[2008] H/\L minus two members = worthless?
 

Yes, I said it.

I think some people have noticed that H/\L, as arrangers for Ayu since like 1999/2000, have started to slack off like woah, and it's kind of obvious why. Like, in 2001 and 2003, H/\L lost two big members of their team, Yuta Nakano and Atsushi Sato who is also known as ats-. It is my belief that they were what made H/\L the team that they were.. like, when Ayu used to have really good arrangements and we'd be like "Wow, these songs are amazing!"

Examples of their tracks before Yuta's departure:
Fly high
immature (album version)
appears (album version)
Far away
SURREAL
AUDIENCE
M
evolution
UNITE! [might be overthinking it since Yuta left around this point.]

Examples of tracks before Atsushi's departure:
Daybreak's H/\L's mix
Free&Easy
Over
WE WISH
Dolls
neverending dream
Greatful days
No way to say
Because of You
ANGEL'S SONG [might stretching this since he left in 2003]

And afterwards they've had tracks like all of Ayu's summer songs since fairyland, Kaleidoscope/LABYRINTH/reBiRTH.. etc.

A more complete list under the spoiler with bolded songs being the ones that most people think sound like something else:


It's like, the soul was sucked out of them when these two people left the group. Just so you know, Yuta Nakano recently started more work with Ayu and its been fantastic [arrangement starting with HEAVEN and rainy day, both AMAZING!!!! and compositions starting with talkin' 2 myself which was worked on with H/\L.. hilariously enough, his old teammates, who he probably bossed around while making the arrangement ahahahahahaha]... and ats- has done a lot of amazing work with random avex artists and others.. a standout is his work on Yuna Ito's ENDLESS STORY. [though H/\L did arrange ENDLESS STORY, but I guess that's a different story.]

Sort of surprising to me that every single one of Ayu's similar-sounding-songs has been done by the bumbling duo that is H/\L today. It's just.. astounding. What do you think? Should she just stop using them? I personally think so, as that would be a lot better for Ayu and uh, better for us.

Next time you think that the summer songs or H/\L interludes all sound the same, don't blame Ayu. It's basically all H/\L's fault for being so LAZY.

HAL was a group?Didn't knew that.
Fly high rules.Thanks HAL!

H/\L was originally a group of like four arranger/composer/writers who did work for other avex artists, and then did their own thing as a band for like a year or two, stopping in 2003 [their singer, H/\LNA left them]~

I'd say that their latest works are far from amazing arrangements, but they make for good songs. Like, all the stuff that people say "SOUNDS THE SAME LIKE _________" is all because the new H/\L lacks creativity or something. They did momentum and M, all the summer songs, the triplets of the interludes..

Eh, sure, the songs have a different feel to them, but to say they are worthless? The original H/\L team had some incredible pieces, but the songs afterwards aren't garbage, there are some quality songs on each of the lists post-departures.

I think they're lacking the creative drive that made them so "likable" before, and should maybe take a break.

It's like, the most obvious examples are the summer tracks [which I ENJOY A LOT] but I think that Ayu could probably use other people for them you know? And the interludes.. oi. Kaleidoscope, LABYRINTH, reBiRTH are all, tbh, the same thing. They've produced some good stuff since the two members left, but they need to stop using older elements in the newer songs, especially if they're blatantly obvious.

Sure, the songs after the departures are decent, but I think that with the right arranger [CMJK/tasuku/Yuta Nakano], they could be more than just decent. part of Me was a disaster which could've been prevented with a different arranger, imo.

you can still blame Ayumi because im 100% sure she does her part in saying yes or no to what instrumentation is going to be put in her songs. :P

Well, yeah... to an extent. But ultimately, she probably has faith in them despite them being a completely different team than they were before the members left.

I'd say that she probably lets them do w/e they want since they've produced such hits in the past. [to emphasize AGAIN: different group though, tbh.] Also, the group has an emptiness to their arrangements.. like I don't really care for it myself, since a song is a good song to me no matter the sound, but if you look at it from a non-biased perspective, they lack depth. Again, see part of Me for a big example of this and compare it to NWTS. There are so many layers in NWTS it's insane, and part of Me is just... empty. Same goes for a lot of their recent work as well. This thread is just to point out why some songs sound similar to one another, not to say that I dislike all of their work, since I LOVE MY ALL and many other recent tracks.. since I really don't have a problem with the sounding-like-something-else, since her songs are really all unique to me..

[Oh no! Self-contradiction! Oh well, stop talking and maybe no one will notice!]

Thanks for the info!

Whether H∧L is a group of four, two, or ten members, I think we still need to bring back older composers. To have Kunio Tago do "Together When..." was a fantastic idea, and we just need more than H∧L and Tetsuya Yukumi (OMG).

I'm not trying to turn this into a "composers-you-wish-would-come-back-or-feel-need-to-go" thread, I was just saying.

Maybe it's not the loss of members that make the songs seem less creative, but the fact that there are only so many ways to write a song out there, a melody or arrangement is bound to be repeated or sound recycled, just like lyrics. That's just what I think. I'm not saying that's a fact.

I've been saying this since BLUE BIRD came out, because that's when people really started to notice. That's when I started to notice, anyway. They have definitely become generic, and in my opinion, stale. Every time I see their name in the arranging credits, I squirm.

I have to admit, talkin' 2 myself was very unique for them, it used more layers and synth, and the strings as well. But I can't help but wonder if that was more of Yuta's direction than anything else.

Knowing Ayu though, H/\L will flood her next few new releases, and I can only hope that they get something good out of it, like t2m.

I wouldn't put the blame in the lack of the two members necessarily, since I was rather surprised at how momentum sounds so much like their very older pieces and even like when they released stuff with H/\LNA. I just believe that H/\L has a little of a limited kind of arrangement, specially when it comes to guitars because I think they're very synthetized.

They still do some amazing arrangements though: BLUE and (don't) Leave me alone

H/\L and Tetsuya Yukumi? OH NO!!!!!. We need less of that. tbh, (m)u was Ayu's last really groundbreaking album imo, as it lacked both of them. Two H/\L songs and one Tetsuya Yukumi track. Ahaha. This is all my opinion, of course, as that was your opinion that they should work together..

I've seen lately that Tetsuya tries to compose melodies for Ayu that sound similar to her older tracks. Like Life [AMAZING IMO] sounding like SEASONS and MY ALL sounding somewhat like Replace / momentum / etc.. I dunno. It just seems like he tries TOO hard.

Uh, I think you read it wrong. Chibi_Venus said "we just need more than H∧L and Tetsuya Yukumi" :P

Oh, thank god. Oops for my eyes glancing over it wrong, since they suck together.

A rat just died next to my laptop, so I'm kinda spacey. Dang thing jumped on me a few days ago and now it's dead via trap. [Sorry, rat, but you're scary.]

On topic: I think Ayu should really stick to her current team minus H/\L for an album or two. Like, she should use more tasuku, CMJK, and Yuta.. possibly DAI if he wants to come back and let Kazuhiro Hara work on his own stuff..

Eh, it's hard to know how Ayu selects arrangers. I wish she'd divulge her reasoning in choosing someone over another arrangers.

Nah, it's definitely not that. Ayu has themes she likes to go back to because that's what she likes to write about, whereas with like arrangements and stuff, there's like a world of different layers and sounds you could go through and it's like, weird how Ayu's sound as gotten sorta empty since then. Like, think about how (don't) Leave me alone could sound if it was arranged by another group.. it'd have like epic strings and maybe some drums and stuff.. it's just like "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?!?!?!?!?" when they overuse synth and fake strings.

Wow they wrote so many good songs! I love m. :O

I thought H/\L was a person. thanks for the info but not good news because the creator of M left already.

They only arranged the songs. Ayu's the one who wrote M. Do you guys not know your Ayu history or something?

^

Lolll why should we? o.o

Well, just wondering if you knew, since M was the first composition Ayu did.. but it's okay if you didn't know. I'm just shocked, I guess.

So you don't give them credit that they don't deserve, maybe?

to think if they came back, AYU would regain more signature songs. the releases from the past 2 years were a bit lacking. IMO Together When was the most groundbreaking of the past 2 year.

Well, one of them came back in the form of Yuta Nakano, and imo he's a blessing to Ayu. He's got amazing skill in terms of arrangement and composition and he knows what sounds good. It's like, he was the one who made H/\L as amazing as they were. That's why we had such memorable pieces like M and UNITE!... but the duo right now seems to be very one note. I wonder if they're aware of it? [I mean, how could they NOT be? The 3 interlude triplets and the summer songs... oi. Not complaining that I don't enjoy them, but.. wow guys.]

If i never remember wrongly HAL is actually only 1 person from HAL who did the arrangement not the whole group of them even though they credit as 'HAL'

And I still love the rest of their works, naming

No way to say
Because of You
ANGEL'S SONG
GAME
my name's WOMEN
fairyland
LABYRINTH
momentum
part of Me
(don't) Leave me alone
glitter
MY ALL

Huh? They're a duo now, and are usually credited as such. If one person from the group works on something, then only one person is credited.. Where did you get the idea that they're just one person?

Like, usually they both work on programming the synths and such, but sometimes one of them breaks off to do guitar or something.

i thought H/\L is the name of one girl only

That's H/\LNA / Haruna. She left the "band" they made a year or two after they formed.

yah.. I miss the original H/\L group....

BTW, what is exactly arranging of songs??? I just read this in the credits but I really want to know the real deal of this...

Arranging usually dictates what/when instruments to use, musical progressions, etc. The lyricist writes the lyrics, and the composer makes the melody for the lyrics, and the arranger controls the rest of the musical sound such as guitar, bass, drum, synth, etc.

well H/\LNA never release anything too...
i thought she is pretty good singer, i love her song
(by the way, why this thread exist at ayurooms?)

The original topic was that Ayumi's songs are sounding really similar because of H/\L's arrangements, that are lately sounding generic.

I don't really think it's the case. They still have good songs. The songs aren't that bad, but, gah, those interludes....

What Ayu really needs are some different composers.

ayu should keep Yuta Nakano (I really like him) and use less H/\L...as for composers, I'm getting sick of Tetsuya Yukumi..he needs to go away. I like Kunio Tago...glad he came back. :)

I agree...I think Ayu had better arrangements before...but I didn't know that 2 of H/\L's memebers left! that's sad...

While I think that the composer can make a bit of a difference, in the end.. the arranger makes the song what it is. I mean just look at the summer songs. All different composers worked on them and yet they still have the same synths and all that [I personally love them to death] but... people are like: "EW AYU STOP W/ THESE SUMMA SONGZ THEY BORING!".

It's like HAL has a metaphorical template in their arrangements for "summer", interlude, or "rock" songs..

I personally agree,matbe they should listen to other genres of rock or other genres that might inspire summer songs.

Like, the best example of this is tasuku's arrangement of July 1st. It's summery, but doesn't have the "sound" of the H/\L arranged summer songs, you know?

^I also noticed that with independent!

ohh... Now I know... Thank you very much for telling me... :yes

I like the arrangements of M, Free & Easy, UNITE! and many more!!!
And because it's H/\L!!!!

H/\L also arranged the Sailor Star Song for Sailor Moon's last Opening and it's beautifully done.

Don't think that the opening is good.

As in the op itself or the song?
And besides it's an old song from 96 I think it has a nice arrangement. Obviously I do prefer Kazemo soramo kitto...

To be honest, I can't tell. Sometimes I wish they would try a little less synth but I think H/\L synth is probably one of the only ones I really like. (okay, a little off points)

I think for the most part, their post works are pretty good, but it tend to be the upbeat summer songs that really show the weakness, because IMO the composition wasn't strong to began with. Although (M)U is a good example of how a good arrangment can really affect the song.

I definitely noticed the change in HAL's works. When Atsushi Sato left the group, the programming and sounds that I recognized from select Ayu songs could be heard in his post-HAL works. The arrangements he did for SweetS, especially, are some of my all-time favorites.

The works from the current HAL aren't nearly as much to my liking as their old stuff, but I certainly don't think the group is worthless. The guys have their certain sound ("safe" as it may be), and they do it well. I would like to see new people do work for Ayu, though.

Wow, so it looks like one half of H/\L (Takehito Shimizu) has been working with Ayu for a while now as a guitarist while the other half (Toshiharu Umezaki) has been working with a new team, rearranging classical music. [ http://www.garage-classics.com/creator.html ]

So... did H/\L *as we know them* break up?