Ayu - Anything Goes Thread -X-

[chocopockymaster]

It's insane to me that I remember all that drama going down...I haven't felt this old in a long time

[Raiu-Ayu]

^ They're English YouTubers. Their latest video is of them in Japan, that's where the screenshot is from.

[terra]

I remember the B&D/Pride meltdown
Startin' meltdown
and all the meltdowns until now

Started joining meltdowns since NEXT LEVEL cover I guess lol

[tokyoxjapanxfan]

I came here in 2004 so I only vaguely remember the forums reaction to the Avex Max problems. But I remember people were upset when she announced she'd no longer accept any awards? Lol

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Also, I can't stop listening to RAINBOW. Such a good album. everlasting dream is a great intro! It has such a mix of songs. Good covers. Good videos. I wish she'd touch upon that ethereal vibe again haha.

[primavera♥]

Originally Posted by tokyoxjapanxfan

I came here in 2004 so I only vaguely remember the forums reaction to the Avex Max problems. But I remember people were upset when she announced she'd no longer accept any awards? Lol

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Also, I can't stop listening to RAINBOW. Such a good album. everlasting dream is a great intro! It has such a mix of songs. Good covers. Good videos. I wish she'd touch upon that ethereal vibe again haha.

Same regarding Rainbow

That album is a gem

[truehappiness]

It's weird to think that in like 2004/2005, Ayu's worst album was RAINBOW to some people.

I know it might disappoint, but I want CREA back for a bit. Even CREA+Yuta or CREA+Kazuhiro Hara or something. With the input Ayu has, I'm surprised everything isn't CREA+.

[Tom Punks]

I was a fan when INSPIRE came out.

I had no idea that was happening then lol.

[Delicious n Bold]

Was rainbow bad because Ayu was originally heading in a rock direction and suddenly went quasi ethereal pop with rainbow?

[Delirium-Zer0]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

I think another thing you have to consider regarding the initial perceptions of albums from the past is that, the people who were fans during the time of the release were already familiar with the singles. So when the album comes out, their perceptions are heavily weighted toward how they feel about the new album tracks. If you take away all the tracks that proceeded the album's release, it might become easier to understand why RAINBOW might be somewhat disappointing.

This is an excellent point and I'm very glad you said it. I looked at a tally of the songs on LOVE again and A ONE, and it's like... they're both about half ballads, and yet we think of LOVE again as very ballad-heavy but A ONE not so, because with A ONE we already got three of its six ballads on a preceding single; with LOVE again nearly all its fast stuff was already on LOVE or again. We evaluate the album's contents entirely based on what's new, not the album as a whole.

Originally Posted by Delicious n Bold

Was rainbow bad because Ayu was originally heading in a rock direction and suddenly went quasi ethereal pop with rainbow?

That is one of the many, many things that went "wrong" with it.

When you become a fan is a very big factor in how you see ayu, since whatever made you a fan is going to be present at the time. The way Ayu has gone with her music since "Voyage" is very, very different from everything that came before it. Most ayu fans are people who became fans after that point so it's hard for them to really understand how her music suddenly started to seem a bit... soulless. There was still feeling behind it but it seemed like Ayu suddenly didn't knwo how to express those feelings properly anymore. And it seemed like she was trying too hard to have international appeal after her visits to HK for uraayu and Singapore for the MTV Asia Awards and stuff like that. She went overseas, saw she was having an effect, and suddenly felt the need to fit in to a global market. The result is stuff like the addition of English lyrics on RAINBOW, and its far more watered-down, basic, somewhat westernized sound. If you became any ayu fan ANY time before "Voyage," and you knew that she said in an interview that she couldn't express herself in any language but Japanese, and if you knew she preferred to listen to rock music like Deep Purple and Smashing Pumpkins, and you knew that she was a perfectionist about expressing herself... RAINBOW was not just a disappointment, it was very nearly a betrayal.

Originally Posted by //ABEST

wtf, really? i'd choose RAINBOW over I am... without a doubt! I am... is so overrated imo, Connected is the only song i really care about

And this is a very, very understandable attitude for Ayu fans who became fans later and know her more for her slicker and more polished work. Up until RAINBOW, her work was a huge mix of genres, the only common thread between all of it being this sort of darkness. When "I am..." was released, honestly, we couldn't imagine her doing a song like "BLUE BIRD" or "Greatful days" or "Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~" - the very idea would have been completely ridiculous. "I am..." had a very rough-around-the-edges sound for the most part, which seemed at the time like a very natural development. She seemed like a dance-rock artist who happened to do the occasional ballad.... since about 2003, though, she's become more of a general dance/pop ballad artist who happens to do the occasional rock song, you know? The tracks on "Duty" were harder to remix, and ayu-mi-x III was definitely less solid than ayu-mi-x II had been, because it was getting more raw and more unconventional. When "I am..." was even MORE so, it was no shock, it was expected, and it was the next step that we all wanted because it started to narrow her sound down and get to its essential aspects of honesty and expression. "RAINBOW" seemed to go against that entirely. The English lyrics were off-putting in a way that was kind of inexplicable at the time - the novelty of her singing in English seemed cool at first, but after awhile the whole album started to feel a bit "cold" compared to her past work.

The album absolutely has some gems like "Free & Easy," "HANABI," and "Heartplace".... but the first two were singles, and "Heartplace" was on a CM beforehand so we knew this epic rock ballad was coming (as was "everywhere nowhere," which was a reasonably solid but in retrospect unremarkable dance-rock style track that could have fit on "I am..." without issue). When the album came out we were evaluating it based on songs like "Dolls," "Over," "Close to you," and "+" it seemed worse than it was. Well, okay... the latter two are, in my opinion, honest-to-goodness bad songs ("Close to you" is insufferably dull and a terrible attempt at sounding christmasy and "+" sounds like she and her staff members are having drunken karaoke - I enjoy the song live very much but on the CD it's an assault on my ears and I'm ticked off she ruined independent by sticking it onto it); but the only offense committed by the first two is that they made the album feel very very ballad heavy to those of us who'd heard the singles already.

So yeah there were quite a few unfair points against it; I honestly think newer Ayu fans have done a good job of making me like this album more & more over the years because they can see it for what it is far better than I could at the time. "Over" has a melody that just freaking haunts me, and "Dolls" is this amazing sad, sweet, ethereal lullaby that I find very well-crafted.

[//ABEST]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

And this is a very, very understandable attitude for Ayu fans who became fans later and know her more for her slicker and more polished work. Up until RAINBOW, her work was a huge mix of genres, the only common thread between all of it being this sort of darkness. When "I am..." was released, honestly, we couldn't imagine her doing a song like "BLUE BIRD" or "Greatful days" or "Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~" - the very idea would have been completely ridiculous. "I am..." had a very rough-around-the-edges sound for the most part, which seemed at the time like a very natural development. She seemed like a dance-rock artist who happened to do the occasional ballad.... since about 2003, though, she's become more of a general dance/pop ballad artist who happens to do the occasional rock song, you know? The tracks on "Duty" were harder to remix, and ayu-mi-x III was definitely less solid than ayu-mi-x II had been, because it was getting more raw and more unconventional. When "I am..." was even MORE so, it was no shock, it was expected, and it was the next step that we all wanted because it started to narrow her sound down and get to its essential aspects of honesty and expression. "RAINBOW" seemed to go against that entirely. The English lyrics were off-putting in a way that was kind of inexplicable at the time - the novelty of her singing in English seemed cool at first, but after awhile the whole album started to feel a bit "cold" compared to her past work.

i can see you point! her albums until I am... are so dark and have this i gotta survive-feeling on them when RAINBOW has more positive feeling imo. i became her fan on her 10th Anniversary so i'm very late fan

[tokyoxjapanxfan]

I think the introduction of English lyrics, for her japanese fans at least, alienated them a bit.
Not sure how the foreign fans reacted though.

Real Me was one of the songs that made me an Ayu fan. Haha

[Corvina]

Rainbow is such an great album, it still is and probably keep being my favourite Ayu album of all times. Though it was also my first - nostalgia!
Got a fan of hers about 2004 with it and I still remember reading about her changing her lyrics style, cause of incorporating English for the first time, and how mad some japanese fans were about it. Also Rainbow did take a different direction in music than Duty and I am... before, more pop orientated and R&B/urban influences here and there as well.
Guess all this took part in the Rainbow dislike back then.
Couldn't understand back then and don't understand now.
The only other album I adore BEFORE Rainbow is LOVEppears.

[Delirium-Zer0]

RAINBOW is something I've posted about here before... It was a huge disappointment for a lot of us, that was the first time I'd seen a bunch of ayu fans lose interest all at once.

It's not that it's a bad album, it just wasn't what anyone was expecting or what anyone wanted or even what Ayu seemed to be capable of based on I am... and Duty.

[//ABEST]

wtf, really? i'd choose RAINBOW over I am... without a doubt! I am... is so overrated imo, Connected is the only song i really care about

[Heavenly]

I became a fan around the release of Mirrorcle World. No meltdown at that time lol, MW was such a gem ^^
But I became an AHS member only xince 2009, after the release of NEXT LEVEL, so the only meltdown I whitnessed was :
- Party Queen
- A SUMMER BEST
- LOVE + again = LOVE again
- Terminal single (I still don't understand this one O.o)

[primavera♥]

Lol but the album tracks on Rainbow are so great. The only single track that I think is super special in comparison is Free & Easy. July 1st and Hanabi are still great too.

But goodness, Over, WE WISH, everywhere nowhere, dolls, Close to you. All so lovely. And the interludes really set the mood to me.

Becoming a fan well after Rainbow was released. I would have loved for her to keep the sound of songs like Over, dolls, everywhere nowhere. Or at least repeat them once.

Definitely still better than the albums before it.

[NintendoHTF1242]

WE WISH is such a boring song. The layers and shit are nice, but idk it's just so boring lol RAINBOW is one of my least-favorite albums from Ayu; but I can't even pin-point why. HANABI is a godly song though so idk lmao

[Zeke.]

Originally Posted by NintendoHTF1242

WE WISH is such a boring song. The layers and shit are nice, but idk it's just so boring lol RAINBOW is one of my least-favorite albums from Ayu; but I can't even pin-point why. HANABI is a godly song though so idk lmao

Lol, I actually perceive it as energetic and exciting. It really is a marvel how people can interpret things so differently. For example, Id consider boring as the majority of Ai's LOVE TRICKY album. Lol. To each their own I suppose.

[NintendoHTF1242]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

Lol, I actually perceive it as energetic and exciting. It really is a marvel how people can interpret things so differently. For example, Id consider boring as the majority of Ai's LOVE TRICKY album. Lol. To each their own I suppose.

Exactly haha. Our music tastes are just completely different it seems.

[LONJJONG]

What a coincidence, I just finished listening to RAINBOW via CD. It's a great album! I really like the flow.