Quote:
Originally Posted by zoomzoom
Not losing her touch, but getting more and more clouded in judgement. She seems to be relying too much on her staff, the people around her, who are now very much her friends. Friends and work rarely work out great.
There's the Kazuyoshi example. Clearly they are great friends, have fun together and all. But seriously, he, as a professional photographer, must have seen that the results they came up with together just weren't that great. It's possible he just wanted to get paid and kept his mouth shut, but also possible that he didn't want to hurt her for her modeling ability with him or whatever.
On the other side of the coin, ayu might honestly have thought that the pictures, like the S/S covers, were great. I do believe that to be the case, unless she's become a compromising person. But there's also the theory that she's friends with this person and doesn't wanna scrap a whole photoshoot they worked on, basically telling him he wasn't able to come up with the result she wanted.
In my opinion, she needs new people around her. People who can help her constantly improve, not stroke her ego. Tell her what's good and what needs improvement. An artist is only as creatively amazing and innovative as his/her team.
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Precisely. I wonder if she'll start to rely more on herself again, and not on her staff. I mean the whole reason she took everything on herself in the beginning is because she had a very particular vision and idea of how to do things. Basically, she couldn't trust or know that the people around her were going to match up to what she wanted. Now, I feel like Ayu has reached a point where she trusts her staff enough or they're familiar with her after all these years so they know what to expect or aim for with their product. That seems to be making Ayu happy, hence why CREA hasn't made a peep since, what, 2003? The danger with that is the end result: similar themes, comfort zones, stagnation, etc.
The dramatic way to solve this is for Ayu to ditch her staff and do it all on her own again. Have every rein in hand and command each thing. The less dramatic way is for her to get more involved, little by little, with the creation process. She could sit down with her composers/arrangers and either be a "back seat" composer, giving suggestions, etc. I have no doubt Ayu picks the songs she likes NOW, but I don't know how involved she is with the actual creation process. I think that would be a key thing.
And the photoshoots--dear
lord. How is possible that Ayu emotes more feeling and strength from the "I am..." cover and stills than she has in the past like, 6 covers she's done her her singles? Seriously, go back and look at Ayu's photoshoots for her singles/CDs from early/mid 2000s. Strong presence and emotion in several of them. Hell, even MY STORY had great covers. After that... I'm not sure when this Kazu dude appeared on the scene but he is sooo not helping Ayu at all. And if Ayu's being complacent and easy on the guy just because they're friends, I'm sorry but that's sad. :< I don't care if he's your friend, if he's contributing to crappy product (or allowing YOU to make crappy product) then you both have to be more assertive and honest with each other. Work first, friendship second.
As for Ayu saying You were.../BALLAD was a new thing from her, I feel like that was a bit of a lie. Not that I'm accusing her of BEING a liar, but it's not exactly true, is it? You were... is a rehashed winter ballad seen in Together when..., HEAVEN, momentum, JEWEL, Close to you, no more words, POWDER SNOW... It's Ayu's "theme," which is fine, but new? Come on now. The ONLY thing new about that single was BALLAD (she's only done, to my memory, two "traditional" style songs [theme of a-nation 03 and GREEN]) and the music box mix of You were...
Maybe to AYU it was totally new, on a level we won't understand unless she explains it to us, but yeah.. not really seeing the innovation here anymore.