2021: Reflecting on Ayu's career
 

MOD EDIT:

ORIGINAL POST:

I think we should just accept the fact that Utada is still largely popular and ayu isn't. I meet a lot of Japanese in Vancouver and the fact are, the average modern Japanese people will say that they like Utada Hikaru but Ayu is a bit of a shameful thing to like.

My thoughts are, Utada style has always been a bit bland, safe and more accessible. Ayu went on a more controversial path, especially with her LGBT advocacy (a bit like Lady Gaga did, although, we all know that most Japanese are more conservative and introspected about their image). People associate her a lot with LGBT and the Gyaru trend. My roomate (from osaka) explained me that today, the perception of the stereotyped Ayu fans are party people and trouble makers. On the other hand, being a fan of Utada doesn't come with specific labels.

This is actually pretty cool tbh xD

Hikki has been a big LGBT advocate as well, on several occasions.

-Tweeted that she is not straight.

-she supported gay marriage at a concert. She threw balls to the fans that said "legalize gay marriage" over 10 years ago.

-she went on tv to explain that one of her songs "Tomodachi" is sung from the perspective of a gay person

- her famous bear is openly gay.

- her "gay" music video with Shina Ringo.

I didn't know that, I guess she just know how to do things right. I love ayu a lot, but she took weird decisions the past decade.

You can enumerate all of Hikki's achievements that doesn't change the fact that Ayu's latest PV is a beautiful and delicate piece of art while Hikki's latest PV is she singing unconvincingly... at the park

I remember someone saying once Hikki actually has a big following from lesbians.

Different purposes with different results. I like both of them, cause the feeling of intimacy and "amateurship" of "One Last Kiss" PV fits the song so well, while the solemn atmosphere of "Haru yo, Koi" is splendidly represented by Ayu's video.

We can say whatever we want, but ayu’s poor PR and failed publicity stunts have got her to where she is. Utada manages her brand brilliantly and more importantly professionally. Ayu has annoyed the hell out of people with her dancers and random 3rd party personas including her husbands (as far as I know both have 2 failed marriages only one hasn’t advertised them as much). Even though I seldom like Utada’s new stuff she simply does a better job of selling stuff that people want.

I agree. Sadly, Ayu's bad PR the last years didn't do much for her image. Promotion wise, Hikki on the contrary did everything right aka keeping her private life as private as possible. Also, I don't think Ayu promoting gay rights is the problem here, but her equating homosexuality = naked men in diapers.

I find she already worked on her image since the birth of her son she is really quite and private but it will still takes some time to be taken seriously again.
sometimes i wonder why she decided to expose herself like that from 2010 to 2014 it really gave a bad impression in people mind and hurted so much her legacy ... a decrease of her popularity was inevitable but an artist of her calibre should have keep a greater position in general public heart.

speaking of Utada, she is and will always be view as superior over Ayu because since day one they haven't been promoted the same way. Utada is branded as the musical prodige while Ayu her brand was her image (and her lyrics) but when the image is degraded we have this situation.

I honestly don’t understand how getting divorced twice, and moving abroad is considered bad reputation. Isn’t the same case for Hikki as well? Has Ayu done anything else (aside for dating a grass eater) so shameful? She is a lovely person, and specially with her fans, some western artists should learn from her... I don’t think it’s Ayu’s fault to overexpose herself, but media’s way of portraying it.
I love Ayu and Hikki a lot, but their careers took different routes. Not to talk about their music style which is completely different, as well as their image. For some reason Hikki still clicks with people (if that makes sense). I also think that in Utada’s case, the hiatus she took did a good favor to her image and popularity. She left while being on top, and the hype around her come back was insane.
Anyway, both are legends each in their own way. Also, (not the case with Utada but) popularity doesn’t equal quality. Sometimes really talented people don’t reach the top or fall really quickly, it’s a matter of luck in the end.

So it's not the fact that she's been divorced twice and probably not even that she's lived abroad as both of them married, foreigners, got divorced etc.

Ayu comes with a caveat of dancers, back vocals, husbands appearing in her PVs and interviews (sure Hikki's husband shot her MVs if I remember well), ayu literally announcing her marriage with a performance in a wedding gown on NHK, her husband being in so many videos, doing photo books, scandals with her boyfriend later on etc. and again her boyfriend appearing in her videos and being her dancer (which seems to be repeating even now). All of this annoys people and ultimately alienates them while with Utada all of this somehow was never the case. We all know avex has used both her personal life and even tragedies including her going deaf around the time GUILTY was released to get the attention of the medias. Whether that's what they really wanted is up for debate, but people see it that way it seems and sometimes explaining yourself is not enough.

On top of all of this as I mentioned Utada is very particular about her marketing and/or simply has an actual team that knows what they are doing while in the recent years ayu's been nowhere near where she used to be back in the day when avex was fighting for every copy sold (Mirrorcle World) where even the fan club membership has become virtually useless (and I am still paying for it).

Utada's image is way closer to what people consider to be the "good japanese woman", while Ayu was the opposite of it since the day 1. She was even advertised as a rebel on pretty much every interview regarding her pre-debut life.

Still, Ayu is a larger than life cultural icon and the way she can still tour after so many years after her peak is a proof of that. People like comparing her to Hikki and Namie as a way to show how she was the one that "failed" among them, but she pretty much reached the living legend status for a while now, and it shows all the time.

There isn't much jpop stars out there that would generate a best seller book and a hit drama out of 20 years old gossip, and this by itself shows her power.

Also, I know people loved having new stuff everytime, but her release pattern really aged her career and image really fast. Hikki, for example, feels way fresher, among other reasons, just because she did way less.

I think two things that attributed to Ayu's quick decline in the last decade were her deteriorating voice (the weird ババア-like technique she's been using since POM doesn't help either) and generic arrangements. There isn't that かっこいい factor in her music anymore thanks to the likes of Yuta Nakano and I think she would've benefited more from working with more innovative music producers.

Nothing to do with the arrangements though as nearly all the Utada albums after Deep River could have their tracks interchanged and you wouldn’t even notice (with some exceptions). One Last Kiss could have been on Ultra Blue or Heart Station. Fantome and Harsukoi feel like a 2CD release...

Michi could have literally been on any of them.

But hasn’t been like this from the very beginning? Weren’t her personal and relatable lyrics one of the (if not the main) reasons of her success? Ayu is a drama queen, and has been so since day one and we love it lol (just my opinion here tho.)

Completely true.

Hikki has a similar image to say... YUI?
She always represented (ironically, since she grew up in the states) an image that goes much more with the general public and the way japanese women view themselves. Her clothing style has always been leaning towrads the general trend, she never really dyed her hair blonde or portrayed a pop-star image and she is kinda quite but also quirky.

Ayu has always been a popstar and in her hey days that sticked with a big youthful fanbase and probably 20+, but somehow that image did not really grow with that fanbase. Its kinda like listening to Britney back in they day, which I still do but its a more distant view on her.
ayus efforts to sound mature somehow feel more staged and not really natural, even if it might is (step by step, how beautiful you are).


Thats said, it's unfair to compare stars because the reason someone is or became famous has many many different reasons that come together and create lucky or unlucky scenarios, shifting all the time.

I feel like Ayu had always appeared reachable throughout her uprise. She was a marvel and yet there was something so relatable about her. It was a mix of the relatability-factor and the desire-to-emulate factor. She appeared as if she could synthesize success and happiness out of turmoil. And she could do it well. Seemingly effortless.

Then her celebrity struggles started to manifest in her works. It also appeared significantly more chaotic, messy and less polished. The desire-to-emulate factor disappeared, as did most of her relatability-factor. She lost resonance.

Ayus works ALWAYS reflect her soul. She manifests her desires through them. Early on, what she wanted was what everyone wanted. Later on, her struggles changed, and likewise so did her desires - or at least, the context of them. Her life suddenly appeared shakey, as did her vision for herself. That’s not something anybody wants.

Additionally, and this is a big part, her actions appeared highly unexpected. I think people felt betrayed in a way. The girl that everyone wanted to emulate because she seemed to have figured so much out... wasn’t so? Now that the public felt they had a better handle on things than her. They felt they knew better for a change.

I was going to write a larger piece, but decided to go full tl;dr.

I think that Ayu is an artist that thrives under greater managerial input from her label. Fame gave her freedoms over her career that some popstars can only dream of, but without more critical label structures and forces in place (I.e. a PR team that strongly motioned against the presence of significant others in media promoting her music, a diverse comp./arr. team), her career stalled while her contemporaries flourished (Namie, in particular).

^Well, to be honest, both were just following trends. Namie was following the western pop music trends, while Ayu's mindset was on was being produced in Japan.

And as both are popstars, this isn't really an issue... A lot of the praised stuff from her earlier years were just what was trendy at the time through her lenses, no, not really that different from nowadays.

Namie, on the other hand, was pretty much just replicating the EDM sound that was big on the west without putting much of herself on it after Checkmate, what makes her work at the time extremelly safe.