[News] New album "Remember you" on sale 2023.01.25

[koumori]

Thank you both so much! I'll edit these details into the notes we have if that's okay - ah, I wish Max hadn't cut her off..

Originally Posted by tenshi no hane

And Ayu actually said "I'll wait for a better question" after the time machine question such a savage.

LMAAAAO....

[tokyoxjapanxfan]

Sure no problem!

The quotations were a way to organize my thoughts so don’t take them all as her exact words necessarily haha, but that was the general gist of what she said.

[koumori]

Thank you so much - I've edited my last post with the new notes, and just copy/pasted verbatim so it's clear it's a summary and not a 1:1 translation. We'll make the most of every word she said in this livestream

First day sales are at 8.5k total, with a #3 placement. Credit to the AyuUpdates twitter page for posting about it

[Insanes]

I watched the YT live and obviously could only understand english and some japanese words so thanks for the translation.

Looks like it was pretty much a disaster and very confusing for her. Must be scary though to see all these comments and neverending flow of questions on the chat.

Plus, whats the point of this live if she does not want to answer questions but only for TA members. It's stupid.

[rainbow_smile]

Does ayu only refer to paid members when she says TA in casual conversations though? Most artists I know use the fandom names for their whole core fanbase, regardless if they have paid membership or not

[natalaxie]

I kind of loved how crap the YT live was - it reminded me a lot of the 20yo Ayu who just giggled when she was asked questions on Music Station etc. She's adorably ridiculous. I'm glad she was just herself and it felt intimate rather than staged. We can see her staged self on stage. Not sure I've ever heard Ayu just chat before. I mean the Max combi can defs go in the bin in light of what a horrible person he is, but I guess there's something original about their weird duo as well. Ayu is unique, she does things her way, she doesn't even learn how to use YT Live... This is the Ayu we know and love.

[roanmy]

Btw, the album debuted at No. 3 on ORICON, with 8508 copies sold.

[AyuGAME]

Originally Posted by brener

Unfortunately I couldn't watch, is anybody with this problem too? :\

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10he...usp=share_link
I record it maybe you want to check it out

[toxicterence]

I find that the remastered Haru Yo Koi sound very muffled especially the drums part, i’m not sure if this is the same in the CDs as this is what I heard from Spotify..I’ve compared it with A Ballads 2 version and I find that A Ballads 2 version is much cleaner and dynamic as a whole… not sure if those who received the CDs can verify this?

[MKAyu]

I've never seen a Japanese livestreamer answer questions attached to money--they usually just say, "Wow, thanks!" and move on. Is it different for livestreams in other countries?

(Ayu not saying thank you surprised me, but around the end she started asking what the money was all about, so I don't think she understood she was getting donations, or at least pretended she didn't know.)

This looked to me like every other Japanese livestream I've seen on YouTube. From my experience, Ayu did exactly as expected. She was cute, she drew a lot of viewers to brag about (almost 40k when I was on, and she says the final unique viewers came to 168k) which can help push the album, and she answered some questions.

Is it different elsewhere? It sounds like some of you are disappointed--do artists from other countries do something different?

[Zeke.]

Originally Posted by jarodaily

anyone else realized that the promo photo for this album is the same pose and layout from LOVEppears?

Yes I was like “ok so he was playing around with NonFiction in the studio when making this track”

[brener]

Originally Posted by MKAyu

Is it different elsewhere? It sounds like some of you are disappointed--do artists from other countries do something different?

here in brazil huge pop artists like her tend to be more 'professional-oriented', think Anitta, she'd probably be answering 99% of the questions and wouldnt avoid the just released album topic. I was expecting something like that, but I don't know if it's okay to expect that from ayu, it's a totally different culture from the west

[Cahz-]

Originally Posted by roanmy

Btw, the album debuted at No. 3 on ORICON, with 8508 copies sold.

I guess it will cross 20k when all is said and done.

[Aga-chan]

Originally Posted by rainbow_smile

Does ayu only refer to paid members when she says TA in casual conversations though? Most artists I know use the fandom names for their whole core fanbase, regardless if they have paid membership or not

That's what I assumed, but her attitude of not talking about the album and only recording something for paid members, makes me think otherwise. Though on the other hand, I think she also said the announcement during the anniversary concert will just be for the TA present and those probably aren't all paid members. And like, does she really think no one else will know about it? At times she seems really sheltered. ^^;
Like really, what difference does it make? A fan is a fan. Though some Japanese TAs also seem quite arrogant about it. Like I saw two discussing that the daruma can also be signed, then one of them concluded that they hope Ayu's precious TA gets them, which sounds to me like drawing a thick line between paid members and those, who aren't. Like, why do they even care? If someone bought it and got a signed one, they deserved it. Period. If it's a scalper or hater it'd be questionable, but if they paid the money they get the goods. shrugs

I'm also aware that she wouldn't say anything meaningful anyway about the lyrics. Even the Q&A about (N)Ry was essentially a non-answer. She usually talks in a very roundabout way when it comes to those things. She wouldn't be like "This song is for Peypey." or something. lol But saying what song she likes or what photo she likes or that she recorded a song in only two takes or that a heel broke so she had to change shoes for the photo shoot - things like that should be fine to share.

She seemed to have said some interesting things after I left annoyed. lol The lyrics thing is interesting, since Ry is probably the first album without an obvious song about romantic love, though some parts could be interpreted as being said to a lover. It might even be the first Matsuura-less album. They grow up so fast. =P So could romantic love be the topic she wants to keep private? At least to an extend?



Going back to the album, I think the new ballads aren't really doing it for me. I'm not the biggest fan of Ohia, the arrangement is run-off-the-mill and some of the lyrics are like too direct for my taste. Makes me curious what song she would've written if she kept the child a secret. But when I listened to the whole album again I preferred Ohia to the new ones. Jtwya also kind of ends so abruptly. It's not even that they don't compare to walking proud, though they don't in my opinion, even in the context of the album they seem just there, even though they're good songs overall. There's really a stark contrast between the upbeat songs and ballads. I understand that those are probably the arrangements Ayu wanted, but adding clock ticking or something else to Ry could've gone a long way.

[Sim']

Lol at people complaining that she only replies to TA, like... Did you even look at TA's Q&A ? xDDD
http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125177

I swear it's 99% of the time ayu teasing / snobbing / trolling her "dear TA", so nope, she doesn't "reply" to TA as well (unless you count an evasive answer an actual answer)
I'm SO done with her "replies" I'd prefer her to stop answering these questions rather than being confused every single time...

Also, technically, TA refers to her fanclub and not her fandom (which is the case for Kpop)
I'm personally a member of TA only for tickets, because I don't expect any interesting exclusive content at all, so at the end of the day, TA or not, I don't care much... (they do spam a lot of emails per day though...)

About the stream, yeah that was a disaster that shouldn't have happened in the first place, another waste of huge potential, old hamasaki ayumi wouldn't have been proud of that mess...
(Also, lmao what about Kuu not being able to make a reservation at a restaurant???? Oh come ooooon she's freaking queen Koda Kumi, respect please!)
Should we be scared of april 8th's "first and last" annoucement though ??

Back to the album, it's "ok" I guess ? I do prefer Remember me more than MADE IN JAPAN (I enjoy more tracks from the first), so that's already a win!

[natalaxie]

Also I just want to say that some things may not translate well, but in Japanese she was Fing adorable and generally hilarious

[AJFmzk]

I was able to watch the first few minutes of the livestream while it was live before work and it was adorably hilarious watching her try to figure out how to YouTube.

Like everyone else here, I don’t understand what the point was. It was the night before album release and she refused to talk about the album or answer any real questions. Then she posts a むらayu video showing off the TA version of the album and talking a bit about it. It was kind of funny that she had trouble opening the box and then she wasn’t able to put it back in the box, and then she gave up trying to put it back in the box. Almost like an analogy for how the livestream went lol

[bennyshero]

I think the reason why she refuses to talk about the album is that she already knows that the sales figure would be bad. If she appears to be not interested in promoting the album at all, she can tell herself that the sales is bad because it is not promoted properly, that she is doing the album only for the fans, etc...

What really surprises me is how little promotion this album actually receives in conventional channels, like a TV-SPOT, or a billboard on the street. Yes, they won't promote the sales considerably, but that's a pretty basic thing to do for any established artist who has a new work.

[brener]

Someone said this before and I forgot to quote, but Remember you is this classic generic ayu ballad, we can hear the melody all throughout her discography.

Did anyone else also feel that ayu has recently been releasing more anime-ish songs like MASK, VIBEES, W, (Not)Remember you... Also DaD has some kind of anime opening vibe for me.

[primavera♥]

Originally Posted by brener

Someone said this before and I forgot to quote, but Remember you is this classic generic ayu ballad, we can hear the melody all throughout her discography.

Did anyone else also feel that ayu has recently been releasing more anime-ish songs like MASK, VIBEES, W, (Not)Remember you... Also DaD has some kind of anime opening vibe for me.

Yeah I feel the same way re anime opening vibes. I think I was tweeting about it after (Not)Ry was released. I think it would be great if she actually got a tie-in if she continues down this lane because that’s certainly the vibe.