I honestly can feel more emotion in reminds me more than Tell Me Why. I honestly feel like reminds me is the highlight here. Every other song I don't feel so connected with but reminds me is right at home. It feels like it was heavily influenced by that kick-ass bridge in progress which is all I really loved from that song anyway. I feel like her voice is the best in this song too. She really needs to switch to exclusive rock for this voice and maybe the autotune thing. The La-la's are the best she's ever had. I love them. Lyrics would ruin it and it definitely makes it an Ayu song. I feel like this is the answer to November. Honestly there was so much love in November, and reminds me really sounds like the pain she feels being "reminded". She's still that little bird from November, singing her heart out to the extreme in this song, as she flies away from Mannie's shoulder. On a side note, the intro really reminds me of decision's intro.

As for my love with MY STORY, it was the first album I had been around for to witness being released. I was an active fan then after hearing older stuff first. So I didn't really have much to compare it to or be let down about. There's always a clear divide between those songs you witnessed birthing, and the songs you discovered from the back of her discography. I love many, many of the songs from before I became an active fan, but it's a different kind of love when it's something you can recall being around for.

lol sorry. XD

well yea both albums are great, Party Queen is something fresh for 2012, My Story is a 2004 classic so, don't get mad peeps. :innocent

I'LL STAND UP TO IT. ASFXX (song) and Depend on You are safe, rest of ASFXX unnecessary in Ayu's discography imo. Return Road is 2012's M omg :love

Interesting. I do think the "la la la"s are delivered nicely; I just wish they didn't take up so much of the song. I find that their impact is lessened because of this. If she sang lyrics for, say, the first chorus (or whatever you want to call that part) and then sang la la la for the next one, I think the impact would be greater. My first reaction was, "did she run out of ideas? Did she get lazy? What happened to half the song?" However, I understand your perspective--maybe Ayu wanted to sing her emotions without any words.

Oh yes that would be epic. I love when she repeats the same melody in la-las like that! But really I just want to listen to this song over and over and the rest of the album I want to pretend never existed. Ok, Return Road is nice but it's not as epic as it tries to be or how everyone said it was going to be (comparisons to About You, etc. are absurd now that I Have heard it).

Epic album. Tell me why is pure gold. I love its lyrics <3 And it's nice to see her try new things such as NaNaNa and the next LOVE.

So now I had got the time to listen to the album a couple of times. To sum up.

Love:
reminds me

Like:
NaNaNa
Return Road
Tell me why
the next LOVE

Got potential:
Call
Letter

The other songs is just there for me.

reminds me is the out stand track for me. Welcome back my sweet Ayu. NaNaNa and Return Road would have been up in the Love section together with reminds me but the ****ing backing vocals and rap destroys the songs sooo much for me. Especially in Return Road. It's almost so bad that I can't listen to the end. It's not that I hate Timmy bladiblah. I really loved his chanting in BRILLANTE. Here it really doesn't fit. It's sooo out of place and sounds ****** bad. Tell me why might go up to the Love section. It's really different for being Ayu and I really enjoy it. I thought I would hate it.

I just listened to the previews on iTunes...

and now have emailed CDJapan to cancel my order (so hopefully there'll be another limited set if anyone wants it lol).

I will always have a spot for Ayu in my heart - I've been to a dozen of her concerts, have shelves full of CDs and DVDs, but i haven't purchased anything since Next Level (well, I did buy the limited ayu-mi-x set...).

I think it's just more of my music taste has gone this way <-------, and Ayu has gone this way -------->

Plus to me it sounds like she has deteriorated vocally....

I am certainly happy to see so many people liking it, but it's just not for me.

alright i'll start this review by saying that I ALWAYS love ayu albums and have the gem in it that it an ayu all-time favourite. Love song, microphone, untitled, etc. Never been too disappointed with an ayu album... except for now. i'm so shocked.

Party Queen - at first didn't like it, but it was way too catchy and i have to accept that it WILL get stuck in my head. i like the live better for sure
6/10

NaNaNa - ughhh some parts are plain stupid, but love the melody and for a electropop dance song it was decent! the tick tock thing constantly makes me mad though...
5.5/10

Shake it♥ - this song is pretty stupid...
3/10

taskebab - i like it! i can't name which guitar song he sampled but good job (y)
7.5/10

call & Letter - ok these songs sound the same and sound so weird and happy-generic jpop that i don't i could ever like them.
4/10

reminds me - first song i got into. very good!!
7/10

Return Road - best song on the album. not one of her best, but still awesome!
8/10

tell me why - ...
4/10

a cup of tea - it was good, but those happy parts sound so dumb... it ruins the interlude
5/10

the next LOVE & Smoke, Eyes, Magic - ok she doesn't do the jazzy thing well at all, her vocals sounds silly, and weren't catchy at all.
1/10

Serenade in A minor - meh... a bit boring
2/10

How Beautiful You Are - I guess this song will certainly grow on me.
good ballad, but the engrish, vocals, and the stupid choir bridge are the deal breakers. could've been such a good song!!
6/10

everyones gonna say i'm hating and w/e but sorry bad quality to me is bad quality. i love ayu but this review is me saying i was really excited like i always am but unlike other times i wasn't impressed at all
siiigh

It sure was. :) And I hated that song until I saw it live. Even now though, I still only like that song if I'm actually there in the arena.

And as for My Story - yeah, when it first came out it didn't exactly get a lot of love. A lot of people were disappointed I remember. A lot of people liked it too though. But very few people seemed to actually love it. imo that album actually got better with time and peoples opinions of it seem to have changed a lot.

Off to listen to the new album finally!

I think a lot of people back then disliked MY STORY cause it was like, more "mainstream", or something.

Anyway, the same thing happened with (m)u. Everyone hated it at first, and now people say it's like her best album.

the next LOVE and Eyes, Smoke, Magic are seriously annoying to listen to for me...I don't know why..they make me angry ugh.

This is my personal opinion, but most of the album seems to be filled with fillers. I mean, both Call and Letter sound (and you can throw in reminds me in that) like Last Links (which is a song I never really liked), and other songs have nothing major that makes them stand out, except for the amazing "the next LOVE". I've had a similar feeling with Koda's JAPONESQUE, the songs are all good, but not good enough. Even though Koda's album had a lot more songs that stood out more on their own. So this is just meh for me. I guess I need to listen to it way more than just once/twice. Hopefully I'll love it in the end. If not, this is probably going to end up as my least favorite album by Ayumi. The jazz part of the album was, for me, the only real epic part. The rest is mellow, and just tries too hard to be interesting when it's not. Just my opinion.

Just to point out, many old members are back in the forum to comment on the album... I like that!

Maybe its cause I went into this album with such low expectations but....I'm actually really enjoying this. :) I also didn't spoil myself much at all coming into this album. I only looked at the covers and tracklist. I still don't like the covers, but the content is surpassing my expectations so far.

I was not expecting this album to be so ROCK influenced; a pleasant surprise.

I don't want to give actual ratings until the songs actually have some time to sink in. But here are some comments.

1. Party Queen - hmmm, this track is OK but not great. I agree with what a lot of people have been saying - it sounds flat when it should be sounding like its jumping off your speakers. I don't necessarily think its the rip quality either cause when I went to CDL I also thought it sounded a bit lacking. Still a fun track though.

2. Nanana - 50 bajillion times better than Party Queen! I even like the rap parts. Very surprised to hear a very industrialish kinda back beat and the crunching guitars; really like this song yay!

3. Shake It - It has some really good parts and some parts that just feel like they are almost there but not quite. Not as good as Nanana but better than Party Queen imo.

4. taskebab - LOVE this interlude. But as with her last couple of albums it doesn't really feel like it actually serves its purpose as an interlude - a slowish song shouldn't come after this.

5. Call - I could do without the backing vocals for sure. Nice song but doesn't stand out much as of yet.

6. Letter - it is similar to Call but I like this better. It really has some nice melodic moments. Once again not a stand out, but not bad either.

7. Reminds Me - OK, now I"m starting to understand some of the vocal comments. Her voice does sound kinda buried in this song even though her vocals have clearly been layered on top of each other several times over. I like the opening of the track and like the track over all but I'm not blown away - I think this will be a grower though.

8. Return Road - Welcome back DAI. Love the organs and violins. An interesting track and one that like Reminds Me feels like it'll grow on me as I listen to it more. I can't decide if I love the instrumental break down towards the end and Timmy's ahhhhhs or if I hate them. haha Right now I like this song but I will probably love it eventually.

9. Tell Me Why - This song is just so-so to me. But it is interesting because it is very different for Ayu.

10. a cup of tea - As usual a good/interesting sounding interlude with questionable placement. :)

11. The Next Love - I'm glad Ayu is experimenting with this kind of style. :) It's great. I don't know if this style necessarily suits her voice that well but I really like the experimentation and the music/arrangement itself is great. I see what she is going for vocally but it doesn't quite come off.

12. Eyes, Smoke, Magic - haha weird. But I have a soft spot for weird things so.....I actually kinda love this, lol. I really like that she is trying something COMPLETELY different with these two tracks.

13. Serenade in A Minor - Pretty but nothing special.

14. How Beautiful You Are - It's pretty but has never stood out that much to me.

I'm not sure how well this album will hold up to repeat listenings, but on first listen I think I actually.....love it? I know I love how experimental it is at least.

About Ayu's vocals - honestly I haven't noticed anything that bad. Call so far is the worst vocal wise, but in general she sounds about par for the course for Ayu.

Gotta go listen to NaNaNa 20 more times now.

to sum up, the songs I love are:

Party Queen
NaNaNa
taskebab
call
Letter
reminds me
Return Road
Tell me why
how beautiful you are

the song I seriously didn't like:

Shake It

others are OK. I seriously wish that a cup of tea was a true dubstep interlude :laugh



am I the only who feels like already heard all these songs before and they seem really familiar? I don't know why but when I hear this I feel like this is one of her old albums like one of her classic typical ayu album.

this album were very good.

but nothing beats the very EPIC of BRILLANTE.

oh and it seems like the musical songs have grown on me already!

the next LOVE and Eyes, Smoke, Magic are veeeeery nice if you listen them separately from the album :heart I enjoy them very much now.

^ after listening to the album a few times I still dont like the jazz crap, but i no longer have to skip over it...
they might... MIGHT... grow on me.

Reminds me gets better with every listen. Don't let Return Road steal your attention guys.

Jazz is a hit or miss thing, don't worry guys. It is very unlike her usual style which is more mainstream. She always draw inspiration from genres, but it's actually kind of rare that she makes tracks that are just fullblooded one-genre, such as thL and ESM.

My skin just crawls when I listen to thL. Magical :heart