Ayu's music: when did it start to go downhill for you?

[Ranma Matsuri]

Originally Posted by StrawbariSnowAyumi

@ranma matsuri: in regards to identitys post, that's a quite a bit more than 10%. 14 of those are from the past 2 albums. Which are about 22 total songs if I recall. 22-14 is 8 and tbh I can add more lyrics to lessen that amount and in honesty that is not 10%. more than half
10% of the lyrics in her whole career would be more ballpark

In summary, a lot of u guys are really exaggerating on the point of most of her lyrics sounding similar and I question if u just don't take the time to even interpret her messages
*sighs* if the lyrics on rnrc, NL, and etc are the same then I can easily go and find similar lyrics in her old albums.

Mmm...this. May be my shortest post in this thread miraculous

Yes, I was exaggerating on that point with is why I added the smiley at the end. I wasn't being serious with the percentages nor did I expect people to take them seriously. What I should have said before is most of the lyrics I've read from her seems to similar themes (the hand holding, the girl power anthems, etc.). It's not a big deal since I can't understand Japanese anyway but I get a little disappointed when I'm downloading the translations to completely different songs and finding a lot of similarities in the lyrics. That's all it is really. Then again, I'm not really a person for "wordly" themes, they're great when done right (which Ayu always does) but I've always been more for the artist/lyricist speaking about their affilictions, their own emotions and problems because if it's coming from the source it seems a lot more real and no two people will think/act/react and feel the very same about something happening in their lives so it's always interesting. It's not a proven and convention free method but that's just the way I feel about it.

@Uemarasan: I think in terms of the actual music (the singles, the happy summer songs, the angry rock songs, and the few oddities etc.), Secret has for the most part laid down what she's been doing recently but as for the actual structure of an album, I believe that all started back with RAINBOW. It wasn't anywhere as cohesive and clean cut as say Secret and GUILTY but the blueprints was there... before then, she had interludes but their function wasn't necessarily to lead into the 'sections' of an album. I felt like she tried to give the album a layout but since there wasn't any clear idea of what each section would represent, it ended up just being a fluid album that went gradually up and gradually down but with no sense of direction.

With MY STORY she tried it again and since there was a very strong central idea this time, she not only got it right but actually perfected it. Each interlude lead seamlessly into the next part of the album capturing the tone and moving the 'story' along. You had Catcher in the Light, soft and light starting the story from the beginning showing that at one point, everything was fine then at the two minute mark here comes trouble with the heavy guitar then you dive right into About You as Ayu rocks out her anger until Wonderland when she suddenly loses her fighting spirit and becomes melancholy instead. Then around Kaleidoscope is when she finally starts making peace with herself and comes to a resolution in winding road, celebrating her new outlook in the final track.

She went away from this format in miss(understood) which was an album that broke away from pretty much everything she had been doing with her albums until then, not that that was a bad thing. I think with Secret, she went back to the format but with different ideas and less polished tracks and has stuck with it since. Imho, none of her albums featuring this structure has come close to MY STORY's fluidity and cohesiveness. NEXT LEVEL was close but the odd placing of Days/GREEN (which imo should've just stayed a stand alone anniversary single like it's predecessor) ruined the flow... at the very least, GREEN should have been put in the same section as Days and Curtain Call... but now I'm rambling lol.

Sorry for the great wall of text but I thought should back up my claims.