Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxker
This is Hamasaki's eleventh album, and so songwriting routine is to be expected, to a degree, but she would have been better off going all the way with the alt-rock gimmick instead of meekly complying with the already trite conventions of J-pop, even if she had created those herself.
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Most insightful part of the review, in my opinion. That's Ayu's problem these days: she's frozen herself into the very conventions she herself has created, ironically those same conventions that began as her attempts to re-define contemporary J-pop.
I agree, though, that the review should have been put into better context especially with regards to today's J-pop scene. I would say that Ayu in fact greatly influenced the rock-as-pop music of Olivia and Anna Tsuchiya. Do they even know what Olivia's early music was like (i.e. Color of Your Spoon)? It ain't nothin' like what she's doing these days.