[hanabiwings]

I think she had a very delicate voice during the period following her debut. Until her first major concert tour, she had a very pure, unaffected way of singing. The tone is clear and light. You can see this on any of the earliest television appearances up to about December of 1999. After her first tour, her voice seemed to suffer some trauma from the physical demands and probably the way she was forcing high notes. During her concerts based on Duty (her first Countdown Live, for example), she appeared to recover a great deal of her range and could really hit the notes that she seemed to have trouble with during her first concert tour.

During the years where she was performing live on television a great deal (ayuREADY? anyone?), I thought she did an amazing job although she had some problems staying on pitch. Obviously, we later learned that she was carrying something of a sad secret: she had lost hearing in her left ear.

These days, I think that the combination of difficulty discerning pitch and the strain on her voice have limited her range a great deal. Her older songs are sung in a lower key now. I say these things not out of criticism but more because I have been listening to her since around her debut and feel that her record company and management treated her cruelly and demanded a workload from her that was inhuman and really did irreversible damage to a delicate if unpolished voice.

That said, I just listened to LOVE SONG from the end of last year and she still has the vocal quality I like a great deal. I have been listening ten years, and although I have not kept up with her latest works, Ayu--and her singing voice--has contributed something very special and definite to my life. I am grateful to her. She still tugs at my heartstrings when she stands on the stage and weaves a story with her voice. That's what counts.