Ayumi ~ The Anything Goes Thread 7 ~

[waterballoon]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

-Shoes. TONS of shoes. To most audiences, that's just gonna symbolize shoes. Probably cues for money, wealth. If you read into it you can find "waste" but man some people just love shoes. Again, looking at the booklet for the first time, this is just a show of wealth and fun excess, and doesn't change meaning with further context.

There's a belief that when someone gifts shoes to you, it's a forecast that that person would "walk away" from you. That could be the symbolism of the shoes.

Anyway, I stated Party Queen as her worst album in another thread. After reading your analysis (which I really loved btw, it's been ages since we have had good long discussions on her works)... I still think it's the worst (or wait that would go to NEXT LEVEL), so it's the 2nd worst

Because however "deep" and "painful" the message is, it's still a fact the visuals accompanying the album weren't really good. Everything felt very haphazard in an incoherent manner; you mentioned the booklet and yep, her facial expressions imo weren't anything "painful". She looks like a deer caught in headlights.

Plus that was the period she was most heavily influenced by Timmy & he seems like a sweet guy but that campy, fabulous, "work it gurl" attitude/look in that era screams "TOO MUCH" to me. I believe that was a really wrong direction because remember that she did the "reality vs dreams"/"ayumi hamasaki vs Ayu" EXCELLENTLY in the Sweet Season PV. Perhaps that was the start of her realization that in the end, she is that ayumi hamasaki person, and always wanted to be a human, but is very much burdened by "Ayu the product" - hence the indulgence in "merry things",leading to "lonely mornings" (excerpts from Last angel ).

Honestly I think she has felt this way since the Love songs era. She's pretty much caught between wanting to be a human and feeling that responsibility as a celebrity (cases of lyrics displaying the dilemma/confusion: SURREAL, too late, Naturally, walking proud).

She has always been "lying", putting up a sort of image of "Ayu" and hiding away "ayumi hamasaki".

When she matured as a woman and yearned for real romantic love, I think that's when the conflict started to happen. It was the Love songs era, I'm damn sure of that.

And when we move onto FIVE, it displayed even more prominently. Remember how I said I always thought the reason to her divorce being wanting to stay with Japan after the disaster a convenient excuse? I still think it is - and I think it is a catalyst. I'm not her, so I can't say how she felt towards Mannie towards March - May 2011, but the disaster came about the right time for her unfortunately.

And I think for her, as a woman, as a human, it is the easy way out to say, "I am going to stay with my man and make it work". I think she could've really wanted to at that time, but remember that she had already started to feel the painful conflict between "ayumi hamasaki" and "Ayu". The disaster in 2011 made it more obvious and she had to choose - to be "ayumi hamasaki" the human (basically try to keep her marriage together), or to be "Ayu" the product?

She chose the latter.

Leading up to 2012, in the Party Queen era and I think all her feelings have accumulated to a point where a musical release is justified. You said it was an excellent album because it really showed that conflict, but I say it started to amplify since Love songs anyways.

Last but not least, Party Queen was disgusting because there was Return Road. I hate it. I'll say it again - I abhor it. Something about using your divorce as a thematic video screams disrespect and I'm not sure who incited her to take that direction *coughTimmycough*...?

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by waterballoon

There's a belief that when someone gifts shoes to you, it's a forecast that that person would "walk away" from you. That could be the symbolism of the shoes.

Anyway, I stated Party Queen as her worst album in another thread. After reading your analysis (which I really loved btw, it's been ages since we have had good long discussions on her works)... I still think it's the worst (or wait that would go to NEXT LEVEL), so it's the 2nd worst

Because however "deep" and "painful" the message is, it's still a fact the visuals accompanying the album weren't really good. Everything felt very haphazard in an incoherent manner; you mentioned the booklet and yep, her facial expressions imo weren't anything "painful". She looks like a deer caught in headlights.

Plus that was the period she was most heavily influenced by Timmy & he seems like a sweet guy but that campy, fabulous, "work it gurl" attitude/look in that era screams "TOO MUCH" to me. I believe that was a really wrong direction because remember that she did the "reality vs dreams"/"ayumi hamasaki vs Ayu" EXCELLENTLY in the Sweet Season PV. Perhaps that was the start of her realization that in the end, she is that ayumi hamasaki person, and always wanted to be a human, but is very much burdened by "Ayu the product" - hence the indulgence in "merry things",leading to "lonely mornings" (excerpts from Last angel ).

Honestly I think she has felt this way since the Love songs era. She's pretty much caught between wanting to be a human and feeling that responsibility as a celebrity (cases of lyrics displaying the dilemma/confusion: SURREAL, too late, Naturally, walking proud).

She has always been "lying", putting up a sort of image of "Ayu" and hiding away "ayumi hamasaki".

When she matured as a woman and yearned for real romantic love, I think that's when the conflict started to happen. It was the Love songs era, I'm damn sure of that.

And when we move onto FIVE, it displayed even more prominently. Remember how I said I always thought the reason to her divorce being wanting to stay with Japan after the disaster a convenient excuse? I still think it is - and I think it is a catalyst. I'm not her, so I can't say how she felt towards Mannie towards March - May 2011, but the disaster came about the right time for her unfortunately.

And I think for her, as a woman, as a human, it is the easy way out to say, "I am going to stay with my man and make it work". I think she could've really wanted to at that time, but remember that she had already started to feel the painful conflict between "ayumi hamasaki" and "Ayu". The disaster in 2011 made it more obvious and she had to choose - to be "ayumi hamasaki" the human (basically try to keep her marriage together), or to be "Ayu" the product?

She chose the latter.

Leading up to 2012, in the Party Queen era and I think all her feelings have accumulated to a point where a musical release is justified. You said it was an excellent album because it really showed that conflict, but I say it started to amplify since Love songs anyways.

Last but not least, Party Queen was disgusting because there was Return Road. I hate it. I'll say it again - I abhor it. Something about using your divorce as a thematic video screams disrespect and I'm not sure who incited her to take that direction *coughTimmycough*...?

I would like to ask you how could you have access to the creative process of Party Queen, as you seen to have unquestionable evidence that Timmy was responsable for the album direction.

I would love to read that material you have about it. =)