Ayu CAPS (includes merged threads)
 

Why are some song titles in all capital letters?(UNITE!,NEVER EVER, TO BE, etc.) Also, some don't have the the first letter capitalized (poker face, vogue, forgiveness, etc) Is there some hidden or special meaning for this? Or does Ayu just like to have some song titles in all-caps and other uncapitalized at all?

I think it's just kind of random. I don't know why she does it...But I ignore it because whenever I type her titles I type them normal with just one cap...

Maybe someone can notice a pattern with them...

I don't know why... but I think its really cool...

If you think about it... it's not only Ayu who does this... Mostly everyone in J-music titles their songs like that... :yes

0.NOTHING FROM NOTHING
1.poker face
2.YOU
3.Trust
4.For My Dear
5.Depend on You
6.WHATEVER
7.LOVE~Destiny~
8.TO BE
9.Boys & Girls
10.A
11.appears
12.kanariya
13.Fly High
14.vogue
15.Far Away
16.SEASONS
17.SURREAL
18.AUDIENCE
19.M
20.evolution
21.NEVER EVER
22.Endless Sorrow
23.Unite!
24.Dearest
25.Daybreak
26.H
27.Free & Easy
28.Voyage
29.&
30.forgiveness
31.No way to say
32.Moments
33.Inspire

Maybe it has something to do with the numbers...?? Or it doesn't mean anything...I never think about it, I never notice the titles...

She probably just thinks it looks nice.

Yeah, probably to put enphasis on the title, to make it more dramatic?

i remember someone saying that the songs with capitalized titles means she feels more strongly towards the osng..

But saying that alot of JPop singers do this. Like Koda Kumi ' COLOR OF SOUL' 'COME WITH ME' 'love across the ocean' (No Capital L) So I don't know, it's always the english titled songs that have this done to them.

^ ayu extends it 2 the japanese titled songs also...

kanariya
Hana
HANABI

hmmm, dunno ~_~

It's just something to catch the attention of the audience...
Almost everyone in the Japanese music industry does it.
Maybe for Ayu it does have a meaning, or maybe it doesn't, we'll never know.

I think it's just becuz of the appearance.
For example, IMO, "Far away" looks better than "Far Away" or "FAR AWAY"

easy to remmember

I think it's important. I'd like to follow it by typing it as what it's supposed to be, there's a reason I'm sure even if the reason is just for ecstatic value.

And it's "INSPIRE" :yes

If you study graphics you'll learn that there's all sorts of jibberish reasoning and analysing behind lettering.............

I don't know, maybe she hides her phone number and stuffs in the letters.D00d that would be so cool.lol.It really would..Uhh.(goes to look at Ayu song titles and covers) If any of us become rich and famous singers then I guess we can be awesome like Ayu and all the other J-singers and type stuff like that!(i sure would in like five seconds) Eheh. ^-^;;

secret behind the letters:P
 

I also was wondering 'bout this letters... I even had this concept that maybe it has something to do with the commercials? Maybe the songs with capital letters are the ones that haven't been used in any commercial??? if i weren't so lazy I would check it:) but probobaly it's just for show.

yep, seems EVERYONE has been writing [Inspire] (sore wo miru to, cyotto okoru :p)

This has always been pet peeve of mine. I can't stand seeing song titles not written in their original format ~_~ (ie people typing 'Never Ever' instead of 'NEVER EVER')

And for some reason it is really easy to remember how the lettering is.

Masa wrote in an article a while ago that often songs that she has in all caps have weak, suffering lyrics ("NEVER EVER" being used as an example again) and she tries to come off as being strong.

I personally think this makes the titles look more stylish.

Dunno why... I guess its just her mood to put the song in all capital letter or not

Interesting.....I have wondered about this too.

CREA's theory makes sense....because look at the lyrics of these songs (or singles) and you will find despair and sadness:

SEASONS
WHATEVER
TO BE
NEVER EVER
INSPIRE
GAME
HANABI
RAINBOW
H
A
M
&
SURREAL
AUDIENCE
ANGEL'S SONG


Makes a lot of sense. :yes LOL.....HAM.

*hi-fives CREA*

Another who prefers correct capitalisation. :)

ROFL @ Ham xD

As to being unable to stand people who can't remember the original format of the title, I don't see what's so bad about it :x Although I guess it can be compared to being annoyed by people who type "liek thiz" and use "u", "r", "rite", etc.

There is no song called 'H'. ...

I'm like ~K+ and CREA, I have to have things perfectly how they were. It's not Rainbow or rainbow, it's RAINBOW.
There is a difference.

Or A, or &

EXACTLY! like Ayu's music writing name is CREA, not Crea or crea, etc.. and it bothers my a bit with i see "Opening Run" and not "opening Run" (the second one is the correct one)... but i have to admit... everyone once in a very rare blue moon i write Inspire instead of "INSPIRE".... oh well- not the end of the world (haha, no pun intended- but that is a good song).. hmm I don't know which letters are capitals in "end of the world"- can someone tell me?

I think is like someone else above said.. that you put more strong feeling towrds that word.. it's like when you are yelling at someone on chat you HEY YOU!!! COME HERE! so thst's stronger than hey you! come here!
It looks totally diferent!

and it's End of the World

I guess it looks cooler too. Like instead or writing VOGUE or Vouge she wrote vogue beacuase who the word is presented.. like.. making capital any letter would not create smooth name.. i don't know if i make mayself clear.. it has to do with the design how the word looks the best.

couldnt agree more...
i hate seeing Loveppears written, its no way near as effective as LOVEppears imo...

Te entiendo, hombre. and thanks.. "End of the World" -another thing, i always put song titles in quotes because it's a copyrighted thing.
and by the way, your Harry Potter/Ayu avatar is AWESOME, man! that's probably one of the best things i've seen on this site. never thought of that. :cool

To be honest, I don't give a crap about the capitalisation. I write everything down in my own format, so that's Rainbow, End of the world, Hanabi, etcetera. I can't stand having things in a different format. I spend a lot of valuable time on making sure everything is in the same format. You should see my playlists and folders. No kidding, I'm autistic when it comes to that.

I'm with everyone else when it comes to capitalizing her song titles.It has to be the the exact way it was printed.

I'm the only one who disagrees I guess. I'm one of those people who can't stand when people start a sentence without a capital online..I always write them normal, for ex:INSPIRE for me is Inspire, and SEASONS is Seasons...:P

I do feel that it's important to keep the capitalizations and what not in the titles, just as the name is an essential part of the song, so is the format of that name, ne

imagine though if her assistant was fire for not capping the titles

"i said EGG not egg, YOURE FIRED!"

accidentally hits caps. or ayu is angry :P

i really think it is very stupid to have gong titles with a set on caps/small letters. it is grammaticaly incorrect and it serves no purpose, apart from being incorrect.

extepan - there probably is a reason, just that we don't know what it is. If the song titles bug you, the Engrish aka Ayugrish found in songs like forgiveness must drive you crazy! (I sympathise, it annoys me too).

With so many releases a pattern would have shown up by now if there was any logic to song capitalisation. Note that Ayu probably doesn't make up most song titles herself, since her English isn't that good.

So my favourite theory is tl1029530921's - that the songs in capitals are those Ayu feels strongest about, or those that she likes most herself.

^Ayugrish, hahaha!!!!

But, I was so hoping that when I came to this thread again, someone would have solved this. I still wonder what the answer is. o_0

I agree with acharlyatl. It's a combonation of the feel the song has and how smoothly the title looks written in a specific way. I think "vogue" is a great example. Just listen to the song and you'll see all lower-case letters. "VOGUE" is too harsh, and "Vogue" is too choppy and maybe even sterile. I follow the same practice in titling my own songs.

extepan, since when is art ever confined to rules of grammar? And that's what Ayu is when you get down to it -- an artist. Look at all of the "great" poets who blatantly disregard grammatical rules. Emily Dickinson never used periods, opting for dashes instead, for example. And poems are often punctuated uniquely, broken up, or even written in shapes. Just be glad the song isn't called

C,
A
R!
O
LS.

or something like that. Trying to apply conventional rules of thought to anything creative is just a useless challenge and a losing battle. It's like trying to order cubesteak at Starbucks, and then paying in Yen. Just relax and go with the flow, it's much more enjoyable and interesting that way.

and she chose one type of each... LOL

Why capitalized titles?
 

Sorry for the stupid stupid question. But does anyone know why ayumi has songs that are sometimes capitalized..sometimes ending with ".."

it just striked me it's kinda funny that she did that. =/ any ideas?

Song title
 

Hey guys... Do you realise that the title of the songs sometimes in full caps, and sometimes not.

Example : GAME (full caps)
walking proud (no caps)
Moments (first letter)
my name's WOMAN (half-half)

Did she leave any meaning behind it?

I think she puts songs with more meaningful lyrics in all caps. But I'm not entirely sure.

this was brought up quite a while ago... someone give a nice example...
like Far away, it certainly looks nice "Far away" compare to "FAR AWAY" or "far away" or "Far Away" rite? mayb u cant look at it, but last time, some ppl that brought this topic up ended with one conclution, that capitalise shows the artistic side of the tittle... and i really do accept that reason... so how do u take it?

probably theres a more powerful or angry meaning in the ones with capitals, hmmm i'm relli not sure~

some 1 worte on this topic before......let me c if i can find it......

*EDIT*
i found it.......it was on masa website i don't know if this would be much help.....

　　

Do we know whether she titles her own songs? How much english skill does she have? Does she consult with an english speaker to find an english word most appropriate to her songs meaning? does she look up a single word in the dictionary?

I'm a synic, so I doubt that the Capitolization has any meaning beyond the visual aesthetics ( in her opinion ). I find the random case setting irritating.

I think that too... I think its kinda cool though how she plays with the words

I bet it's just what she thinks looks good. And Ill bet she just uses a dictionary...

I think that is the case. Most likely someone bilingual from Avex.

But, i heard that she used to lived in New York for studying? Maybe she got the capability of choosing the title of her song?

I think her CAPS (GAME, INSPIRE, CAROLS, YOU, ANGEL'S SONG) is more about strength/loss of from love....

her half n half (my name's WOMEN, STEP you, is this LOVE?) is more about the CAPS, and the lowercase supplements it

her all lowercase (walking proud, replace, ourselves) is about protection, and how she looks for other people's love (i think)

her regulated title (Moments, No Way To Say, Honey) is (I think) the variances of love, and how love can make your day or break your day....

^^ But her songs isn't just about love...

sorry... i kinda made it off the top of my head.... hahaha...

^^ Well, maybe you are right, who knows? LOL.

i've always wondered that too. seems suspicious that she'd have that much knowledge of the english language to do it without some sort of help...but what kind of help i wonder?

i'd say the caps non caps thing is just something she picks based on some feeling she has for the song or what looks nicer.

Ayu isn't the only Japanese artist to do this, I noticed. So I don't really think it has a meaning to it...

yeah it's kind of a trend in japan i think [and i love what masa wrote]

by the way if you notice, all song-title in Mika Nakashima's first album TRUE, is written with full-caps, what about that?

It's kind of art in writing songs, I read some books that a song title can affect the hearer's feeling, so I think ayu is trying to give us a certain feeling. about her english, I doubt that she can speak fluently, y'know, when I first hear STEP you, the 1.2.3.4 part is heard like "what you seek for", and it's going to a trouble too in forgiveness

CAPITALs in SONGS?
 

What do they mean? I mean like..

HEAVEN
is this LOVE?
Alterna
POWDER SNOW
evolution

Etc..

I think it's just art in the song titles....but i'm not sure about the breakdowns behind them >< I wish i did :)

hmmm... its just there to create a more greater effect on people just like how hilighting works, i suppose

I heard someone say something about it made a difference on the lyrics of the song or something..

um..i think someone here reached the conclusion that she felt mroe strongly abotu the lyrics of the songs that are capitalized.

yeah, i think it's just a highlighting effect... just to draw more attention to it... i just don't get the half-n-half situations...

I saidn once in another thread of this kind, that is due to the design or... how the word looks better... according to the typo they are using.

like... it wouldn't be the same vogue than VOGUE or Vogue or even VougE.

so its how they thing it looks the best.

for STEP you/is this LOVE? u can see the rythim of the words... ''BIG small/small BIG'' (or capital and small? hahaa dunno the word)

and also the meaning the word can bring like for instance WE WISH than we wish...

see?

that's what I think!

I think it's an emphasis thing. I don't know. I really like the capitalization in the Trilogy: vogue Far away SEASONS. Goes from no capitals, to one capital, to all capitals. But I think in general it has to do with the words with the song, and the message.

thats a really good explanation, i never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense.

that's interesting!

^Same!! Never thought of that!

I was JUST about to post a topic like this. Except, it was going to be a question like, if "SEASONS" wasn't all capitalized, how would you make it? :P

I thought it might just be because it's creativity, and maybe Ayu just thought it looked better that way. But, yeah, messages could be behind them too.

I thought that it might be because of katakana and hiragana. katakana is their symbolalphabet for foreign "borrowed" words. So I thought that maybe that's why like game is in capitals. since it's in the song as "game" but then I remembered that Hanabi is in capitals and that's written in hiragana as an original japanese word for fireworks.

some 1 wrote on this topic before click here go to the 5th post..

it's alterna not Alterna ^^
it's emphasizing the tone of the word like WE WISH (said as a loud tone or happy tone of voice) ^^
try saying we wish and compare teh tone to WE WISH ^^
is this LOVE.... (LOVE is pronounced as a high tone again a happy tone! ^^) LOL
ayu LOVES to emphasize! ^^

but to me, i do not exactly remember which titles are capitalised. just type them out in lower cases

Ayu CAPS
 

I don't know if anyone has ever enquired about this before BUT what does it mean when Ayu puts her song titles in CAPS as opposed to small caps??

Just wondering.

Maybe she just wants it in capitals. I never really thought about it.

Maybe it suppose to match the song. A powerful song like WE WISH is all caps and then a sweeter song like poker face has none.

Maybe, I don't know

Hm... maybe you`re right. Or it could be just because of looks. I don`t know.. Or maybe because of her personal opinion or something?

to add some degree of emotions to the title?

Exactly. Caps give emotions more emotions to a song. I'm fine with it, coz it makes the titles somewhat special. I've seen so far it's only J-Pop that used that kind of capitalization. Perhaps K-Pop, but I'm unsure.

Thankfully she hasn't yet to used　☆, ★, ♪, ♭, ♯, +, - and so on,,,,,

i just love caps..haha...maybe you say about STEPyou..its pretty cool though

Maybe her spelling is just getting worst and worst!~ xDDD Nah, I think it's just to make the titles look cooler. :yes

Yeah, I think it's just for extra dramatic titles. I think that Ayu likes to put feeling behind everything, including the way the title is said because in Japansese you say different parts of a word higher/louder then other parts.