Lets vent about ayu?/why did your fandom decrease

[Coelacanth]

People on forums these days rarely get analytical about why they enjoy or detest something, it's simply a bunch of feels scattered across the page. The influence of social media has infiltrated fan forums too, where people think that their opinions are not only valid, but meaningful simply because it's THEIR opinion and they have the right to express it. Everyone's a critic now. But that's a discussion getting way off topic, lol.

I like that Ayu seems to be at peace at this point in her life and her career. I see her as a kindred spirit, since I believe I'm most at peace with myself than I've ever been. I've become more honest with myself. I accept my strengths and weaknesses as they are. No need for pretenses.

Ayu probably never intended to set the bar so high for herself. She never really wanted to be a musician or a performer, and I think her discomfort with her new "duty" was reflected brilliantly in the album "Duty."

I used to be a 'bitter' fan like many in the fandom now, especially during the "GUILTY" era. But I seem to be calming down with age. I've been following her closely for 11 years now and honestly I'm just grateful she's still making music (My other fave since childhood, Michael Jackson, is DEAD. so...) I accept that my interest in her will wax and wane, as it typically does. She might make a 'dud' song now and then (even though I don't think she's ever released anything so poor quality that it offended me—perhaps Dream ON), but even if I don't like a song when it first comes out, I tend to appreciate it down the road. That's usually how it is. I like to approach Ayu's work from many angles and discover how one song might fit into the 'big picture' of Ayumi Hamasaki. For instance, I used to not care for the song NEXT LEVEL at all because I felt the song lacked a climax and the melody didn't resolve, but when I revisited AT09 and read the lyrics, the imagery and emotions suddenly spoke to me, and I could understand exactly what Ayu was trying to communicate at the time, even though I couldn't before.

[emi♡]

^^Her interviews always interest me though...actually, I think sometimes they're the things I look forward to the most here at ahs besides new material lol

She always reaches a level of depth with such simple questions that I'm not used to from interviews of famous people. I don't know if it's just because I'm used to the celebrities here, or if it's just her.

[Andrenekoi]

^^I never looked the opinion thing by that angle, but it's probably the most inteligent thing I read on AHS in a while! But I noticed people think their opinion deserves "respect", and by "respect" they usually mean "no disagreement aloud".

^I do think most of the time she give pretty vague answers about her hair and stuff like that... But when she gives a deep answer, usually it really gets deep. I don't think we ever saw the full potential of her inteligence.

[Tom Punks]

I don't really agree with the "calculated image" argument because, yes, while that may be true, how does that explain avex letting her completely self-destruct her career with the Mannie and Maro fiascos? Unless you're a conspiracy theorist who thinks those relationships were both publicity stunts lol, it doesn't match up at all.

I can buy into that argument for earlier, classic Ayu, for example. But these days she's incredibly transparent, especially with Twitter at her disposal. And she's never been an actress, let's be real. So while a celebrity's persona may be calculated in a sense, in most cases you can easily see the person's real personality underneath, e.g. cool, cold Namie onstage vs. the shy introvert she really is. Unless you're just a really terrible judge of character.

[marty]

I think it's perfectly normal she's not trying to be perfect at this stage... Mostly everyone that's been around as much as she has don't have that thirst for perfection, especially if they achieved so much in the past already. And, yes, that happens in every single kind of job: when you start you have another mindset, after you've been around a very long time you simply aren't SO young and impulsive. It's not that you're less passionate, but you already made experiences, it's obvious you're not so eager anymore.
ANYWAY, it's not a good excuse to blatantly being lazy. To make an example, in my point of view, a PV like You & Me is nothing special, but overall acceptable, while reusing rejected demos for the sake of doing a new album is unbelievably wrong. One is being indulgent with herself, the other is being absurd. This is how I see it.

I agree with her voice problems around Love Songs and Party Queen. She was struggling so much and so many songs would've been better with a tone that didn't sound so strained.
But I noticed huge improvements with LOVE again, and now it seems her voice is stable again, and I think she's made a wonderful job with it lately (her last single, Pray and My Way).

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by marty

ANYWAY, it's not a good excuse to blatantly being lazy. To make an example, in my point of view, a PV like You & Me is nothing special, but overall acceptable, while reusing rejected demos for the sake of doing a new album is unbelievably wrong. One is being indulgent with herself, the other is being absurd. This is how I see it.

Exactly.

The fact that LOVE again was half rejected demos just lends to exactly why I feel like she doesn't really care much anymore. I really feel like it's become nothing more than a 9-to-5 for her, in the same vein as it is for Namie (unpopular opinion? I don't know) and Britney.

Unfortunately, the difference between Namie, Britney, and Ayu is that the latter doesn't have the industry's top producers to support her and that being a musical puppet was never her shtick in the first place. What she had going for her before was being relate-able and introspective and artistic, not just being handed songs she had no artistic input into by an admittedly top-notch batch of producers like the other two. And when those characteristics that made her so wonderful in the first place are taken out of the equation, she's left feeling really dissimilar to the musician she used to be. At least, for me personally that's how it feels.

I find everything about LOVE again just so, so contemptible. I realize that the mini-albums were masterminded by avex, but that doesn't excuse her in the slightest. Ayu could have given them unique titles so at least there was the illusion fans hadn't been suckered into essentially buying LOVE again twice. Ayu could have at least gone through that extra bit of effort to get fresh new songs for the album instead of reusing multiple rejected demos. But instead, she chose to go the easiest, laziest route, and for that reason I find her just as guilty as avex. And that's why I feel like it's just a job for her now. It's not a passion, just work.

So what if she toured longer a couple years back? That's her job. That's what she's paid to do.

[Coelacanth]

Originally Posted by marty

To make an example, in my point of view, a PV like You & Me is nothing special, but overall acceptable, while reusing rejected demos for the sake of doing a new album is unbelievably wrong. One is being indulgent with herself, the other is being absurd. This is how I see it.

This is incredibly presumptuous and I can tell that a lot of you really have no clue as to how an album is created/how the music industry works.

Established pop artists always have a HUGE bank of demos, regardless of whether or not they're planning to create an album from scratch. There is really no such thing as a "rejected demo" unless the song is simply NEVER used. An artist will have a myriad of reasons why they will pass on a song the first time around and decide to use it later on.

Why is it smart for Ayu to have a demo bank?

Well, Ayu still has something called a recording contract. Nobody knows the specifics of this contract and its stipulations. There is a profit goal presumably set by Avex each year/quarter. Ayu, who is NOT someone I would consider to be a gifted musician in the traditional sense, is likely expected to release an album of new material every year. This fantasy that fans have of "Oh, well she needs to take a break to find ~inspiration~" is delusional. She's not an indie artist or a special snowflake like Utada who needs to take five year breaks in between albums.

Ayu would be lying to your face if she said she didn't jump at any opportunity she could to make money for herself/Avex. Product endorsements, touring, best albums, remix albums, gimmick releases. The integrity was never there. She is a pop artist in the vein of Britney Spears (money-making machine [i.e alterna], bottom-line oriented) who just happens to make better/more honest music.

As soon as more of you come to terms with this, the happier you'll be; trust me.

[Andrenekoi]

Re-using demos is a common practice in music production. They compose a lot of tracks, not every single one of them get's good enough to release at first and the unreleased work is reviewed from times to times to see if they know how to finish them now... Madonna does that, Beyoncé does that, Gaga does that, Britney does that, Justin Timberlake does that, rock bands does that, writers do that with texts, visual artists do that with paintings and drawings, producers do that with the tracks they sell to artists, etc.

You can't always put a deadline into creative work (even if you can on creative products) and it's a pretty stupid thing to just trash your work everytime it got full potential if there's potential of it to be good if the right amount of time is used producing it... Some stuff takes some day to be good enough, some stuff takes years, and taking years doesn't really mean it's going to be a masterpiece.

You guys have the right to dislike Love again all you want... I myself wouldn't put it among my favorite releases, but keep in mind opinions aren't facts. On the same way you found it lazy and uninspired, there were people complaining she wasn't performing more tracks from it and cutting Sakura off generated a lot of complaints.

About the calculated image, she still has one, but she changed persona in 2011 or so... It doesn't matter how "open" she seens, she still is showing what she wants to. Her new persona is more human and has more flexibility to it, but she still avoid controversial (I mean real controversial, not dating drama) topics for example. Every top tier artist has their staff inform interviewers what they can and can't ask about, and the amount of information we have about Ayu the person still is on the gossip magazine level of depth.

[Tom Punks]

@Coelacanth: IMO, there's a big difference between passing on, later using demos, and what she did with LOVE again.

Like, I can totally get behind cutting It was from (miss)understood and later using it for Secret. I know I've said before in another thread that songs aren't always cut because they aren't good enough, but sometimes because they just don't fit the album at hand.

But what she did with LOVE again was on a different level. I don't think these were just demos that she passed on; I presume they were leftovers from previous projects, and we're not talking in terms of 1-2 but HALF the ALBUM was leftovers that were cut from other projects. Like, SAKURA was easy to pull out because it had already been arranged, probably for Love songs. That meant so much less work for her, and yes LOVE again is basically the definition of a contractually obligated album.

I feel like there's a huge difference between using an old demo and using an actual leftover cut because it just wasn't good enough. And I FIRMLY believe half the tracks from LOVE again fall into the latter category. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise because they are so obviously leftovers, like, to the degree that it was obvious to the ear without even having read the interviews where she specifically names which songs were leftovers.

You could say she's blatantly used leftovers to fill entire halves of albums before, but there's nothing to indicate it whatsoever. Whereas with LOVE again, there's proof from her mouth.

[marty]

Guys, first of all, that was not presumptuous, as I clearly written it was just MY opinion. Twice.
Secondly, I know singers resuse demos they previously rejected. That's not what I said, what I meant is resusing things just for the sake of making an album. In my point of view, LOVEagain was a brilliant opportunity to do a splendid mini-album. But they just had to do a whole album, with that horrible five releases project, and not only they reuse the previous "minialbums", but they pull off four or five songs they had nearby, without working too much on them ('cause I hate them mostly because they sound the unrefined version of what they could have been).
Now, if she has strict contract rules and you really believe she has no control on her career at all, fine, she's not to blame. Avex is.
If you think this is just what she wants to do, well, I think there are enough elements here to say she could have done it ten times better, don't you? LOVEagain is simply a rushed album.

[Coelacanth]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

@Coelacanth: IMO, there's a big difference between passing on, later using demos, and what she did with LOVE again.

Like, I can totally get behind cutting It was from (miss)understood and later using it for Secret. I know I've said before in another thread that songs aren't always cut because they aren't good enough, but sometimes because they just don't fit the album at hand.

But what she did with LOVE again was on a different level. I don't think these were just demos that she passed on; I presume they were leftovers from previous projects, and we're not talking in terms of 1-2 but HALF the ALBUM was leftovers that were cut from other projects. Like, SAKURA was easy to pull out because it had already been arranged, probably for Love songs. That meant so much less work for her, and yes LOVE again is basically the definition of a contractually obligated album.

I feel like there's a huge difference between using an old demo and using an actual leftover cut because it just wasn't good enough. And I FIRMLY believe half the tracks from LOVE again fall into the latter category. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise because they are so obviously leftovers, like, to the degree that it was obvious to the ear without even having read the interviews where she specifically names which songs were leftovers.

You could say she's blatantly used leftovers to fill entire halves of albums before, but there's nothing to indicate it whatsoever. Whereas with LOVE again, there's proof from her mouth.

Whether or not they were already completely finished (as you speculate quite presumptuously) or a passed on demo, what difference does it make?

If SAKURA, Bye-bye darling, Gloria—were all ~divinely inspired~ pieces, would that change the way you feel about them? I don't get the issue you have with this.

Ayu is an artist, public figure, and employee of Avex. The lack of empathy for her situation and the kinds of responsibilities she has to juggle is astounding. Not to mention, she's a human being too... and probably wants a little "me" time.

Do y'all have any idea the kind of pressure involved in being an established pop star past their prime with 200+ recorded songs, with appeal primarily to a niche segment? The amount of forethought involved in creating an album that doesn't alienate half of your fanbase? Knowing that you can't please everyone but STILL shoulder the burden of demanded perfection?

[primavera♥]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

Exactly.

The fact that LOVE again was half rejected demos just lends to exactly why I feel like she doesn't really care much anymore. I really feel like it's become nothing more than a 9-to-5 for her, in the same vein as it is for Namie (unpopular opinion? I don't know) and Britney.

Unfortunately, the difference between Namie, Britney, and Ayu is that the latter doesn't have the industry's top producers to support her and that being a musical puppet was never her shtick in the first place. What she had going for her before was being relate-able and introspective and artistic, not just being handed songs she had no artistic input into by an admittedly top-notch batch of producers like the other two. And when those characteristics that made her so wonderful in the first place are taken out of the equation, she's left feeling really dissimilar to the musician she used to be. At least, for me personally that's how it feels.

I find everything about LOVE again just so, so contemptible. I realize that the mini-albums were masterminded by avex, but that doesn't excuse her in the slightest. Ayu could have given them unique titles so at least there was the illusion fans hadn't been suckered into essentially buying LOVE again twice. Ayu could have at least gone through that extra bit of effort to get fresh new songs for the album instead of reusing multiple rejected demos. But instead, she chose to go the easiest, laziest route, and for that reason I find her just as guilty as avex. And that's why I feel like it's just a job for her now. It's not a passion, just work.

So what if she toured longer a couple years back? That's her job. That's what she's paid to do.

It was brought up earlier that people think they know the Ayu of the past so well that they can compare her to ayu now and say she doesn't care. But as mentioned earlier, her image was well calculated and you also never know how much is her and how much is everyone else or what she feels forced or compelled to do because of expectations. It is so much harder to know the 'true' ayu of the past even though of course they make it seem easy.

And then I still find ayu relatable and introspective. I felt that way about party queen. I remember reading the lyrics of Eyes, Smoke, Magic and feeling that on a profound level. The concept is well done imo. But it's different. I don't expect everyone to relate or appreciate those things but I do and some fans do and so it makes that being a reason for her not caring so subjective.

I generally agree with Coelacanth about not looking at the big picture of her career and being a human and etc. And making assumptions about her not caring and stuff...of course you can dislike things. I dislike things. But sometimes people just go a bit too far and it makes them more upset. Makes me sad to see that.

Honestly, I can look at my own life as a musician and see things in a very different perspective. Especially when it comes to caring and not caring

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by Coelacanth

Whether or not they were already completely finished (as you speculate quite presumptuously) or a passed on demo, what difference does it make?

If SAKURA, Bye-bye darling, Gloria—were all ~divinely inspired~ pieces, would that change the way you feel about them? I don't get the issue you have with this.

[snip]

Getting worked up over Ayu not releasing something up to YOUR standards or expectations; that's fine. But making assumptions about her passion and work ethic, while y'all sit YOUR lazy asses on a forum belly-aching (and I bet many of you don't even BUY anything she puts out) is stooping really low and I will have none of it tbh.

Actually, yes, it would change the way I feel about them. It would make sense to go back and use demos that were actually good. The problem is, like marty said, she used sub-par leftovers for the sake of making an album. Which isn't acceptable to me.

Also, that last paragraph, really uncalled for & reported. I bought every single album until LOVE and again, so who's being presumptuous here? It's one thing to discuss Ayu's work ethic, but to make personal insults at forum members just because you don't agree with them is childish and incredibly rude.

ETA: lol forgot to mention, idk why you're putting words in my mouth but I never said the songs were completely finished.

@primavera: I agree with you about Party Queen, actually. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about everything else.

[marty]

Really, Ayu is human, and just because of that, she can makes mistakes.
She's totally allowed to. And it's fine to point that out if you feel like it, always being respectful, even if a little bit passionate. We can't always go with bland, neutral opinions.
Let's make another example: Koda Kumi new album Bon Voyage is what I call another ABSOLUTELY rushed album. I think it's clearly meant for summer, it was recorded in record time, it has just a couple of PVs shot in few days.
Did I like it? Yes, a lot. Did that stop me from pointing out it was rushed and it probably would've been ten times better if they worked a little more on it? Nope. But Avex had to release it because of the thing that brings true money: the tours.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

@Coelacanth: IMO, there's a big difference between passing on, later using demos, and what she did with LOVE again.

Like, I can totally get behind cutting It was from (miss)understood and later using it for Secret. I know I've said before in another thread that songs aren't always cut because they aren't good enough, but sometimes because they just don't fit the album at hand.

But what she did with LOVE again was on a different level. I don't think these were just demos that she passed on; I presume they were leftovers from previous projects, and we're not talking in terms of 1-2 but HALF the ALBUM was leftovers that were cut from other projects. Like, SAKURA was easy to pull out because it had already been arranged, probably for Love songs. That meant so much less work for her, and yes LOVE again is basically the definition of a contractually obligated album.

I feel like there's a huge difference between using an old demo and using an actual leftover cut because it just wasn't good enough. And I FIRMLY believe half the tracks from LOVE again fall into the latter category. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise because they are so obviously leftovers, like, to the degree that it was obvious to the ear without even having read the interviews where she specifically names which songs were leftovers.

You could say she's blatantly used leftovers to fill entire halves of albums before, but there's nothing to indicate it whatsoever. Whereas with LOVE again, there's proof from her mouth.

SAKURA? The song she wrote for her long time driver and friend who died during the tour making her axe the song because she started cryind during the performance? Yeap... She doesn't care.

[ayumisrael]

I will take songs like SAKURA, petal and Bye-bye darling or any song that was sitting since the dawn of history (I don't recall which were the demos) over original songs that weren't made long ago but are less better. (Since these 3 were awesome in my book)

I can understand where Tom Punks and marty are coming from, it's much more fun knowing that ayu was working and making these new songs when she was working on that album rather than using songs from older times, and I'm glad too that for example, she is working on a new album, with new producers, probably making completely new songs for her and probably not using demos, BUT, as I stated, if the demos she is using, and she is not doing that as often as most/all of her songs (just because I like versatility), I think it's ok to do it if she needed and if she uses good demos and makes them to good songs which fit their respective album. I also believe ayu doesn't do it a lot, but if a lot of great songs she had were lying around demos then I don't care, as long as they are good.

Also as was stated, it's really not unheard of to do so, a lot of artists can use demos from albums years ago, that would have a similar theme to a new one and just use these and maybe make them new in ways arragement-wise especially.

I wouldn't say LOVEagain is bad because of demo use though. It's not my most favorite album of ayu, but it has many great songs, and a lot of them are the demos, because I think they sound really great, even if their were just drawn for an archieve. Now, if these songs would sound bad to me, then I wouldn't like them. Bottom line - I don't think that a song/album should be hated because how it was made, it should be hated if everything about the all of the music, theme and art is just bad.

[Yumsushi]

I actually didn't mind Love again musically, but I found Party Queen and Five musically intolerable, personally. To each their own I guess.

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

Or maybe you should put your brain to work a little bit

Ayumi doesn't need to work if she doesn't want to, she is rich enough to live twice without needing to make any more money. And even if she didn't tour, her back catalogue is big and notorious enough for her to make money without actually having to do anything... If she wanted she could just do whatever she wanted while the money entered on her bank account, pretty much like Hikki does nowadays.

Instead of doing that, she is touring yearly, and not only that, but having her tours with the most dates (from 2009~2012) and the most physical demanding performances, considering she's actually performs choreography nowadays instead of the begining of her career where she pretty much was on the stage singing and walking around from times to times. She is not making things easier, but harder to her as a performer. How come someone who doesn't need to work anymore to make money is making things harder to her as a performer doesn't care? Sorry, but unless you are biased on the idea that she doesn't care because you don't like what she is doing lately (and that's ok, people can like or dislike whatever they want), that doesn't make sense.

Even if she was just touring because she has a contract forcing her (what isn't THAT unlikely on the jpop industry), why would she add MORE choreography, add MORE theater acting aspects, make her performances MORE physical demanding than they ever were before? Why would she add MORE dates if a 15 dates arena tour (like she did "when she cared") would still be bigger and more profitable than the tours done by most of the other stars?

So, can you explain me that?

Yes, I can say that she wants to make more money that what she has *shurgs* Do you personally know how much money she has in the banks or how much her extravagant life style costs her to maintain? And honestly, just because she has a higher budget production doesn't mean anything other than maybe her wanting to maintain whatever shred of the Ayumi Hamasaki factor left. Also wouldn't a good production with more choreography etc ensure that people will continue to come out to see her year after year despite all the negativity surrounding her and her image right now? if touring is popular now and the only way for her to make money now she better damn well make sure it's a good show.

So once again, you still have no real solid evidence to prove anything in the contrary and only speculation just like everyone else except no one else has been pretentious with their opinion like you. I really can't put it any more simply.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Yumsushi

I actually didn't mind Love again musically, but I found Party Queen and Five musically intolerable, personally. To each their own I guess.



Yes, I can say that she wants to make more money that what she has *shurgs* Do you personally know how much money she has in the banks or how much her extravagant life style costs her to maintain? And honestly, just because she has a higher budget production doesn't mean anything other than maybe her wanting to maintain whatever shred of the Ayumi Hamasaki factor left. Also wouldn't a good production with more choreography etc ensure that people will continue to come out to see her year after year despite all the negativity surrounding her and her image right now? if touring is popular now and the only way for her to make money now she better damn well make sure it's a good show.

So once again, you still have no real solid evidence to prove anything in the contrary and only speculation just like everyone else except no one else has been pretentious with their opinion like you. I really can't put it any more simply.

If you can't see how Ayu herself having more choreography is far from meaning "bigger production" but for sure means "spending more time rehearshing and more effort", them, you are hopeless on the subject.

[channy]

I can't fathom the statements of some people regarding "LOVE again". There is so much mourning going on due to Ayu's past self and the fact she's never going to be as shiny and glorious again as 12 years ago.

"LOVE again" is a 1000% ayu-typical album with plenty of solid, elaborate, innovative yet classical songs that all bear that eminent hamasaki-signature. Once more Ayu sticked to her own sound, not relying on current trends with the exception of slightly noticeable dubstep-esque influences on "task'n'bass". Honest, long-term proven quality characteristics throughout the entire tracklist if you ask me.

I truly appreciate the fact everyone is having a distinct, own opinion and it is more than alright if people don't like this album. I just frankly admit that I doubt whether Ayu can come up with something that won't lead people to criticize her eventually, seeing that at this point even very safe and true-to-her-sound-signature output can't satisfy some of you...

[maneayu]

I've read most of the comments here, and I can relate with only one opinion.
My fandom for her decreased because of her voice. Besides her *produced or not* life history, her voice was one of the top 3 things I was looking forward to all the time, specially at the time of buying her new CDs. Starting from Guilty, my interest of buying new albums from her decreased. Yesterday I rewatched her performances at Kouhaku, and I noticed that since 2007 her voice is not the same. She does a hell of an effort to stay tuned while singing flat. I understood at some point in time that all was related to the meniere disease (ear condition), therefore I bought Love Songs merely because she sounded tuned yet flat. Later on, I completely lost the interest of buying new stuff from her (well, the other day I bought rock n' roll Circus for 280 yen at Book off though)
Regarding her nasal and high pitched voice, she was singing already like this from before. Now, her main problem is that she cannot hear herself very well and she keeps on shouting instead of singing, exaggerating all her voice attributes.