[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

I don't agree Ayu's newer work lack emotion... But they do work with a different set of emotion nowadays... She can pass really complex emotions with her voice only, like the mocking sarcasm in SLT, the bittersweet optimism in blossom, the overall self-depreciating sarcasm in the next LOVE, the melancholic determination in Do it again, etc. Her music doesn't deal as much with saddness, angst and dispair as before, and as those are more pungent feelings. IMO she isn't lacking feeling, but as her age the feelings she is singing about are more complex.

And the same can be said about Utada... the First Love Utada wouldn't produce those new songs, not even feeling-wise. The song for her mother on the SC2 is really complex, more than teenager Hikki would ever be able to produce.

Now, both can't sing to save their lifes live, Ayu is more of a theatrical performer, always were, and when performing live the emotion translates both to the ears and to the eyes. Hikki is a vocal performer, and she does have more emotion on her voice than Ayu, but you can pretty much ignore her while on stage because she isn't all that interesting to watch and looks extremely unconfortable, but the emotion on her voice compensates this.

Utada has evolved though, whereas Ayu has tried on different things but never really pushed into something new. Utada's writing has also evolved. Gone are the days of more straightforward songs like First Love, Automatic, and even DISTANCE. For Ayu, the writing style is still simpler but now more metaphorical and more about complex and hard to describe experiences.

Perhaps it's been harder to see any evolution in Ayumi's career because she has so many records and it's only recent that we can actually tell one apart from the other. With Utada, there's a clear difference between Distance and FIRST LOVE, ULTRA BLUE and DEEP RIVER, even HEART STATION and the songs she included on SC2. So, we've had much more noticeable shifts with Utada than with Ayu. (Also, I think an unspoken reason Utada went on hiatus was because she wasn't sure what direction to go in. There wasn't as dramatic a shift in her style from ULTRA BLUE to HEART STATION, so I imagine she probably felt stuck and needed to reset.)

I can agree with you that Ayu isn't emotionless or lacking emotion. But Ayu has always been an artist that uses the music as much as her voice to convey emotion. I think it's why songs like Manatsu and Hanataba work well for Hikki fans, but songs like curtain call are often brushed aside by Ayu fans.

My only gripe with Ayu that I don't have with Utada is that Utada sounds like she's trying to do something memorable. With A ONE, Colours, LOVE again, and Party Queen, Ayu sounds like she's just written more songs, nothing particularly special or significant. I don't loathe any of those albums, but I hear an artist that's going through the motions rather than investing her passion into the record. Maybe that's just me. But when I listen to Secret or (miss)understood, I hear an artist who wanted those albums in her discography. When I listen to Colours, I hear an artist that just wanted to get that year's album done and out.