Do you think Ayu is too westernized?

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by rakeru

naturally, she has western influence, but i don't think it crosses a line like Koda or many of the Japanese R&B/hip-hop artists that blatantly try to sell themselves to a market of American pop-culture wannabes. that wasn't too harsh, was it?

That's all true x 10000 times.
Take some of the other popular singers for example.
hikki who came from the US to Japan and brought the R&B style to Japan along with her, kumi which her style is very westernized, even without the collaboration with Fergie, her image, Namie's hip-hop style and image are million times more westernized than ayu's styles.
imo it's not a bad thing though it always depends on what we are talking about.
Specifically talking about ayu, she is not awfully westernized and I think she is well balanced and versatile with that.
You won't find english lines or words inside of most of her songs' lyrics.
Asking her being less westernized is like asking her to appear in kimonos, sing enka music and dye her hair black.
The fact that she doesn't name her songs in japanese (even the ones that are in japanese and not in japanese letters) is just ayu's way to put her songs to the fans/crowd, Like most artists/popular artists. At least inside of the songs (which is what more important) she has less english than others. For some reason, "don't judge a book by its cover" fits here.