NEXT LEVEL album thoughts

[Andrenekoi]

I think that Secret is so... over the place o_O
All the tracks are very strong (minus It was...), but I feel that it doesn't really works as a whole

[dreamland2.0]

^ I agree with you, it was a bit all over the place (and I love It was!!)
But it's still enjoyable

[Andrenekoi]

I said that Next Level was my favorite album from her... now that the hype is gone, I'm afraid it took only the 2nd place

(miss)understood
Next Level
RAINBOW
Guilty
Memorial Address
My Story
Duty
LOVEppears
Secret
I am...
a song for xx

[Lady_Eowyn]

Her music videos have REALLY been focused on making her look sexy, which really does not work for me. Unlike kuu she doesn't have the body shape for this image to work.I think she looked REALLY silly especially in Sparkle...

That's really subjective. Kuu is far from having the best body. She doesn't have the shape of a model. Though i do believe Ayu went too far and tried too hard to look sexy with her Sparkle video and ended up looking -a bit- ridiculous.

I'm not surprised at the sales of the album because I think the album wasn't very good.

I'm going to tell you the exact same thing i said to Corikaru. Next Level has sell more than This Is The One (at least double), so that probably means Next Level is a waaaaaayyy better album than Utada's one, according to your standards. Oh, and saying that the album flopped because is for the american market is not true, because Exodus sold a more than a million copies in Japan and it was created for the american market.

Honestly, i believe that standard is ridiculous. Secret - to you- is an good album and it's the first cd by Ayu that wasn't able to get a million copies. So i guess it's not such a good album, according to you, after all.

Quality has so nothing to do with commercial success Pop music is a business, not an art. That's why i love Ayu, because she doesn't make music thinking she must sell lots of records; she makes music according to her feelings and to express who she really is, as a real artist always should do.

Oh, and my review is coming very soon! hehehe LOL

[mimika]

i love this album

i think ayu tried something very different in this album

definitely a 'next level' for ayu!

[noidea]

Originally Posted by Lady_Eowyn

I'm going to tell you the exact same thing i said to Corikaru. Next Level has sell more than This Is The One (at least double), so that probably means Next Level is a waaaaaayyy better album than Utada's one, according to your standards. Oh, and saying that the album flopped because is for the american market is not true, because Exodus sold a more than a million copies in Japan and it was created for the american market.

Honestly, i believe that standard is ridiculous. Secret - to you- is an good album and it's the first cd by Ayu that wasn't able to get a million copies. So i guess it's not such a good album, according to you, after all.

Quality has so nothing to do with commercial success Pop music is a business, not an art. That's why i love Ayu, because she doesn't make music thinking she must sell lots of records; she makes music according to her feelings and to express who she really is, as a real artist always should do.

If if could give you an award for the best post in this whole topic, I'd give it right away! Thats one of the reasons I appreciate Ayu that much as well

[ayumixfan]

Originally Posted by Lady_Eowyn

That's really subjective. Kuu is far from having the best body. She doesn't have the shape of a model. Though i do believe Ayu went too far and tried too hard to look sexy with her Sparkle video and ended up looking -a bit- ridiculous.



I'm going to tell you the exact same thing i said to Corikaru. Next Level has sell more than This Is The One (at least double), so that probably means Next Level is a waaaaaayyy better album than Utada's one, according to your standards. Oh, and saying that the album flopped because is for the american market is not true, because Exodus sold a more than a million copies in Japan and it was created for the american market.

Honestly, i believe that standard is ridiculous. Secret - to you- is an good album and it's the first cd by Ayu that wasn't able to get a million copies. So i guess it's not such a good album, according to you, after all.

Quality has so nothing to do with commercial success Pop music is a business, not an art. That's why i love Ayu, because she doesn't make music thinking she must sell lots of records; she makes music according to her feelings and to express who she really is, as a real artist always should do.

Oh, and my review is coming very soon! hehehe LOL

Your argument makes no sense. First off, i said I'm not surprised about the sales of the album, and I think the album is bad. I never said the sales were bad because I always state in her sales thread that its decent. 2nd off Its just my opinion that her album is bad, and I expected decent sales over high sales because i didn't like it, I'm not ranking any ****. You're the one taking my words and twisting it like crazy... And now they're my standards? Obviously you're the one ranking sales too highly because I still like TITO and Love Letter even if they didnt do that well. I stated before that Next Level was a better album to me than GUILTY and it sold lower. Please don't put random words in my mouth.

And I love how u bring up hikki. There is a difference, but obviously you don't know much about hikki's career to make a comment like this. Exodus was jsut an experimental album that was released in the US. She only did it because she was tired of releasing the same japanese songs over and over. It was not meant to capture the attention of the US. On the other hand TITO was geared towards americans. So maybe her experimental music for exodus was favoured even if she didn't really mean for it to sell. Maybe it was just luck, but i'm pretty sure mainstream japanese music is different from american mainstream music, hence u don't see many american artists topping the japanese charts. Like I said , thats why Exodus was kind of just there, and didn't relaly get promoted in the US. She wasn't focused on capturing the attention of the US, she only wanted to experiment. TITO is actually focused as a good american pop album, but its a shame its still not doing well at all in the US : ( ~!

Lastly, for an Ayu Stan, you should've known that (miss)understood was her first album not to sell a million not secret. IT might've gotten shipments of a million (i'm not sure about this) but it didn't sell a million. If you're going to say this at least get the information right....

Honestly, we have different opinions on this album and if you like Next Level thats fine. THat doesn't mean you have to go and take a sentence I said and make it into some kind of argument bringing up an artist I like more than ayu at the moment and making a comparison that is irrelevant to what I posted. All I posted was that i'm not surprised by the sales which I think aren't as high as usual, but they're definitely not bad either(hence I never said they were bad). And I thinkthe album wasn't good so I didnt expect it to sell as much as her others(but I was acutally surprised it lost to GUILTY). What the japanese people think is what they think. Maybe I should've been more specific, but seriously I don't see what the point in bringing up hikki's english album and comparing it to a japanese album. Would you want me to compare two japanese albums heart station and guilty and talk about how much WORSE guilty is because HEART STATION beat it? Like seriously this is a thread about what u think about next level, not to discuss about how people's opinions are wrong =_=. Seriously, you get TOO defensive when it comes to Ayu. I might not like all her new works, but like I said, I stil like some of her songs and plus i'm a bigger fan of her older works. Its just the last 2 albums have been very dissapointing for me.

As for the Kuu thing, it might be subjective; but unlike most japanese singers, she's like the only artist who actually pulled off that ero-kakkoi look and got super famous so I think she kind of deserves to be called sexy but thats just my opinion again.

[JackieRos]

oh my~

[evolution7931]

I don't like this album, like, at all.. and I'm a hardcore Ayu since '04.. It just sucks.. everything sounds so unpolished. The only songs I REALLY like are Next Level & Sparkle. That's it.

This is her worst album for me, I mean I liked more songs off friggin ASFXX and that used to be her worst imo. This album maked ASFXX seem like a masterpiece

[NintendoHTF1242]

ayumixfan, I can't help but think what you posted is the best thing on this forum xD Anyway

Album Rankings
(miss)understood
Duty / Memorial address
LOVEppears / I am...
MY STORY
A Song for XX
GUILTY
Secret
NEXT LEVEL
RAINBOW

[hiroshi_ben]

i like NEXT LEVEL~the songs are very addictive and new to me

the only things that i dun really like are the PVs...they can make it better

[JackieRos]

to me GUILTY and Secret where her best albums NEXT LEVEL is a good album too BUT
the them ruined it for me~my opinion~

[love in music]

huge walls of TEXT.
anyway i am still majorly addicted to this album. i seem to love it more and more with each listen

[Mr. Goto]

oh ya album ranks

LOVEppears
Duty
(miss)understood
I am...
Memorial Address
RAINBOW
A song for XX
Secret
NEXT LEVEL
GUILTY
MY STORY

[love in music]

oh album ranking is allowed on this thread? ok

RAINBOW
(miss)understood
LOVEppears
NEXT LEVEL
Secret
Memorial Address
GUILTY
I am...
Duty
A song for XX
MY STORY

[waterballoon]

lol album rankings! Funnnn

1) MY STORY
2) RAINBOW
3) GUILTY
4) NEXT LEVEL
5) (miss)understood
6) Memorial address
7) Secret
8) Duty
9) LOVEppears
10) A Song For xx
11) I am...

[truehappiness]

Long story short to avoid a wall of text: I really like this album, and it's a solid effort despite some randomazz interludes. Too much comparing going on around these here parts.

Note: Curtain call is being called emotionless.. HOW IS TH-- I don't even... it doesn't make sense to me. identity has a hot dance break, rollin' is HOT as is LOVE 'n' HATE, and Bridge to the sky -> NEXT LEVEL are soooooo soothing. Album is a good listen, mmm.

[Aga-chan]

^When I first listened to "Curtain call" I was really moved. So I won't call it emotionless. ^^

The thing is that I have hardly listened to "NEXT LEVEL" from start to finish. I usually listen to various songs. Seeing as the arrangements were done by the same people who composed the interludes (Nakano Yuta, CMJK, HAL) one could expect a better flow. "GUILTY" was a good example as to how to use interludes. To me it doesn't really feel like an album, because the tracks can be devided into several groups.

NEXT LEVEL
GREEN
Rule
Days
Curtain call

EnergizE
Sparkle
rollin'
identity
LOVE'n'HATE

Bridge to the sky
Disco-munication
Load of the SHUGYO
Pieces of SEVEN
(While "Bridge to the sky" fits into the first group and the others into the second.)

There are several songs on there, which seem rather random on first listen, because they have random parts ("rollin'", "identity", "LOVE'n'HATE") or end somehow unexpected ("rollin'", "Load of the SHUGYO").

[truehappiness]

Really? I believe Bridge to the sky was made in order to transition to NEXT LEVEL.. I believe the two lines that are found in Bridge are also found in NEXT LEVEL or something like that.. also, they perfectly fit together imo..

[Airamzul01]

I really liked NEXT LEVEL, it fits today's music, more electro-pop kind of songs, and the interludes (even though they are not needed at all, and should
be replaced with full songs, obviously) I liked them, specially BRIDGE TO THE SKY and DISCO-MUNICATION...

And the songs are so freakin' cool, totally different from GUILTY. Curtain Call is beautiful, Identity and Love 'n' hate, energize and rollin' (even though the first minute of it should have been cut off) are fantastic...

What could have made it a better album would have been another rock song, kind like marionette... Yet I liked it.

My one complain... Next Level cover... (no, no, no...)