[polka-dot-jewel]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

The point would be that her past SONGS were good, but the executions were amateurish. A Song for XX has some great songs that are just very, very frustrating to listen to because the arrangements do little to put the great melodies on display, and her vocals were very, very flat. Songs like "POWDER SNOW" and "For My Dear..." really need to be revisited now that Ayu's vocals are better controlled and pushed out properly, and now that Ayu's mixers & producers are better at thicker, more epic songs. ...well okay maybe that last point's ship has sailed, to be honest. Ayu's musical team from 2001-2003 would do those two songs a world of good, though.

But Ayu's self-cover versions have all been interesting juxtapositions if not improvements. A Song for XX "030213 Session #2" is one of the best tracks she's ever done. TO BE (10th Anniversary Version) breathed new life into the first ayu track I'd ever heard, and it was like hearing it for the first time all over again. If ayu did a full self-cover album there would be, I can guarantee, some real gems of performances in there that nobody would expect.

I'm blown away by her recent vocal performances of "For My Dear..." (PCDL) and "A Song For XX", and I'd love to hear studio versions of those. Really, most of the older songs she performed at PCDL were really good.

Now that I think about it, I kinda wish she had thrown in older songs with new vocals into these recent releases, like she did with her singles in 2008. We still have the rest of the year, and her new-vocal tracks from '08 were well-received, so I'm hoping she'll remember that and throw some out there this year.

Originally Posted by TeamAyu2004

^ are they self covers... wouldnt it just be remixes?
or is it considered the same thing?

I say the term "remix" can be described differently from person to person. When I heard the word "remix" I think of like...trance mixes, dance mixes, something like "title (whatever remix)". With Ayu's previous self-covers, they may have been mixed slightly differently, but they had the overall same melody and composition as before, just with new vocals, so I personally wouldn't consider those remixes. But to each their own, really.