[News] Winter diary ~A7 Classical~ - release 23rd December 2015 (Thread #2)

[pepper]

The album is well, everything else she made in "classical". It means I will never ever listen to it again XDDDDDDDD The WARNING and Last minute sounds pretty epic though.

Winter diary made me sleepy. Meh. So generic.
But the PV looks promising. I really like her "plastic" look with the pink wig. Very dramatical/movie-alike about villians or sth. And she looks so great in dark hair.

[pepper]

Originally Posted by tokyoxjapanxfan

I agree that the song isn't as "full" as her older stuff. I love me some guitars and was thinking about their disappearance from most major Jpop acts in the recent years. Early 2000's were very often guitar based.

I started thinking about that after listening to Hitomi's cover of Anytime smokin' cigarette. I love the use of guitar in it. I don't know if it's digital or an actual guitar, but just having it there made me miss it.

Some of my absolute favorite songs have guitar as a prominent instrument. One in particular is July 1st. That intro is just...perfect.

She still uses a lot of piano and violin, heck she uses organs....but it's still not the same.

However, I'm still able to enjoy her music. Perhaps I just don't care so deeply about it...or it's just not something that interferes with my enjoying a song.

For me, more than instrumentation, it's the melody(?). For example... I don't know the technical term...but like, Marionette is a song I continue to hate. Because it just feels so heavy and "down" sounding. It's the not instrument choices, it's the very negative sounding overall "blah" feeling that it gives me.

to be honest I feel the same way, also WHOLE Guilty album was "that" kind of music. Heavy, negative sounding. And very massive, it always making me tired. Even Together when... lol. And Marionette its pretty overrated for me. I never really enjoyed this song.

[Chibi-Chan]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

Yeah it's sad. Even fairlyland has the guitar playing a prominent role throughout the entire song.

So I'm not the only one missing the guitar nowadays? One of the reasons why I fell in love with jpop back then was that no matter how kitschy a song was, the guitar always played a prominent role in most songs. I miss the guitar so badly. u.u

[Deep snow]

Saw the teaser PV and I was very pleasantly very surprised. Wow it looks awesome. I was expecting some extremely corny continuation of lovey-dovey Summer diary but wow nope this looks much better. The teaser has done its job.

Similarly, I'm listening to the album right now (reaching Out of control) and I generally like it. To me it sounds like she's giving a particular emphasis on the grandeur of the orchestra, because in several songs her vocal is very noticeably overshadowed by the instruments. In a number of songs (WARNING, Last minute) the volume of her voice becomes very low But oh well. This is a nice remix album.

[Zeke.]

What also kind of sucks is that, although Ayu has had many winter ballads, this is her first attempt at a blatant Christmas tune, and predecessors like Kumi and Kana have both done it better (Kana with "Christmas Love" and Kumi with "Winter Bell"). Although, I might classify as Close to you being even more Christmasy than Winter diary.

Funny thing; I kept wondering what certain aspects of Winter diary reminded me of. Finally I was able to dig it out of my brain. The winter theme from Harvest Moon 64!


The Harvest Moon theme appears to be in minor and Ayu's winter diary in major? I don't know a ton about music theory but that's my initial thoughts. But is not the chord progression similar? I'm still learning so forgive me if I'm wrong about the technical aspects.

OT, I always adored the winter themes from the Harvest Moon series. I used to just let the game roll when it became winter so I could listen to the music. (And it probably is partially why I developed such a strong love for J-winter ballads later in life - my brain stored those songs as templates, going off of what I discovered in my research paper)

Spoiler:

[Gustavopc]

I don't know if it has got to do with what Zeke has stated, but as much as there is nothing wrong with Winter diary, I can't enjoy it The backing vocals do sound a but off bit it's not a Last minute deal, and in theory I should love it because it's a Christmas song... Guess I'll wait for the PV, maybe it'll set some gears right for me

[DonkeyKongRemix]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

What also kind of sucks is that, although Ayu has had many winter ballads, this is her first attempt at a blatant Christmas tune, and predecessors like Kumi and Kana have both done it better (Kana with "Christmas Love" and Kumi with "Winter Bell"). Although, I might classify as Close to you being even more Christmasy than Winter diary.

Funny thing; I kept wondering what certain aspects of Winter diary reminded me of. Finally I was able to dig it out of my brain. The winter theme from Harvest Moon 64!


The Harvest Moon theme appears to be in minor and Ayu's winter diary in major? I don't know a ton about music theory but that's my initial thoughts. But is not the chord progression similar? I'm still learning so forgive me if I'm wrong about the technical aspects.

OT, I always adored the winter themes from the Harvest Moon series. I used to just let the game roll when it became winter so I could listen to the music. (And it probably is partially why I developed such a strong love for J-winter ballads later in life - my brain stored those songs as templates, going off of what I discovered in my research paper)

Spoiler:

UGH I freakin love you right now for bringing up Harvest Moon, it is like...my life! XD A Wonderful Life though had some other simply wonderful background music, IMO.

Here's my favorite Harvest Moon winter song...


But you're totally right about that comparison.

[Chris85]

Originally Posted by js_surrealism

Except that You & Me was actually a great song. Winter Diary is literally her worst song of the last 10 years.

Totally what I feel.

Originally Posted by aliceshields

Lovers-robbing-gun shots-escaping-died........ Hmmmmmm~ hopefully full PV will give a different feeling...

Probably inspired by a very old Aikawa Nanase PV "Koigokoro" with the same story. I can't get rid of deja vu feeling. Shot beautifully though.

[Zeke.]

Originally Posted by nalini-dahlia

UGH I freakin love you right now for bringing up Harvest Moon, it is like...my life! XD A Wonderful Life though had some other simply wonderful background music, IMO.

Here's my favorite Harvest Moon winter song...


But you're totally right about that comparison.

Harvest Moon was so much my life for years since I discovered it! I didn't like the Wonderful Life winter theme as much, it doesn't sound as heavy and depressing or dramatic as earlier games in the series. To me, its sounds more like cave mining music. Lol. A little bit too tribal and not as chord driven. 64 is my favorite Harvest Moon theme ever. Followed by SNES and then BTN. Glad your a Harvest Moon-head too though!

[Chibi-Chan]

Just got a chance to listen to the album. It's damn fucking great. Even my most hated Ayu song of all time aka The GIFT is beautiful now. I didn't liked A ONE because for me most of her song's arrangements feel very empty and lazy lately. It's like the songs got some life into them now.

[owlflight]

Bought the album from iTunes today. Can't wait to listen to it! Preview for WARNING is already awesome!

[orbitalaspect]

Well, my verdict is that this is just another off-hand remix album. I don't think it's worth buying. Cost is about the same as a brand new studio album, and it's obvious the exact same vocals from the studio recordings were used. I would have appreciated maybe some variation in the song lengths, but they are near identical in length to the studio version. For me, that's an issue for songs like NO FUTURE and The Show Must Go On, which get extremely repetitive and very boring during their last minutes. The classical versions make the length noticeably unnecessary.

Winter diary reminds me of some of the not-so-smoothly-crafted tracks on Love songs. I like Ayu's longer tracks, but they're suffering from the same issue her shorter ones turned to: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus; except now it's verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus-break-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus. For a common pop song that's almost six minutes long, the lyrics are real short. If the song ended at 3:58, it wouldn't feel as boring, repetitive, and drawn out; but looking at the lyrics, she could have shaved off the first 39 seconds, started the song there then ended at 3:58, and the total length would have been 3:19. (I'm tempted to load the song in Acid Xpress, chop it up, and save it over the original track.)

[marekcarey]

The Winter diary teaser got 100k views in a day, that is amazing. I am sure the full version will hardly have any point but I can't wait.

[DonkeyKongRemix]

Originally Posted by Zeke.

Harvest Moon was so much my life for years since I discovered it! I didn't like the Wonderful Life winter theme as much, it doesn't sound as heavy and depressing or dramatic as earlier games in the series. To me, its sounds more like cave mining music. Lol. A little bit too tribal and not as chord driven. 64 is my favorite Harvest Moon theme ever. Followed by SNES and then BTN. Glad your a Harvest Moon-head too though!

AWL was my first one so I'm biased. I loved how dreary parts of it were while the music gave it a strong melancholy feeling.

Personally, I find Magical Melody to be the funnest to play but I HATE the way it looks. Everyone looks like toddlers, which honestly ruins the experience for me.

Sorry for getting so off-topic. XD

[thirteenonejay]

Every time I try to remember how Winter Diary's chorus goes, I always lapse into Endless sorrow's chorus. Not sure if that's a good thing or not.

[BlackSilence]

so, when are we getting the music video in full?

[SayukiChoco]

Just listened to they whole thing and I must say that I really like WARNING and Last minute. Sorrows is a mess though, at least for me. Overall a nice album but I probably won't listen to it that much. However, Winter diary is a nice song and I guess I will listen to it from time to time. She has better ones than that but it's ok. Can't wait for the video though. I love Shuya and I'm always glad when he's in her MV's

[Delirium-Zer0]

This album isn't perfect but it's a damn sight better than her last two classical albums. I kinda wish A Classical and LOVE CLASSICS never happened because then maybe this one would get more positive attention. In general I'm incredibly happy with these arrangements, and some of you guys know how pessimistic I was XD

Not a fan of the title track... I thought it was alright the first time I heard it, but the more I hear it the more irritating and dull it gets.

I really, REALLY hate the intro though, omg, those first few English lines are so cringey x_x

[rikku1994]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

This album isn't perfect but it's a damn sight better than her last two classical albums. I kinda wish A Classical and LOVE CLASSICS never happened because then maybe this one would get more positive attention. In general I'm incredibly happy with these arrangements, and some of you guys know how pessimistic I was XD

Not a fan of the title track... I thought it was alright the first time I heard it, but the more I hear it the more irritating and dull it gets.

I really, REALLY hate the intro though, omg, those first few English lines are so cringey x_x

IKR? Tho my heart is always welcome for these kind of releases tho.

And the MV for Winter Diary is very Virgin Road-ish.

[rainbow_smile]

For me LOVE CLASSICS > A7 Classical > A Classical > MY STORY Classical

This album is actually pretty decent, but I agree that the music overwhelms the vocals sometimes, especially in Sorrows. Even though I normally don't notice mixing issues, but it's really obvious here. Also, in The Show Must Go On, in the second chorus you can barely hear "The show must go on" in the background, but it's still there. Seriously, why?

But otherwise I like it so far.

By the way, is the online bonus available yet?