momentum.. so beautiful and poor ayu honestly looked heartbroken in it, I wonder what she was going through during that time.

agreed with all the posts above! <3

Ayu surely got the best winter ballads everrrr <3

these days Ive been watching/listening to JEWEL, You Were... (how lonely and sad is the lyrics), No Way To Say <3, Carols (oh my the chorus,<3 ), Days to death

also really missed her Happy Xmas Show <333 my favorite is JEWEL at Universal Studio,cant believe it more than 10 years already T_____T so lovely Ayu

ugh so many great things happend during winter but now feels so empty, not a even a tv performance to be anticipated for

RAINBOW is one of my favourite albums as well. REAL ME is my jam.

For winter ballad pvs, I always liked Together When... Gosh, I haven't seen that pv in ages.

No Way To Say <3 the song that locked in my love for Ayu :luv2

I remember that I was kinda dispointed when I first watched the You were... pv. Not that it was a bad pv but I was so hyped for her to be "sparkling" in it and thought it would look like something like her look in kanariya but in the end she only had glittery powder all over her XD

When I had my first student from Japan over, she told me she and her friends lost touch with Ayu around RAINBOW and most of them did not bother to look her up anymore after that.

For a lot of people their Ayu fandom ended there or around BLUE BIRD. People don't really seem to know anything beyond what was in Secret nowadays.

Seriously! Oh gosh all of her JEWEL lives.. I know I have them on a hard drive I need to rewatch them! I remember how insanely beautiful her voice was in them, and her lovely dresses :love. I love ayu's gigantic dresses where she looks like a queen/princess.

I would have loved a winter single/promotion too but honestly I feel like anything she releases or does right now is extra, I don't expect anything to be how it used to be with her releases anymore especially after reading she is losing hearing in her other ear.

Omg how could I forget to watch Together When... this winter? Another amazing winter song + video. Thanks for reminding me! :D

Is this officially the longest we've went without a release? It's weird that for the past 5 years I've been wanting her to take it easy...but when she finally does I keep counting the days until a new album announcement :P

I keep listening to the "No way to say" single these days. I'm not usually the type that listens to winter ballads exclusively during the winter, but honestly, the acoustic remixes on that single are so good and sound a lot more superior than the ones on the actual acoustic orchestra remix albums.

^
yes the acoustic remix on the single is so lovely because her voice is so raw and fragile that made me love her 2002-2003 voice so much, seriously even most performances at Ayu Ready had this raw voice which I loved so much

the latter release that came close to that is Moon, Days <3, especially Moon she sounded like she could cry anytime in the studio version <3

This is the best live version of You were...


I always listen to You were... during christmas.
I will never forget how hard it struck me when I first listened to it. I had a drinking night with a friend and I said that I just had to watch the latest music video of my favourite artist. Both of us loved it and watched it several times. It was so magical.
The feeling when an Ayu song hits you hard is unforgivable.

EDIT
The video doesn't seem to work here? It's the Countdown 2009-2010 version

Haha I actually forgot about Together When for a bit too. But glad I could help :D

My visit to London makes me think about Ayumi Hamasaki's high-profile trip there for the "Rock'n'Roll Circus" album production nearly eight years ago. Honestly, though, I haven't had a chance to listen to Ayu's music these days, even before my year-end vacation to Europe started...

After 5 years, I'm realizing now that track #13 on "Party Queen" is "Serenade in A minor." I've been reading it as "Serenade in A mirror" all these years. I thought it went well with the concept and everything. Like she's learned to love herself towards the end of the album hence it segues into "how beautiful you are."

Wow. Totally mind blown lol. That also shows how little I revisit the album 'cause I'm sure I would've noticed sooner otherwise.

Officially, yes it is the longest.

And wow, I thought we had the title right in all the news leading up to PQ! lol

Reminds me of Load of the SHUGYO which is supposed to be LORD I think.

Hot damn, i never noticed either :no :dead2

I've realized this but I also initially read it as A mirror. The uppercase "A" made sense.

Surprised to see so many people read it as "mirror", not weird tho, if you read it fast it looks like "mirror" haha but I always knew it was minor and I thought it was a reference to Edward Elgar's serenade in E minor

The more you know with people and how they are perceiving titles... are there any others you guys have seen differently!?

for long time I thought "M EP" is song title

lmao I never misread any of her titles

Well, not reading tho. I always thought I should say A Song for xx as "A Song for eks eks", it was just until I saw the CM I knew the double x isn't spoken lol.

Yeah! When I discovered this song I wasn't good with english so I just read it half in english and half in portuguese, so it's something like "a song for she's she's" lol Even nowadays I still read this way. But I was also surprised when I saw the CM.

And I still don't know how to pronounce "Mirrorcle" the right way so I just say "Mirakuru" just like they used to announce it on the TV.

I used to read the XX in french too, actually i still do sometimes lol
Same for all her "A" releases, A BEST, A BALLADS etc, i used to read the A the french way lmao, or the way english people would say "a dog", not the A letter.

Since when Ayu didn’t attend Kōhaku anymore ?

The last time she performed was in 2013, she sang INSPIRE.

Thank you. Was it her decision?

^ Well... if you look at this article, what Ayu said is that both her and NHK agreed to this, but after all we don't know if it was her decision to begin with (she didn't feel like performing there and wanted to focus on CDL) or NHK's (Ayu wasn't popular anymore so they wanted to cut her out of the show).

It´s so strange that there is no Ayu counting down to midnight this year o.o

And it seems that this year when I decided I ant to buy it again, there is no Happy Box ._.

I feel weird too! It's like New Years has been cancelled.

Exactly! Today really doesn't feel like the last day of the year for me if i can't "celebrate" the new beginning of 2018 with a new ayu concert, that has been my routine since like 2010.

It's way past midnight but nothing on social media yet from her, i guess she's busy partying lol or she must be tired from the concert and is already sleeping, i wonder if the lack of CDL is making her sad.

It's kind of nice and different, too, though, for her to skip out on doing a countdown live.

Her last few CDL`s have been pretty lackluster to me... save for her performing Kanariya last year.

It feels weird to me as well. Since I have been a fan meaning circa 2006 each New Year's Eve was the time for excitement connected with Ayu's Countdown's. Sometimes more sometimes less but I always anticipated the setlist, costumes, some fancam videos. Well, here we have a slight change this year and that's fine too. Hope she had a fantastic New Year's Eve party : >

On another note, one day I was bored and sent to some youtubers links to Ayu videos so they can "react". I find such videos funny but also interesting, don't we like to see how people react to different things xD? Also it kind of, even in a tiny way" promotes more current Ayu. Two reacted to the "Warning" performance from 2015 tour.
https://youtu.be/fYgbEr1mnoc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiRGoYcBYtg

Haha thanks for sharing those. I just can't help rolling my eyes heard their reactions about the concert, "There's a lot of people." they really that clueless about Ayu.

^ i can’t help rolling my eyes at you right now because Jpop isn’t exactly mainstream and Ayumi isn’t popular as she once was.
But I enjoyed the videos too. Though I wish that they had researched or talked a bit more about what their impressions were but it’s nice to see people featuring Ayu on their channels

Yeah, this is very ominous. Typically AHS would be busy around this time because of CDL, but this year it isn't - all because, even though there was a show on 12/31, it's not a CDL... :shakehead

Super weird waking up on the January 1st and not having the CDL to watch!! I've been doing this since 2009. :O

GUILTY is 10 years old!! my baby is all grown up!!!

When I think of Paris and Ayu, I think of "Mirrorcle World" back ten years ago (GUILTY just 'released' a decade ago today).

Man, ten years go so really fast...

The tradition will return! I hope.

So... what happened in the end?

Mao Asada collaborated with "million singer"

https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2101910/full/

I can't read Japanese... so is it Ayu?

Happy anniversary to one of the best albums ever :heart

The article was the old one. After the 31st though... I will see what the sites say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVb30jrmd5Y

Watched her part but they don't seem to mention who the million seller is yet, just that the event is happening still.

what a huge video!

I think it was Kiroro?

Ayu seems really determined to give it her all this year. I wonder if she has plans to announce abut her future some time later this year. I dunno, the message feels a bit ominous to my basic-level Japanese.

I was thinking about writing a message on an uchiwa or small paper to hold at her concert. It's actually a shame that the fandom isn't really united as a whole to pull a support project.

I think they are cautioning against any type of signage or merchandise that is not official merchandise.

^ Not really. A lot of people do customized uchiwas to show support to her or the dancers. I myself did an uchiwa when I went to the CdM. It had "Brazil loves Ayu" lol

But what kind of supportproject you were thinking?

Sadly the #WeLoveYouAyu video didn't seem to get to her either or she at least didn't say anything about it...

what message?

about the video, I guess Timmy saw it and maybe showed it to her? just maybe Ayu didnt want to say anything bout it,

I really hope this year is a huge year for Ayu with a new album, maybe a best album, many TV performances and interview and hopefully a return to Kouhaku and MS Super Live at the end of the year. Her 20th anniversary deserves a huge celebration besides the tour and I hope her and Avex are planning something special. Feels too quiet atm compared to the 15th anniversary :(

I think it’s a recent change. They literally were cautioning against it when I went - it was written on signs and everything. Non-tour light stick, uchiwas, etc.

I believe they are doing that because it takes place in halls.
Next arena tour should be back to normal.

Probably to make sure people don't get hurt or anything from oversized uchiwa.

I think it's because of the size of the halls. I remember that for TA Tour it was also forbidden.

I want a remix album set like ayumix 7...

Understandable, but that's a bit sad. Some of the homemade signs I've seen are really cute and they normally aren't oversized. In general are the seats that much closer together than the arena tours?

At kpop concerts fansite owners will often bring paper signs and give them out to concert goers. There's usually an instruction for when to hold it up, usually during an emotional song or in the encore. It's kind of heartwarming for the fans to hold up hundreds of these signs at the same time.

Since Ayu is doing so many concerts it would be nice if messages could be sent to Ayu through people holding up a bunch of signs with nice messages. It seems like the concept doesn't really happen with Japanese artists though.

I've been browsing ayu's discography on wikipedia due to boredom. The L single:
Wow! I never realized this. Quite creative.

Why was the tracklist order for each version different? I lost touch with Ayu for a bit around this time.

There was never a reason for it I believe... they did the same thing for BLUE BIRD I think. Was partially to help differentiate versions.

is there any chance you guys think Avex would issue Ayu's album on vinyl?
And does anyone know the sale of Sixxxxx vinyl?

^I don't think so. Vinyl is more like collectible item

Agree, and I think sixxxxxx Vinyl sold very bad, otherwise they whouldn´t have sold it over TA shop after they said it´s venue exclusive.

Well, most venue exclusive stuff will go on sale elsewhere. I don't think those kinds of things 'sell badly' exactly it's just that there's a pretty specific audience for them and they know that.

^ The 3 singles that were venue exclusive during Premium Showcase were never put on sale on TA shop though, weren't they?
I think one indicator that can tell us that it might have sold badly is that it's still up for sale on TA shop, it's not out of stock yet.

Nope they were only available at the venue. Also chopsticks are usually venue exclusive. This Time was first Time they were sold at mu-mo, because we had no real CDL this time

There is info on this site http://asianumbers.galeon.com/ayu.html that sixxxxxx vinyl sold 1000 copies. Maybe less than 1000, seems all sales are approximate

weren't premium showcase singles free?

Yes. They were given out after giving the ticket to enter the arena.

IIRC the You were.../BALLAD Box (CDL09-10) and the MOON/blossom Limited Single (AT10) weren't on sale in online shops afterwards...

I remember a mu-mo option for the BALLAD box and for the MOON/blossom single. But it was TA only? Just generally speaking I find that venue stuff will be on sale in some form usually later on for most acts.

Moon/blossom single was on sale at mu-mo, but the You were/BALLADS Box definatly not. The box was limited to 2010 pieces only.

I'm dying

https://i.imgur.com/uSZ3YS4.jpg

*doesn't get the joke tbh*