That's probably the best opinion I've heard of the album. I look at it a slightly different light now. It's still not my favorite though.

Yeah the tracks did sound the same to me too.

I only listen to 7 of the 17 tracks and most of them are the singles. All of my favorite MY STORY songs are on A BEST 2, so I quite literally never listen to the album.


Anyway, I hope I'm not too bold in saying this, but I think it's weird that Japan doesn't like this type of music. Forget whether it's "good or bad," it's dance/electropop which is what's "in" now. The fact that Ayu even tried it is different in itself. Do you think Japan tolerates this music from others and just not her?

Well they seem to like...like Perfume and stuff right?

I personally don't feel Ayu really did it "right". But I mean...I don't think that's how they feel...

I kinda feel like they're tired of her or something...but I really don't know.

What's popular in Japan is kind of a mystery to me...I don't understand how groups like Mr. Children can sell so much...but how a lot of the artists just...don't make it. Especially when they're really amazing and talented musicians.

Maybe some one else can shed more light on it.

Yeah I hope someone can! Because I'm curious too...

*Well... she have a 11 years non-stop career... what makes people a little tired of her.

*She is 30 now... and a lot of people thinks that she is too old (her fame is at some extent based on looks).

*She is losing popularity since Rainbow.

*We have the world crisis... her fanbase is 25~30 years old people mainly... some boy bands are suported by young girls that doesn't really care about this things and the old classics bands have larger fanbases (she had more casual listeners than fans maybe).

*Female solo singers popularity in general is falling since 2000~2002...

*Albums sales in general are falling since the begining of both piratary and digital music... And Oricon only counts physical sales.


=)

Well I can also say that I think part of the reason why I loved MY STORY so much is because it was the first album release I actively followed (I became an Ayu fan in about 2002/2003/2004 but it was through Depend On You on Thousand Arms.
Then I looked up what the best album would be to ask for Christmas since I didn't follow the message boards too much and got LOVEppears. Then I followed her singles starting with Moments thru to the release of MY STORY so it was very exciting. I just love that era though. Nothing can touch Moments. It's just that the songs that were staple songs on the album were done so well. I mean their were fillers (Liar, HOPE or PAIN, ...) but I loved even those ones. What I'm saying is that my name's WOMEN, About You, walking proud, and Humming 7/4 (yes, I liked it a lot) were polished perfectly. Like if you would try to improve on them, it would be impossible. Where as with later albums, it seemed I could always pick out changes that could have been made in the album tracks to really make them shine.

And really, I love NEXT LEVEL. I think that since Sparkle was such an amazing song released right before the album that no album tracks really even compare to that song. They are good, but Sparkle is superb.

Well we already know that, but I mean what is about this type of music that is turning people off to her. Unless it's just not the music and all of the things you mentioned.

I don't really think that the music itself have a great impact on the album sales... Even if NL is a very fresh album, it's nothing that she really hasn't done before... This time she didn't have a Bold & Delicious or something like that...

People love Mr. Childrens lyrics. They love Ayu's too, but Mr. Children is a bit different. I constantly hear about not only how emotionally good their lyrics are, but how 'smart' they are. They do a lot of plays on words and what not that only really native speakers would pick up. They also are very average, everyday type guys that people can relate to - I find that sense of humility and ability to relate on a common everyday level takes you a long way in Japan. Southern All Stars, B'z etc are like that as well. They all have boatloads of money but the point is, is that they do not act like they do - they at least appear not to have changed at all whether they have $10 in their pocket or a thousand dollars.

What genre does she have left really? xD;

.... Jazz? Country?.... Lounge music?.... Gospel (like REAL gospel, the kind Mika's did lol). METAL, Ayu should do metal music next :roflmao

^ there are always more things that an artist can do. Jazz, country, opera, etc etc doesn't mean that she would have to go 100% into those genres, but to mix elements of those genres with pop music could give her something interesting and great.

btw, about the debate as to whether music quality effects sales? I think it does. Not always though. If something is the hot trend of the moment, it will sell no matter how crappy it is. But for established artists that have been around for years, I do think that quality starts to play a key factor.

^Gotta agree about the humility part you were talking about. Who wants to see her in ANOTHER glittery dress and strut around with her 100th LV bag?!?! In her previous years, she had a style that could be imitated by teenagers, and not just the elite rich. (I am-Rainbow era was pretty good; she could've been easily mimicked by girls) Now she wears extremely expensive clothes, or clothes that no one really wears on the streets(take the Rule performance on MSta for example).

The Deji book was a nice thing to see though. She seemed really happy to see her fans, and she wore something plain(well not brand-name at least). If only she could continue that...

I would really love for her to do jazz actually... I think her voice is good for that genre now that it has matured. Or something like that remix of STEP you that was reggae <3. Or even a collaboration.

Talking about "quality" in music is very hard... there's no way to say what is good music or bad music besides opinion, cause everyone looks for differents things on whatever he/she listens to...

So... I don't think that quality is a factor here (but if you are talking about how japanese liked her older songs better and how they think that she was better before, them, maybe this is a reason...)

I know you're kidding, but I would LOVE if she made a metal song. xD Since I heard t2m, which had quite a few metal elements I have been thinking about how well her voice would fit in metal music (I don't mean the growling-kind of metal of course xD;; ) . But that's not gonna happen since most of her fans are fans of pop-music.

I would love Ayu to do some VERY hardsounding metal track, aswell as a clever jazz song. Or better yet, triphop! She's done triphop 2 times in remixes (HAPPY ENDING mix from Ayu-mi-x 6 and the AND THEN voice-spectral mix from Ayu-mi-x 2), but an actual triphop song would be superb =)
THAT would be a next level :-)

NEXT LEVEL actually brought my love back for dance music and I dug out my FutureSex/LoveSounds album and I ended up listening to Justin Timberlake more than Ayu...

My point is, there's nothing wrong with Ayu going with a new style, but at the end of the day, the only stand-out dance track on NEXT LEVEL was Sparkle. As much as I love rollin', I think Sparkle was the only 'real' dance track on NEXT LEVEL.

So in the end, what is it about NEXT LEVEL? The only thing I can see from it is arrangement/theme-based... I'm okay with the sales but again this album feels so energetic but again it's so... lazily-produced if you get what I mean.

Maybe if she got longer time to make this (instead of getting rushed by avex), it would be better, which might inspire better sales.

OMG! I would LOVE THAT <3 So how are sales looking today?

Yeah! The rough, hard and metal guitar bangs/riffs in talkin' 2 myself are love!

#5. Won't know the actual sales till the end of the week.

I agree, her voice is made for hard rock type songs. t2m was great. But once I heard NEXT LEVEL.. her voice works so well in electro pop/rock songs as well. I've wanted Ayu for ages to dab into electronic music again.. she really hadn't done it since Connected. And I have to say it turned out pretty well, especially Sparkle. That song is just epic. Even Mirrorcle World sounded totally different to anything she's done before, it would be great if she made more songs like it.

It's exciting to wonder what sound she's gonna explore next. Triphop would be cool. XD