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Ooooo, interesting thread. I'll participate.
When you look at Ayumi Hamasaki, do you see Ayu, the human being, or do you see Ayumi Hamasaki the Entertainer? Is there a grey area?
Primarily an artist/entertainer. Of course, I think that her experiences as a human being have a great deal of influence on her music/performances. So, part of her appeal is that people can relate to her life experiences and emotions as a human being. It's a hard question to answer.
How do you think that affects what you want from what she does? What do you want from her?
I don't exactly know what I want from her music. I know what I don't want. The problem is that I (and I'm sure many others) believe that the first half of her career was unbelievably brilliant - the music, PV's, photoshoots, live vocals, etc. She's released some excellent material recently, and I enjoy almost all of her music regardless of whether or not it matches up to previous works. I can't deny though, that I feel she's been a bit lazy with the actual material. For me, many of her recent albums lack concept, direction, and have no distinct "atmosphere" to them. She's recycling themes and using the same arrangers. Too many of her songs tend to borrow from previous ones in structure, sound, and theme and it's making the songs that came first, in a sense, lose their worth. I guess you can say I'm concerned with the "legacy" of Ayumi Hamasaki. She always seems to work on deadlines. Art needs to time to bake, time to fall into place naturally. She needs influence to inspire creativity. Sometimes, the best thing for creativity is to take some time for yourself and experience life.
Do you think that being so close to Ayu with social media affects your view of
her?
Yes, I don't think celebrities should use Twitter. It humanizes them too much. Takes away the veil of mysteriousness. And honestly, I don't think people wanna see that. I like my celebrities larger-than-life, not down-to-earth. American celebrities are especially bad on Twitter because they say stupid things all the time, and you realize just how unintelligent, ignorant, and basic they are as human beings.
How do you feel about the way other people see Ayu?
I feel that some fans have this strange relationship with her. It's almost like they think she's reading the forums, and they're trying to gain her approval as a supportive fan. A lot of people want Ayu to be a happy person and will stand by her no matter what. Really, bless you guys for that. I honestly could care less about whether or not she's happy. She seems to have an excellent support system from her staff and current fans, already. I have my own people, in real life, that I need to support and be there for. To be fair, she doesn't have to deal with some things that many other celebrities have to deal with (drug/alcohol addictions/being stalked by paparazzi/being accused of crimes they did or did not commit). Fans of these kinds of artists have a lot to protect and I can understand the relationship between these kinds of artists and their fans. Ayu... not so much. She's just a brilliant entertainer living a relatively dull life, tbh.
Are you a little pig-headed about your opinions?
Perhaps. I can see a bit of validity in everyone's opinions, though. I never think of anyone as being completely wrong, ever.
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