Is Ayu Getting Better, Or...?

[gallowsCalibrator]

Hey, everyone!

I've just read a very depressing review about Ayumi... They were really bashing her, and stated, "Although Hamasaki has just released an album called 'NEXT LEVEL', is it really the next level? Maybe, but certainly not in a good way." The they went on to criticize everything about her...

I'm sorry, but why review someone and buy their products if you hate them that much?!

I just wanted your opinion: Do you think Ayu is getting better and better, and that review was just another "HateAyu" comment? Or do you think she's getting worse?

(I think she's getting better, personally... I listened to poker face the other day, and her voice has really matured into what it is in SR/SS )

[Violent Omelet]

Who said they buy the products? Downloads are available... unless they explicitly said they bought it. And did they say they liked her before then, or did they state that they'd always disliked her?

They're allowed to dislike the album. I think it's pretty good, but not my favorite from her, and I thought Sunrise/Sunset was a pretty good single, but not great.

She got better from Duty to GUILTY, and took a little step back after. That's all.

[love in music]

my opinion is she got REALLY REALLY good and kept improving etc all the way until GUILTY. then she released Mirrorcle World and practically everything since then has been amazing again (maybe not an improvement from some of her older stuff but a huge improvement from GUILTY)

[RPGames]

I disliked NEXT LEVEL when it came out, mostly due to the interludes. But now it's become my favorite album. I think her recent music is much easier on the ears. (m)u, Secret, GUILTY and NEXT LEVEL have a very pleasant, smooth sound (with the exception of some GUILTY tracks). Whilst I believe her previous albums hold more artistic merit (especially I am..., with Dearest, M, etc.) my most listened albums are the more recent onces. And I was only around for the release of GUILTY and NEXT LEVEL, so I haven't listened the most to them due to that. Therefor, I believe that her music has become more commercial/polished, but not better. x')

[Mari-chan]

For me.. she's becomming better.
There a lot of songs from her first Album, I don't really like.
I know her for a long time.. but in the beginning, I wasn't really interessed in her Music. It was ok.. but that's all. But.. when the time past by, her Music became better and better.. and that's, why she is now my favourit singer.
So.. for me, she became better!

[gallowsCalibrator]

Originally Posted by Violent Omelet

Who said they buy the products? Downloads are available... unless they explicitly said they bought it. And did they say they liked her before then, or did they state that they'd always disliked her?

They're allowed to dislike the album. I think it's pretty good, but not my favorite from her, and I thought Sunrise/Sunset was a pretty good single, but not great.

She got better from Duty to GUILTY, and took a little step back after. That's all.

Yes, they said, "It was a waste of money"...So I'm assuming they bought it XD
And they said they've always disliked her because she was fake and didn't say what she really felt... Um...I think that's the point of writing your own lyrics, don't you? Those are your feelings and you're expressing them through music! No one does that better then Ayu!

And yes, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I just don't understand why they would even bother if they don't like her...

[tetsuo69]

i'm not into her that much as b4,mainly cause of her to happy songs, but her ballads are always something to look forward ^^ i would also add her rockish songs

[ohsixthirty]

this is all very subject to opinion. just because one person doesn't like the direction ayumi is going in, it does not mean that another person won't love it.

personally, i would say she is getting better. i hesitate, but next level might be my favorite ayumi album. its hard to say, because when i was a new fan and was completely obsessed with ayumi, i listened to her albums nonstop on repeat day and night. i couldn't get enough of her! now that i've been a fan for almost a decade, i have cooled off a little, but that said, i honestly believe that ayumi is growing as an artist. i enjoy every album, but i really thought that next level was amazing! and i would say that ayumi is better in that she is doing more experimentation and branching out to try new sounds.

[ownsarai]

I don't understand anyone who absolutely dislikes Ayu buying her album and writing a review like that, especially since they are not neutral. If they already think she's fake and lies in her lyrics, then of course they are going to give it bad reviews and say it's a waste of money/time.
I personally think Ayu has her ups and downs. A Song for xx was good, but of course not her greatest album because of her voice. As VO mentioned, she got a lot better from Duty-GUILTY (and NEXT LEVEL). Duty-(miss)understood was the absolute best for her. Secret is good, too, but I think that's when she really started letting her vibrato go crazy, for lack of a better word. GUILTY was great, it's one of my favorite albums...despite having so many interludes. Her voice varies a lot. But the styles she is doing are appealing to me, and I love that she writes her own lyrics and is never "fake" as others think she is. I think Ayu has been getting better, and continues to do so.

[Aozora]

It was just their opinion, they're more than allowed to state it. Just because you disagree with it doesn't make them wrong.

In my opinion there is a huge quality drop between GUILTY and NEXT LEVEL. Many of her songs used to have this dramatic climb in my opinion, that really made me reach a level of emotion that very few songs from other artists have been able to reach. But NEXT LEVEL didn't have a single song that did that for me. They barely built up to anything... most were just repetitive and continuous. There was also such a lack of variety in the album. I feel like most had this annoying electro-bubblegum sound and while that would have been neat and unique in one song, having it in almost every song on the album makes it get old pretty quickly. Previous albums explored all different sounds and emotions. I miss that. And her PVs have gone WAY down in quality.

And as I said, this is just my opinion. I'm not attacking any of you for liking where she is going, so I expect you to show me the same respect.

[amorphose]

I think that Ayumi got progressively better from the time of her debut up until around Memorial address and MY STORY. Those are my favorite albums by her. (miss)understood, Secret and GUILTY were kind of the leveling out point for me because I love all those albums too, but I don't hold them in a higher regard than their predecessors. However, I would have to agree with the reviewer on the point that NEXT LEVEL really wasn't a good album. I think it's really one of her worst albums. I don't hate it... but I really just didn't like it. The singles were spectacular though.

And for me, yeah... Ayu has declined recently. I didn't like NEXT LEVEL and in my opinion, Sunrise / Sunset was lacking a lot. I've got pretty high hopes for You were.... / BALLAD though, so I'm not complaining!

[Delirium-Zer0]

I've found that depending on WHEN you became an Ayu fan, you'll think that her "dropoff in quality" is somewhere around the time you found her (maybe one or two albums of buffer there).

Thinking objectively, I don't think Ayu is any better or worse than she ever was. It depends on your priorities, really. I think "NEXT LEVEL" has alot of things better than GUILTY, and alot of things not as good. Each album has its own merits and it's usually about the same amount of positive & negative aspects each time.

But if you like her lyrics, you're gonna think that her lyrics are bad if they're different. If you like her rock sounds, you're gonna think an album is worse if it leans more dancey. If you like her ballads, you're gonna dislike a single where none of the tracks are ballads. If you like ayu's fashion, you're gonna hate an album or single where the cover is relatively plain.

Honestly, ayu is no better and no worse. Just different. Whether someone thinks the differences are bad or not is up to them entirely and none of us should be concerned with it.

[aura~]

For me she has just doing better and better just until GUILTY... I love her recent songs more than the older ones... I still think that secret and GUILTY are better than albums before MY STORY... for me secret was a step back (m)u, first I really liked it, but the time passes...

Then GUILTY came and for me it's better than Secret but not better than (m)u... maybe my top favourite songs are in GUILTY but overall (m)u is better.... So still her 2 albums before next level are for me better than MY STORY, it's an improvement after all ^^

But NEXT LEVEL... I liked it... and I like all the songs... but I only like them... months have passed and this album has gone down down in my ranking... Next level has been a step back to before Duty for me... So after all it's not that I don't like it, but I couldn't find and improvement of her recent albums, any of them...

Well... I used the term inprovement, but I wasn't refering to that... it's not like she has improved or not, everything is different... so what can be an improvement for me can be the opposite for others... So I'm just talking about which album has more songs that I love and that I like (maybe there's an album where I liek all songs, but I don't find any of them special, maybe in another there're fewer but the ones I like are my favourite ones, etc...)

[*Petit*]

I'm not going to say she's getting "better" or "worse", for such a statement would not hold any value to other people unless we found a common scale of measuring "good". However, that's not to say I enjoy every song as much as the other.

Personally I appreciate most of her album efforts, but I think in many ways I enjoyed past albums as a whole more than her newest ones. LOVEppears, Duty, I am... and even ASFXX and RAINBOW are albums with distinct themes. That is not to say they lack variety or that the album tracks have little personality, on the contrary they are overall enjoyable and varied, but the albums as a whole present to the listener a package, a journey through a certain audiovisual landscape where all tracks have something in common, a red thread if you like.

Her other albums are far less consistent with tracks of very distinct arrangements juxtapositioned for no apparant reason other than being a "sad ballad" or "energetic upbeat track" no matter under the guise of rock, pop, gospel or enka. This is to be expected of BESt compilations, but not a studio album and takes away from the overall experience.

However GUILTY, to me, as an album was quite nice to listen to because it was fairly cohesive. This made me able to enjoy songs I wouldn't have listened to otherwise because I didn't feel the need to skip tracks. The same goes for NEXT LEVEL , maybe even more so.

Furthermore NL was fresh compared to her former albums. Ever since the release RAINBOW I think that especially her album tracks have sounded very similar, except for minor escapades with SWEETBOX. NEXT LEVEL was a bold step away from her regular sound which is another thing I can appreciate and which fans have been wanting for a long time. This type of major change in sound has not occured since pre A BEST era and it's a welcome one. In that way, I think NEXT LEVEL is a suitable name for the album.

When it comes to singles I'm hardly ever disappointed. Since MY STORY they have led their own lives seemingly unaffected by any theme selected for the albums and been much more experimental and interesting compared to the album tracks. As mentioned above the cohesiveness of the albums has suffered as a result, with the biggest disappointment being (miss) understood despite its stellar single releases.

I think her single tracks are as strong as ever, you might say they have gone "better", but in fact I think it would be more precise to say they have been consistently innovative seeing them as a whole. This is one important reason why I always get back to ayu. Songs like Mirrorcle World, GREEN, STEP you, B&D, Startin' and SPARKLE (some of which are an aquired taste indeed) make me come back over and over again.

In conclusion, as long as she innovates and creates good studio albums, I'll be here to listen. She's not getting "better" maybe, but the musical package presented by the Hamasaki Ayumi Brand still merits following her career and her releases closely. She's the only artits whose albums I have no hesitation of pre-ordering despite not having heard a single track and for the time being
that is not going to change.


(Edit: responding to Delirium-Zer0: I kind of agree, however I'm not quite sure if it applies to me. I discovered ayumi (and jpop as a whole) in mid 2004 and my first album is MY STORY. My favourite album(s) would be I am... LOVEppears and RAINBOW and that hasen't really changed since 2004 allthough I get very excited when she releases a new one. I think her worst albums are ASFXX, (m) u and probably memorial address allthough the latter one is more of a compilation I'm not really sure how to compare it to the others. Everything else is in between somewhere to me. As for singles it's hard to say when my favourites were released because the format changes so much with regards to number of remixes, number of original tracks and b - sides. All in all I think H is her most acoomplished one, then A. (disclaimer I grew listening to "modern" music in the 90s so I guess I'm biased towards dance music (which I guess would be techno or HI NRG for those of you in the US) but baroque to pre WWII western classical music so ayu is the perfect choice for me in that way =P)

[amorphose]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

I've found that depending on WHEN you became an Ayu fan, you'll think that her "dropoff in quality" is somewhere around the time you found her (maybe one or two albums of buffer there).

I totally agree with this. I wanted to say something like this but couldn't think of how to word it.

And all the other points you made were really good too. How good or bad something is will always be the opinion of the one judging it which means there really isn't a best and worst at all when it comes down to it. Best and worsts just exist for each individual.

Like for me... RAINBOW and NEXT LEVEL are Ayu's worst albums and MY STORY and Memorial address are her best. But for others RAINBOW and NEXT LEVEL may be their favorite and... yeah, you get the point. xD

[love in music]

Originally Posted by amorphose

Like for me... RAINBOW and NEXT LEVEL are Ayu's worst albums and MY STORY and Memorial address are her best. But for others RAINBOW and NEXT LEVEL may be their favorite and... yeah, you get the point. xD

lol yes. we are kind of like opposites. NL and RAINBOW are some of my favorites and MY STORY and Memorial address are some of my least favorites. but with ayu, even if an album is my least favorite from her there are always tracks on there that "wow" me, and are just amazing. so i can never really say a whole album is bad.

i enjoyed reading Delirium-Zer0 and *Petit*'s posts so far and agree with a lot of what you guys are saying.

[Ayumi27]

Her musical style is just changing, like it did throughout 2002. Yet, considering it better or worse is a completely subjective matter

Personally I prefer her old albums, singles, covers, concerts, etc. Still I got to agree that her voice is more mature now

[Picaflor 7/4]

meh. my story was the last album I really loved. after that the songs were nice, still enjoyable. but nothing really wows me anymore. but I'd never give her up. I like her voice now adays, and she has released some really good stuff, rule single, green, love n hate, fated. but like I said, she's released some really good songs in the past years but an album as a whole, nothing really has wowed me since my story. I think she's gotten, ok. I guess.

[amorphose]

Originally Posted by identity

lol yes. we are kind of like opposites. NL and RAINBOW are some of my favorites and MY STORY and Memorial address are some of my least favorites. but with ayu, even if an album is my least favorite from her there are always tracks on there that "wow" me, and are just amazing. so i can never really say a whole album is bad.

Haha, yes. Like, I love WE WISH, HANABI, independent, July 1st and Dolls from RAINBOW but I dislike the album as a whole. Same goes for NEXT LEVEL where Sparkle, GREEN and a few others are superb.

It's funny too that (at least for me) when you say something by Ayu is bad, you're usually meaning in reference to her other works. Which usually means it's still really good. xD

[*Petit*]

^
I totally agree, some of her songs that I don't think are among her best would still wow me if release by another artist. =P Then again I'm not sure it would be the same without ayu's vocals. The covers of M are awful.