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Wow, this thread has really taken a detour. There's SO much in here that I want to react to, but I'm not even sure where to start.
I guess I want to start with Namie -- not as a comparison to Ayu, but to just put my two cents in. We (probably) all know the history with the super monkeys, her being the breakout star, yadda yadda yadda. She was huge in the mid-90s for being an IDOL. That said, she did have a huge cultural impact, whether purposely or not because being Okinawan, her darker skin helped to influence the Ganguro/Ko-Gal/Yamamba trends in some facets. It's not that she just naturally fell out of favor over time, but rather her life became surrounded by controversy and drama - her mother's murder, her getting knocked up, and then a shotgun wedding (and shortly thereafter divorce) to Sam from TRF. The drama is what killed her career, and nothing else. She took some time away from the limelight (which had no interest in her), and slowly built things back up with Suite Chic, Style, etc. It really wasn't until 60s/70s/80s that we saw a real revitalized interest in her -- years after all the drama. The smartest thing that Namie has ever done is to keep her private life LOCKED DOWN. When have you ever seen her with her son? With a romantic interest? The collective memory of her earlier years has forgotten the drama -- out of sight, out of mind. Then, mixed with this, she has been extremely safe in everything she does. She puts out formulaic, generic, b-side American releases. At this point she barely even sings in Japanese, not that you would know by listening to her awful Engrish. But she's fun, she's carefree, she appeals to the party spirit. That's all anybody wants from her, and that's all she's giving. She is the perfectly marketable product that falls in the middle of every road.
Ayu, on the other hand, has some similarities, but far more differences. When she debuted Ayu was the voice of a generation in so many ways, especially once she gained her stride. She really represented what the "lost generation" in Japan was feeling. She has had several turning points in her career. One of the first was the release of Voyage as a single. This was one of the first times we really saw a happy love song from Ayu -- it was SHOCKING at the time. This was the first departure in her lyrical norms, and it was embraced, but more mildly than other singles in the past (and largely benefited from the huge success of }{ being the only million-selling single that year). The next departure was the Rainbow album itself. This saw her use English in her songs for the first time. This immediately alienated a large portion of her fanbase. At a time when every Japanese song contained some nonsensical Enrish lyrics, Ayu was alone in being a Japanese-language-only artist. I love Real Me, but the English lyrics, the Britney-inspired video, etc. all alienated people, and we saw her pull back a bit for Memorial Address (other than Forgiveness). Post-Memorial Address we really see her image and persona change. This is when she started to move in a more mature direction in her styling. No longer was she "cool & trendy" in her styling, but she became much more "rich & refined." This again created a shift in how people could relate to her. My Story was transitional, but otherwise her music became much more pop-oriented and started to get a less heavy atmosphere. Ayu was growing up, as was her fanbase. Ultimately, I think some of her fanbase have grown up with her (perhaps departing at times, but coming back), while much of her fanbase have grown up in a divergent direction from her. I would love to hear something fresh from her -- listening to I Am... I think it could be released today. Her music was always going in a direction that deviated from the norm and was ahead of the curve -- that isn't true any longer. That said, I can still really love a lot of her music, despite some misses (much of Rock'n'roll Circus and Party Queen and Five are completely forgettable). Even if she put out something like she did years ago, I don't think that I, almost 16 years later into my fandom, would relate to it like I did back then because I'm not longer an angsty teenager.
I'm losing my point in all this, I think. But I think that she could make music with more mass-appeal, and that would help some. She could improve her image to be more relatable, and I think that would help more. However, I think that she was a moment in time that can never be replicated, and no matter what she does she will never have the same impact that she did. And that's fine! I want to see her keep moving forward, to have a resurgence, but I don't think there's consensus as to what would make that happen.
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