Quote:
Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer
How do you figure may I ask? Rainbow, Memorial Address, and Miss Understood were all pretty experimental for her. For me this period is my fave for a few key reasons: her voice was the best imo by far, the PVs had the best production quality also by far, had some of her most creative concepts, and expanded her musical styles a lot. Everything just worked. It was a well-oiled, polished, and professional machine. btw, the only reason I don't include '01 or '00 in that is because her live vocals were kind of all over the place. Aside from that though, those years were just as strong as well.
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This was the time she was re-releasing the same songs every winter and summers and when her concerts pretty much reused a similar formula starting in AT 03-04. I also feel a lot of the interesting stuff she did were sometimes just aesthetic and lacked depth because this was her at her full pop superstar diva mode.
I would say her most experimental was from the LOVEppears to I am..., when she was all over the place looking for an artistic identity. This is to me her at her wildest.
RAINBOW was a transition. You got experiements with eletronica, but also an overlook of some of her frequent formulas for the years to come.
Starting from Memorial Address to NEXT LEVEL she defined her aesthetic and formulas. Now every album had a summer up beat song, a winter ballad, a concert ending track, a sassy girl power track, etc. IMO this is Ayu at her most comercial.
During the RnRC era (and i hate the album) her lyrics started getting a sense of maturity they lacked before (sometimes I felt like Ayu was a 25 years old teenager).
From Love songs to Love Again her albums got really cohesive and the concepts got more and more complex, linking music, videos and the concerts. This is to me her at her most artistic.
The public felt alienated during that phase so moved to a try and error of mixing her artistic vision and the market trends (her PVs are either bold as fuck or flavor of the week pop, her sound never been safer, lyrics are on point and mature, her concerts are still pretty conceptual, etc). I don't know what will be result this time, but she seens to be transitioning to become an old popstar, like Yumming, while using her legacy to grab attention like Seiko Matsuda and following the trends to not become obsolete like Namie did. To me this is her at her safest.
But just to make it clear, Ayu was never safe and most likely will never be. Being her sound, her lyrics, her performances or her image, Ayu at her tamest still is pretty out of the norm.
I'm comparing her to herself only, not with her peers.