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So I've been thinking a lot lately about "old" Ayu vs. "new" Ayu, and some of the differences. I think a lot of people have hit the nail on the head. Generally speaking, my personal opinion for her decreasing popularity is a combination of the following:
-- She's older. Honestly, it's a miracle that she has had such a successful career in Japan for so long, and that she isn't even less popular right now. Youth is valued in music stars. It just is.
-- Previously she had a "cool" image, but for a while now she has been pushing this uber-girly image. She's not leading trends the way she once did. Her target audience now is young girls, and she even addresses that musically (i.e. Beautiful Fighters, etc). I think she has fans that have been fans all along, and little girls. She doesn't have a ton of male fans, and she doesn't have the music buying demographic of teenaged kids.
-- Her vocals have seriously deteriorated. People will argue all sorts of timeframes that they enjoyed her the best, but I honestly think that technically her voice was the best around I Am.../Dome Tour era. Look at her live performances for Dearest (from when it was actually released)...she did not have a single bad performance. I was in the CM Song Differences thread the other day listening to commercials, and it hit me...she doesn't sing anymore. Even her ballads...when is the last time she has really belted it out?
-- She's been repeating herself. She's doing fun songs now. The lyrics start to repeat themselves. And they're not that great anymore, they lack the depth and realness of her earlier songs (in most cases). She's just not relateable anymore. At her peak people referred to her as the voice of the lost generation in Japan.
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