[mi|kshake]

I got my first Ayumi CD in March 2004. I heard a bit about her before - I saw a few pics of her which immediately caught my eye because of her different look - but was a bit wary after hearing she had a bit of a squeaky voice (jpop's made me much more open to other types of music now!)

Anyway I got BoA's Valenti and really loved the ballads especially Winding Road (dunno why I loved it so much, it's still great but now I think Sekai no Katasumide is way better) I wasn't really a ballad person before, I usually thought they were just "filler" tracks. BoA's song made me want to find more great ballads. I looked up Ayumi on yesasia and saw the A Ballads cover and thought it was really cool. I read reviews and decided to buy it, even though I wasn't previously a huge fan of ballads and if I was trying to get into a new artist would have never considered buying a whole album full of them.

But as soon as I heard Rainbow, I realised even if the rest of the album was utter crap it didn't matter (of course it wasn't!) I'd never heard a song like Rainbow before, the opening notes were so beautiful and Ayumi's vocals were perfect. And there were the added techno/dancey & gospel elements in the song which I wasn't expecting and had never heard them mixed together in the one song before.

I think the first thing that made me buy an Ayumi CD was definately the A Ballads cover, I was just like "wow I have to buy this CD - it's such a creative/different cover". Especially for a CD which is was a best of.

mi|kshake~