Hamasaki's Image and Voice

[Tiina]

Ugh.. That performance was just.. Bad. I just had to stop cuz it was so hard to listen to it. Her voice sounds strained and it almost feels like she has to put SO much work into getting it out. I felt bad for her.

I donno how big role the ear malfunction (deafness) has on her voice going worse, but I guess it's not all because of the deafness. Why do I think that? Because you can even hear her voice changing when listening to her albums. Recently I've been listening a lot of her new works and I was listening to my iPod with shuffle when Trauma suddenly started playing and it was like a breeze of fresh air! IMO her voice sound so much better in the albums before m(u), so free and it gives an impression that singing is like the easiest thing in the world (which it of course isn't, I can't keep a tune even if someone pulled a gun on me). IMO the biggest problem in her recent voice isn't the deafness of her left ear but the fact that she has somewhat untrained voice. And by saying that I don't mean her voice is bad, it's just that trained voice helps you when you do lots of tours and get older etc. Well, maybe I'm not the right person to say this, since I know almost nothing about music and singing in the theoretical way.