"Ayumi Hamasaki" is the best "Pop Star"... (Speech Topic)

[Zeke.]

So I have to do a speech on Monday and I'd like to get it all laid out tomorrow so I have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to practice and memorize it.

Here's the credentials for the speech:

Each student will deliver a value speech to formulate a belief that "X" is the best "Y"; where "X" is a member of "Y" category. For example, you could argue that Michael Jordan (X) is the best NBA player ever (Y), Golden retrievers (X) are the best breed of dog (Y), or the Grateful Dead (X) is the greatest rock band (Y).

• A minimun of 4 sources must be cited in the speech; sources must be from a newspaper, magazine, academic journal, book, or government document.
• Must be at least five minutes but no longer than seven minutes in length.
• You may use visual aides for this speech.

So, I'm thinking of arguing that Ayu is the best "Pop Star" or something to the like because she writes all of her own lyrics, connects with her fans, has creative control over her image, composes some of her material, works round-the-clock, etc.

Any other points I should make or tips on how to organize the speech. Remember this is more of a Persuasive Speech and not a biographical one. Although biographical history is important, the main focus must be the persuasion and arguments.

I can sort through documentaries and magazine translations, but does anyone have specific recommendations/excerpts I should look into or use?
Or maybe a different argument that "Ayumi Hamasaki" is the best "_____"...?

I'd greatly appreciate generous replies!

Thank you!

[Andrenekoi]

hmmm what about "Ayumi Hamasaki is the best eastern pop icon"?
then, you can get her sales, her fashion trends, etc

[waterballoon]

Do Cristiano Ronaldo is the best football/soccer player on Earth!

Jokes aside, Ayu has a lot of "best" qualities IMO... pop star should be all right actually. Let me try to give my own insight into this~

Well, for a speech, there are 5 things to consider when you speak to an audience.

1) Who?
2) What?
3) Where?
4) When?
5) Why?
6) How?

Also, consider your target audience and determine which factor of a 'pop star' is the most important to them. So you need to know what constitute a 'pop star'. For me, it's the following factors:

1) Sales
2) Popularity
3) Recognition
4) Quality of music
5) Musicality (as an artiste)

So, since you need to give AT LEAST 4 sources to persuade others that Ayu is the Pop Star... then 4 sources I can think of are:

1) Oricon charts; to reflect her stellar sales and records for #1 singles and albums, and also there was an article mentioning how she contributed to a certain percentage of avex's annual sales one year... I really can't remember about this one. Sorry.

2) Digging up articles/magazine scans (so you can quote them) that mention her influence of Japanese teenage girls... I think it's best if you find the Duty-era magazines, those in 2000.

3) I think it's the Japan Golden Disk Awards or something... she has won every one since 1999 if I'm right, and she stopped accepting them from 2004 onwards (or was it some Oricon award?)... yeah. That's good recognition. Also her Best Jeanist awards are worth a mention.

4) For this, you can play out snips of her concerts; to reflect a)quality of music and b) stage presence of Ayu. You can use visual aides, right? Just don't ***** them out.

5) Musicality; well part of it is writing her own songs, and even composing them, so you should mention all these... her lyrics, and her CREA works. Just a suggestion, you can play out concert clips like M from AT 07 and link that to her musicality... with something like

"Ayumi Hamasaki is hailed as the pop star also because of the quality of her music. *plays M from AT 07*, this song, M, is also regarded as one of her masterpieces, as she not only writes the lyrics for this song, as with all her other songs, she also composes M under the pseduyom (how do you spell this ugh!!), CREA. CREA has also participated actively in "I am...", the album which M is in."

Ah, about the 5Ws&1H thing, what I meant was to consider those into your speech. So ask yourself:

1) Who is 'Ayumi Hamasaki'?
2) What has she done to be the best pop star?
3) Where has she appeared at? (Japan, France, USA etc)
4) When has she started (from 1999)
5) Why is she the best pop star?
6) How is she the best pop star?

Do note that points 2, 5 and 6 are almost the same... but they address a different issue, or a different aspect rather.

I hope you would deliver a hot speech to make everyone like Ayu lol~

[kendelle]

I'd use examples of her lyrics speaking out to her fans and how she used songs like alterna and ourselves to speak out against the company that views her as a product.

Mention that the day she announced her deafness in her ear, Avex shares dropped dramatically xD There aren't many companies relying so heavily on one artist!

It's been a while since I did speeches in school! It's hard to be persuasive without being too pushy =/

Ayu's a pretty selfless artist. She's self-disqualified herself from accepting most awards like Best Jeanist etc. You don't get many other celebrities turning down awards!

[emi♡]

^ In order to be persuasive in the right way, you need to just talk about the thing in the way you want everyone to perceive them...don't keep pushing that you think she's the best...the best thing to have with persuasive essays is SOLID evidence, so solid that it speaks for itself.

Don't forget to mention her deafness and her injuries and stuff to prove she has a lot of heart to keep going.

For added effect.

Writing tips - watch your clutter, why use three words when you can say it in one? It's the best way to stay not too formal without sounding like their best friend.

Like I said above, the best persuasive essays have the best evidence. But good writers that have small evidence can make something out of nothing...don't be pushy, be confidant. A person who is confidant that their evidence is awesome...always sounds better than a person who has great evidence, but low confidence.

And remember...not everyone loves Ayu like you do. Keep it interesting, and be smart with the flow.

I personally wouldn't use this essay topic....because it's not...really sound, and yeah, there aren't a lot of sources, but whatever. Most of your sources will be magazines and newspaper articles from here...and articles from ORICON I guess.

[Zeke.]

^ Well I couldn't really think of any other "bests" to argue.
I also have to present it Monday and we can only use notecards with keywords on them so I have to have it most set in memory and I thought why not just do something like this because it's something I can speak freely about and have general knowledge with.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by kendelle

I'd use examples of her lyrics speaking out to her fans and how she used songs like alterna and ourselves to speak out against the company that views her as a product.

Mention that the day she announced her deafness in her ear, Avex shares dropped dramatically xD There aren't many companies relying so heavily on one artist!

It's been a while since I did speeches in school! It's hard to be persuasive without being too pushy =/

Ayu's a pretty selfless artist. She's self-disqualified herself from accepting most awards like Best Jeanist etc. You don't get many other celebrities turning down awards!

ourselves lyrics are not about this, only the pv is^^

[chloeM]

oh wow... long speeches

[Embleu]

Well, since Ayu's article at Wikipedia is Featured-status, it is definitely well-sourced, so you could look there for ideas (being an encyclopedia, though, it is objective, but you could use it as a starting point or whatnot.) You might want to try the "Image and artistry" section first.

[terra]

Isn't it that ourselves PV and song tells us about the power of the media? If I'm not mistaken that time Ayu was rumored to have eye surgery so her eyes are big, so she denied it by writing ourselves. You could look on the lyric it's about

"There are things that is only Ayu who knows it better than anyone else, and the media doesn't need to know all of her thousand faces"

[Not~Yet]

Just to add to what others have said, keep the feeling of your speech very light and easy to listen to, maybe speak in a slightly humorous manner at some point if possible.

I don't mean you should start making jokes about Ayu, but show everyone that you really believe in your opinion and therefore can speak really "freely" about it. Something like: "Ayumi's lyrics are really personal and I'm sure everyone can really relate to her songs. Whether it's that you're really sad, or happy over finally having the pizza you ordered delievered, her lyrics will live with the listener." (Okay that was a crappy example but I'm sure you could do better than me XD)

If your speech is very pressuring and gloomy to assure everyone she's the best artist, nobody will really want to listen to you.

OH and CREA is a must! to mention.

[ayumisrael]

You can also bring up Polls (for example from oricon) that relates to artists like that one



"Who's the most popular/best artist of the heisei era? (I don't remember the right wording)"

And ayu is #1 in this poll.

Also don't forget to mention that ayu injured her leg during one of her tours (DOME TOUR 2001) and while the doctors told her to rest for 2 weeks on the same evening she came performing in her tour and such stuff.

Also mention her influence in ASIA and how she has a lot of fans in Taiwan and China that she could tour there.

Try to add some points like those that gives her special things.

For charts,
Also her achievements, #1s, the best selling solo and female artist in japan (the 4th best selling artist overall) according to oricon, Has an album on top 10 best selling albums in japan of all times. etc.

Maybe also mention some of her biography and also don't forget to mention how she became an artist. She didn't go to any audition or won in a show or competition. The manager of her label avex trax (one of the most popular and successful companies in Japan if not the most), which is max matsuura found her in karaoke, sent her to take vocal lessons in NY, wanted her to write lyrics because he saw she has potential for that too, etc.

How she is still relavent after 11 years as a singer, this year she has her longest and most demanded tour (has the most extra added shows) in her career, etc.

Hope it helped ^^.

[*Petit*]

Remember her influence in fashion and pop culture as well. THese are very important aspcts of the success of a pop artist, not just sales and music!

The japanese music awards she's gotten is usually given on basis of sales, so not all of them are "musical" awards strictly speaking but I would def mentione them. YOu also have all her endorsements and fashion related awards.

[ren'ai]

http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/ayumi_hamasaki/

Here is a good place you could source, good luck!

[Zeke.]

Thanks for the TIMEasia website. I remember back in my freshman year of H.S. I did a powerpoint on Ayumi and used that for a lot of information. Very useful. I appreciate everyone's input so much!

[ArchangelLegend]

Comparing her to other "best" artists is usually the common method in doing this sort of project. If Ayu is shown to be "better" is several categories than other artists, then it implies she is one of the "best" or maybe "the "best". Numbers speak for itself, so amount of awards, rate in which she releases stuff, net sales, amount of web traffic or sites dedicated to her, concert tickets sold, appearances on magazine covers, appearances in commercials etc. would help in persuasion a lot.

Personally, I won't bother with her history, her personality, quality of her songs, her style, what kind of clothes she wears, etc. Unless you are a really good experienced speaker, they do not add to the persuasion at all. All you have to do is talk about the numbers with sources and hopefully visual aids (like making up your owns graphs) and talk with confidence and your good to go. Combine that with a solid opener and closer and it would be perfect.

Also I would use "Ayumi Hamasaki is the best Japanese pop icon of the 21st century", or simply just "pop icon" depending on how far you want this.

I would love to talk more about this but it's really up to you to learn this yourself.

[ren'ai]

Originally Posted by ArchangelLegend

Also I would use "Ayumi Hamasaki is the best Japanese pop icon of the 21st century", or simply just "pop icon" depending on how far you want this.

See I was thinking similar... The Japanese bit anyway. Maybe you should put best "Japanese" Popstar/icon or whatever?

[Zeke.]

I think narrowing the argument down to "best Japanese Icon" is going to be too weak. My audience isn't going to be able to argue that anyone else is better than her because none of them know any Asian artists as it is. There wouldn't even be a persuasion or argument there and my teacher would not say that it was strong.

[asmAyumi1992]

I don't have any experience to speech. So, I don't have any tips for you. But I pray for you to be good luck on that day.

[AyUta]

Hm, that sounds like fun! I don't have anything but good luck out there!