Ayu's Twitter/Weibo - Discussion #36

[BlackSilence]

^ don't they say that bad memories leave a deeper impression than the good ones?
I mean look at McQueen for example. It is very biased but that guy did very very dark stuff in his career and he was considered a genius at some point a provocateur, because it pulled strings of people's brain and hearts. They didnt know what to make of the things he did, and why he did them. We all know where he ended, though. I just think negative feelings in people make some of them think more out of the box, it beomes less direct and more abstract and symbolic.

All of those bad feelings have a lot of things mixed up in there, some that are taboo. Hapiness, however, is happiness. It always comes off as, well, happiness. Maybe that's why it's not so interesting.

[Delirium-Zer0]

Originally Posted by artcika

Hapiness, however, is happiness. It always comes off as, well, happiness. Maybe that's why it's not so interesting.

This. Andrenekoi, it's not personal taste alone, though that does enter into it. There's a difference between music as "art" and music as "entertainment." Entertainment is to be enjoyed; art is to be examined. Which one is which is up to the beholder, but I think it's safe to say that music that comes from negative feelings is far more likely to be art - subtle, nuanced, complex, and to me, more interesting. Music that comes from a happy place is gonna be more entertaining - simple, fun, most likely very solidly crafted and well-manufactured for consumption and enjoyment by most people (myself included, I DO like happy music a good deal of the time, it's just not my preference).

For those who listen to music as a form of escapist entertainment, a simple, content song is certainly preferable to musical sobfests. But for people who listen to music because they like hearing that someone understands how they feel, because they like having a sort of one-sided conversation with the musician, because they enjoy hearing how complex emotions are expressed musically, then music with at least some negativity to it is just plain more interesting.

I listen to too much music; when too much of it is simple, it's really dull and it all blends together. So I prefer sad music to happy music, like, 80-85% of the time.

There's already only a few different kinds of happiness. Luckily for my music taste, most of them at least have a negative counterpart to them - there's relief, for instance, after a long period of hardship or after a nerve-wracking experience. And there's also excitement, which by definition has a negative counterpart that you need to refer to for context. (for instance, "my work week sucked, so I'm excited about this weekend!")

If you're happy in a more profound, lasting sense - if you're content rather than excited or relieved - it's REALLY hard to write anything with any gravity to it. It's easy to just write "Everything's good, everything's fine, nothing's wrong - I got my house and my lover and my pets and my mom and some awesome co-workers & friends. How about you?" but is that gonna resonate with anyone? Not bloody likely. More likely it'll just piss them off because their lives aren't that dialed in.

I mean, think about it - when someone asks you how you're doing, the polite response is something like "Oh, just fine!" because no one wants to hear any more detail than that. And if you're fine, there's no detail to give! There's no story to tell without some kind of pain that you're growing from; there's no heroic tale without evil to vanquish.

Now, on the other hand, there are a TON of different negative feelings to write about - anger, mourning, fear, anxiety, doubt, low self-esteem, rejection, general malaise, embarrassment, and any combination of those since so many of those can lead to one or more of the others. And the specific situations that cause those things are manifold as well, and when you hear a song that sounds like it's totally about you, like it's about something you went through, the feeling of relief and calm and solidarity is immeasurably important to some of us.

I know, Andrenekoi, that you absolutely hate that I prefer when Ayu expresses negative feelings in her work, but I feel like her talent for nuance is wasted on joy. I think conveying complex emotions IS what she's best at, it's what MANY of her listeners prefer, not just me (and it's certainly what got her popular in the first place).

Besides, so few artists feel any need to express themselves when they're content. Contentment isn't a feeling you want to get out, it's something you wanna keep snuggled up inside you forever, you know? It's a struggle to get happiness out of our hearts and onto a piece of paper. Or a note on our phones.

For a very long time, the reason Ayu was able to write as much as she did (and as well as she did for her age) was because of the sorrow she felt, and her desire to treat negativity as something that wasn't necessarily bad. Because it's NOT! The human condition is about finding a balance between them - if you acknowledge the sadness within you, it can't sneak up on you and take you by surprise. If you address the things that cause you pain, that pain can heal better. Science has proven, for instance, that poking a bruise actually accelerates healing. Same goes for the pain in our minds & hearts - catharsis doesn't work, no, but you have to examine and diagnose problems in order for them to be fixed. You have to nurture both the dark and light parts of yourself, and Ayu has always known that. Her happy songs, at their best, are statements of relief or excitement - when she writes about happiness, it's always better if she does so with the sadness there as a contrast.

If "Dearest" was when she started truly liking her job, I can understand that - that's one of her best "happy" songs because it's so multifaceted. It's about "things suck sometimes, but you're there and you make it go away." It's about "I wasn't any good at this romance stuff at first, but we're together now and that's fantastic." It's not just "Yay! happy! Everything's great!" like many happy pop songs are.

When Ayu writes in a more 100% content way we get songs like "Hello new me" which isn't TOTAL drivel - it has some touches that elevate it above that - but it's pretty damn close.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by artcika

^ don't they say that bad memories leave a deeper impression than the good ones?
I mean look at McQueen for example. It is very biased but that guy did very very dark stuff in his career and he was considered a genius at some point a provocateur, because it pulled strings of people's brain and hearts. They didnt know what to make of the things he did, and why he did them. We all know where he ended, though. I just think negative feelings in people make some of them think more out of the box, it beomes less direct and more abstract and symbolic.

All of those bad feelings have a lot of things mixed up in there, some that are taboo. Hapiness, however, is happiness. It always comes off as, well, happiness. Maybe that's why it's not so interesting.

Happyness can be pretty layered on it's own, and still be mostly set around "positive" feelings... Maternity for example produces wonderful songs, as does romantic love when the writter is actually trying... Ayu has some pretty interesting happy songs herself: Voyage, Virgin Road, November to say some at the top of my head. Strong religious sentment also tends to produce wonderful music. We tend to favour sadness over happiness as something "deep" or "complex", but a lot of joyful sentment can be pretty complex themselves... On the same way, sometimes sadness is just sadness (90% of Lana Del Rey's discography for example).

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

Hey I agree with you for once lol

RUN TO THE HILLS EVERYONE!
I don't think we disagree all that much Ayu's career direction aside.

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

This. Andrenekoi, it's not personal taste alone, though that does enter into it. There's a difference between music as "art" and music as "entertainment." Entertainment is to be enjoyed; art is to be examined. Which one is which is up to the beholder, but I think it's safe to say that music that comes from negative feelings is far more likely to be art - subtle, nuanced, complex, and to me, more interesting. Music that comes from a happy place is gonna be more entertaining - simple, fun, most likely very solidly crafted and well-manufactured for consumption and enjoyment by most people (myself included, I DO like happy music a good deal of the time, it's just not my preference).

For those who listen to music as a form of escapist entertainment, a simple, content song is certainly preferable to musical sobfests. But for people who listen to music because they like hearing that someone understands how they feel, because they like having a sort of one-sided conversation with the musician, because they enjoy hearing how complex emotions are expressed musically, then music with at least some negativity to it is just plain more interesting.

I listen to too much music; when too much of it is simple, it's really dull and it all blends together. So I prefer sad music to happy music, like, 80-85% of the time.

There's already only a few different kinds of happiness. Luckily for my music taste, most of them at least have a negative counterpart to them - there's relief, for instance, after a long period of hardship or after a nerve-wracking experience. And there's also excitement, which by definition has a negative counterpart that you need to refer to for context. (for instance, "my work week sucked, so I'm excited about this weekend!")

If you're happy in a more profound, lasting sense - if you're content rather than excited or relieved - it's REALLY hard to write anything with any gravity to it. It's easy to just write "Everything's good, everything's fine, nothing's wrong - I got my house and my lover and my pets and my mom and some awesome co-workers & friends. How about you?" but is that gonna resonate with anyone? Not bloody likely. More likely it'll just piss them off because their lives aren't that dialed in.

I mean, think about it - when someone asks you how you're doing, the polite response is something like "Oh, just fine!" because no one wants to hear any more detail than that. And if you're fine, there's no detail to give! There's no story to tell without some kind of pain that you're growing from; there's no heroic tale without evil to vanquish.

Now, on the other hand, there are a TON of different negative feelings to write about - anger, mourning, fear, anxiety, doubt, low self-esteem, rejection, general malaise, embarrassment, and any combination of those since so many of those can lead to one or more of the others. And the specific situations that cause those things are manifold as well, and when you hear a song that sounds like it's totally about you, like it's about something you went through, the feeling of relief and calm and solidarity is immeasurably important to some of us.

I know, Andrenekoi, that you absolutely hate that I prefer when Ayu expresses negative feelings in her work, but I feel like her talent for nuance is wasted on joy. I think conveying complex emotions IS what she's best at, it's what MANY of her listeners prefer, not just me (and it's certainly what got her popular in the first place).

Besides, so few artists feel any need to express themselves when they're content. Contentment isn't a feeling you want to get out, it's something you wanna keep snuggled up inside you forever, you know? It's a struggle to get happiness out of our hearts and onto a piece of paper. Or a note on our phones.

For a very long time, the reason Ayu was able to write as much as she did (and as well as she did for her age) was because of the sorrow she felt, and her desire to treat negativity as something that wasn't necessarily bad. Because it's NOT! The human condition is about finding a balance between them - if you acknowledge the sadness within you, it can't sneak up on you and take you by surprise. If you address the things that cause you pain, that pain can heal better. Science has proven, for instance, that poking a bruise actually accelerates healing. Same goes for the pain in our minds & hearts - catharsis doesn't work, no, but you have to examine and diagnose problems in order for them to be fixed. You have to nurture both the dark and light parts of yourself, and Ayu has always known that. Her happy songs, at their best, are statements of relief or excitement - when she writes about happiness, it's always better if she does so with the sadness there as a contrast.

If "Dearest" was when she started truly liking her job, I can understand that - that's one of her best "happy" songs because it's so multifaceted. It's about "things suck sometimes, but you're there and you make it go away." It's about "I wasn't any good at this romance stuff at first, but we're together now and that's fantastic." It's not just "Yay! happy! Everything's great!" like many happy pop songs are.

When Ayu writes in a more 100% content way we get songs like "Hello new me" which isn't TOTAL drivel - it has some touches that elevate it above that - but it's pretty damn close.

If to you happiness = escapism or entertaiment, I'm sorry for you, that must be hard. Sadness doesn't produce depthness, strong feelings or remarkable experiences does, and they don't need to be all bad. Ayu is a negative person, so, it's natural that she has very little positive music on her discography, but that's a fact about her, not about art in general.

If I didn't like my own share of sad music I wouldn't even be able to listen to Ayu (or Mylene Farmer) because a good 80% of her releases are depressing, even when they are meant to be fun. And I don't hate that you prefer her sad works over her positive ones, wtf? We aren't close enough for me to care how do you like the mood of your music... But you I do know you are on the gloomy side of the spectrum (or at least, this is how you seens to be based on what you post), and I find just natural that you feel a deeper conection with her sadder, darker material than you do with the happier and brighter. My favorite songs from her are all pretty dark themselves, but we are attracted to different aspects of her personal darkness. That being said, something isn't objectivelly more or less artist because you like that better or worst... On the same way it isn't more or less artist because I like it better or worst...

BTW... Her music since Colours is far less personal and it does make her recent releases to feel flatter.
But I'm not surprised, considering how much mess people made over the fact that she mixed her personal and public personas... Now she is giving us only the popstar side of her, what is exactly what people were asking during the whole Love triology drama.

[Delirium-Zer0]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

Ayu has some pretty interesting happy songs herself: Voyage, Virgin Road, November to say some at the top of my head.

And it may come as no shock to you that Virgin Road is the only one of those that I like - because of its darker overtones (the chorus doesn't end on a tonic, which makes it sound unfinished - whether Ayu realizes it or not, she sounds very nervous and doubtful in this song, and like she WANTS to be happy, but isn't entirely confident she will be). I find Voyage cheesy and disingenuous, and I find November very nondescript although I like the rhythm of the chorus. I don't understand why anyone would hate OR adore November, it's competent and only okay to me. I find it contributes very little.

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

If to you happiness = escapism or entertaiment, I'm sorry for you, that must be hard.

While your patronizing comment is amusing, it's based on the faulty assumption that hearing a sad song means i'm wallowing in my misery (and you're not the only AHS member to make a similar comment so I now feel the need to address it).

In fact, it's inspirational and uplifting in a way that happy music can never be. When I hear a sad song that reminds me of an upsetting event, I'm not hearing sadness - I'm hearing the singer's willingness to be vulnerable, open up, and get on their feet for long enough to tell their story. I don't hear the pain, I hear the recovery, and that in turn helps me recover.

I don't NEED escape from happiness, so I don't need happy music. I would need escape from sadness - so I listen to sad music to help me heal, because it makes me feel less alone and reminds me that if someone can be sad in similar ways and yet still be successful, still get up & go to work in the morning, still have friends and family who love her... then I can too.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

And it may come as no shock to you that Virgin Road is the only one of those that I like - because of its darker overtones (the chorus doesn't end on a tonic, which makes it sound unfinished - whether Ayu realizes it or not, she sounds very nervous and doubtful in this song, and like she WANTS to be happy, but isn't entirely confident she will be). I find Voyage cheesy and disingenuous, and I find November very nondescript although I like the rhythm of the chorus. I don't understand why anyone would hate OR adore November, it's competent and only okay to me. I find it contributes very little.


While your patronizing comment is amusing, it's based on the faulty assumption that hearing a sad song means i'm wallowing in my misery (and you're not the only AHS member to make a similar comment so I now feel the need to address it).

In fact, it's inspirational and uplifting in a way that happy music can never be. When I hear a sad song that reminds me of an upsetting event, I'm not hearing sadness - I'm hearing the singer's willingness to be vulnerable, open up, and get on their feet for long enough to tell their story. I don't hear the pain, I hear the recovery, and that in turn helps me recover.

I don't NEED escape from happiness, so I don't need happy music. I would need escape from sadness - so I listen to sad music to help me heal, because it makes me feel less alone and reminds me that if someone can be sad in similar ways and yet still be successful, still get up & go to work in the morning, still have friends and family who love her... then I can too.

I never said you used sad music to wallow on your miser, on the same way I love my sad music but don't listen to it in order to wallow on my own miser either... And I don't personally think there's anything bad on the way you consume your art, but I find it funny that you got bothered by my "patronizing" comment, considering how patronizing you tend to be towards me most of the time I just think that your personal taste in music and how/why you like what you isn't a global standart of artistic merit to anyone that isn't you, on the same way my personal tastes say very little about artistic merit ot anyone else but me.

Another one of Ayu's happy songs: Rainbow, and this is probably my favorite happy song from her.

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

But then they changed back for the good lol.

I think that ayu is pretty down admitting she has done many mistakes, in all the years of Love songs~LOVE again (excluding FIVE which was kinda taking off from the whole issues), she made major mistakes and admitted them later (up to and on A ONE), and the albums were talking about the mistakes themselves, but it was just after Maro/LOVE again where I think she stopped herself while she still could from making more major mistakes.

From a RP point of view, she did several mistakes... Other than that (and I won't enter on the discussion of the quality of her releases at the time), she was pretty much doing what she done her whole career at that point: capitalizing on pop music that talked about her personal issues. IMO it's less about she exposing herself (considering her career is basically her exposing herself over and over again) and more about people disliking her love life choices. Had her marriage with Mannie worked out or had the Maro relationship not ended on scandal, people wouldn't be as turned off by the "discovery" that Ayu isn't some pure virgin idol.

[Uemarasan]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

I never said you used sad music to wallow on your miser, on the same way I love my sad music but don't listen to it in order to wallow on my own miser either... And I don't personally think there's anything bad on the way you consume your art, but I find it funny that you got bothered by my "patronizing" comment, considering how patronizing you tend to be towards me most of the time I just think that your personal taste in music and how/why you like what you isn't a global standart of artistic merit to anyone that isn't you, on the same way my personal tastes say very little about artistic merit ot anyone else but me.

Another one of Ayu's happy songs: Rainbow, and this is probably my favorite happy song from her.

I'm going to have to agree with Andrenekoi here. I don't think positive emotions automatically mean a work is entertainment and negative emotions are much more inherent in art. In fact, I'd argue that joyful art requires even more skill to create. And I can think of many examples of art with dimensions of happiness: Shakespeare's comedies, Aristophanes, great children's literature (Alice in Wonderland, for example), musical and comedy films. If this is true in these art forms, then shouldn't these naturally extend toward music? The Barber of Seville, several pieces of classical music, several Beatles songs, several Ringo Shiina songs. I'd actually argue that it takes someone who has been to or knows the darkest of places to create truly joyful music, in the same way that the most unapologetic of atheists can create great religious art (Pasolini). All I'm saying is that I disagree that happy music cannot contain the nuance or depth that darker music affords. Nuance and depth lie in the skill of the artist, not in the mode of expression.

That said, I think that Ayu is strongest expressing herself in darker music, but I do wholeheartedly enjoy her happy music as well. I believe that Voyage has the same insight, depth, and nuance in its understanding of human love as her darker songs, and November is highly underrated. It is a song of complete, unabashed, and unmitigated joy, without irony or cynicism which can often times be tiresome and cliche in works of a lighthearted nature. I do believe that Ayu is more prone to depth and insight when she resorts to darker music, but that doesn't mean that her joyful pieces aren't capable of the same. Ayu is a more well-rounded artist than one who can only find the truth about human nature in darker places. Although, frankly, it's been a while since she has managed to capture the rawness and essential nature of human emotion in her music. Much of her recent stuff feels tired and phoned in.