[letter]

Here's an idea. Look at her albums one by one and select the songs you like, don't care for, and dislike. Look at them from a personal point of view and then either objective or artistic, as it is possible to dislike a song while feeling, regardless, that it is a good product of pop culture. When comparing an older song to a newer one, a ballad vs ballad, electro vs electro etc, try to see what it is that sets them apart, what makes one so much better than the other. It's a feeling of nostalgia that accompanies Ayu's older music for many (imagine if Love song was on I am..., BRILLANTE on Duty, reminds me on Memorial address and so on). Ayu's an interesting case, no matter how you look at it, and whether you consider the artist, lyricist, pop icon, friend, girl/woman (or even wife, as we speculate). However, I don't have the energy to explain my views right now; and they cannot all be proven, as I don't know her--I merely extract what I can from what is given to me. What I know is that, for example, while Love songs is an album of hers that lyrically provides very little stimulation (for me, at least), it is one of my most cherished albums in her discography, because of many memories that are attached to the songs. crossroad's lyrics are uninspiring, as I can't relate to them - in fact, many of the subjects that Ayu discusses bore me - but the melody is pure nostalgia, despite the song being only about a year old. There are songs that have it all (melody, arrangement and subject), songs that are simply beautiful, songs that fit somewhere in between by containing an element that is enticing on its own, and songs that are unappealing in their entirety. Our judgements of that will, obviously, clash.