Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - View Single Post - [Official Message] Winter single "Zutto... / Last minute / Walk" 2014.12.24 in stores III
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Old 18th December 2014, 08:28 AM
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Kacku Kacku is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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I know Last minute's mixing has already been talked to death, but I want to bring that back one more time to add my own specific complaint. (Disclaimer: I have no mixing-related technical or terminological know-how, this is all just how the song sounds and feels to me.) What most kills the song for me is that the mixing sounds so flat and undynamic, it completely fails at making the songs quieter and louder parts distincly different. It feels like there's a set level of sound throughout the whole song, it always sounds stuffed full even when it's just Ayu's voice and a piano. I may not agree with all the Memorial address comparisions (this just doesn’t remind me of MA, though there are many similarities), but that song is a great frame of reference here: when Memorial is only carried by Ayu's voice and piano, it sounds quieter, it sounds like there's some "air" in the song with the slight echoing etc., and when the guitars kick in, the song gets LOUDER and sounds fuller. They seem to be going for the same thing with this song, but I feel like the mixing completely fails at contrasting the different stages of the song, which just makes it SUPER FRUSTRATING to listen to.

With all that out of the way, I generally like this single. All three songs are at least good, and definitely better than the lousy ballads on Colours.

Zutto... gets the same non-reaction out of me as Ayu's other formulaic winter songs. It's pleasant to listen to, and will definitely not skip it if it ever comes up in rotation, but it doesn't really do anything for me and I could honestly do without it.

Last minute... I do like the song (or at least parts of it) a lot! I love her vocals in this song, she emotes so strongly. The lyrics are really good, it's so exciting to see some angry Ayu. And I like the arrangement a lot: love the raw feeling brought by the rough guitars and acoustic instruments, like artcika and others described. It's just hard to listen to the song when I keep being bothered by the mixing. Perhaps I need to give the song some rest and come back to it later with a clearer mind.

Walk gets better with every listen, and I can't stop listening. This is my favourite song off the single: like LUOYUXIANG said, the integration of all the different facets of the song (lyrics, melody, arrangement, progression, vocals) is on a whole different level here, which makes this song so good to just dive into. In addition to that, the lyrics are amazingly relatable and feel like something out of my own mind, and Ayu's singing here is just GORGEOUS: I get some serious chills from her voice alone at the end of the song, the kind I have not felt after hearing SAKURA's chorus for the first time. This song is a masterpiece.
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