I suppose after releasing a mini album this year, next year in 2007, the full album will be believed to be as good as MY STORY, just like in 2003-2004, after releasing Memorial address, than went the MY STORY ALBUM.

The chief reason is that AVEX needs more TIME to for the composers to produce more and merrier songs, rather than rubbish to be released in the album~

i dont like jidden tracks, because we normally dont get to know the title of the track, and the composers dont get properly credited in the album.

I don't like hidden tracks.

But for a completely other reason, you have to separate them yourself when you rip the CDs lol.

Mmm ... well, I don't know, I like hidden tracks! Hehe, there better be one! 7 tracks for a mini album with the backing of only 2 singles? Geez, I don't know about this. But yup, I guess it's only appropriate that it has the backing of 2 singles, since it's a mini album?

I think that had forgiveness been kinda 'left out of the mix' a month or so after & came out, Memorial address would've had the same amount :)

This mini album might be part of the reason why BLUE BIRD had it's 3rd a-side missing, that might have been around the time when they figured they're releasing a mini album instead of a full album ... If JEWEL would have been on BLUE BIRD, there would only be 1LOVE and the TBA song left... which is way too little.

I hate only being able to speculate. :cry

avex should have one HUGE press release, and kill all our speculations by telling us all the juicy details about everything.

Well, I just kinda want psychic powers. :)

Hopefully at least 1LOVE is good, or the other song. I'm not really into JEWEL anymore.

Well, all you have to listen to is a live performance.. so I bet that gets kinda '..wha?'

I memorized the song already so.. I'm waiting for the studio recording.

oh yeah that's true!

a bonus track like Memorial Address would be awesome, i also thought Memorial Address was the best album track :yes

I wonder if this'll be one of those rare occasions that an album title track gets a PV..

Or maybe she'll pull a MY STORY. :<

You know, it's wise that they aren't unveiling details yet. I hope they only start airing the PVs and stuff next month.

Well, PVs and stuff usually don't come this far before..

Usually like two weeks at the most..
I am really hoping they unveil tour details this month :)

I'm really hoping they promote the album like KURAAZZIII. We need a million seller pronto. Maybe this might do the trick, who knows? I really didn't expect My Story to sell more than Memorial Address. Maybe this might do better than (missundaztood).

Well, if ULTRA BLUE didn't get even 900k yet..

I don't know if we can expect such results with an Ayu mini..

^ precisly ... >.>

Ultra Blue sold so badly? I am surprised!

It's becoming the highest selling solo artist album of the year, and the second highest selling original album, in a few weeks when it passes (miss)understood. That's not bad, it's not always about the numbers.

i think utada's albums all sold more than a million except fot ultra blue. that's not good for utada!

may it sells over a million because it is a mini album (cheaper^^ and first press poster^^)

Has she always sold more than Ayu, album-wise? I heard something like that.

utada's First Love album sold 10mil a couple years ago.

Her debut album sold 7 millions.

I heard it, in the end, reached around 10 millions in total? The last official numbers are somewhere around 8 million, I think.

Can anyone confirm?

hikki's First Love sold around 7.6 million copies in Japan (yearly no. 1 in 1999; 10 million copies total worldwide)
Second album --> Distance: 4.3 million copies in Japan (yearly no. 1 in 2001, A BEST was yearly no. 2 by then with 4.1 or 4.2 million copies)
Third album --> DEEP RIVER: 3.5 million copies in Japan (yearly no. 1 in 2002.. I am should be yearly no. 2, over 2 million copies sold)
Best album --> UH Single Collection Vol. 1: 2.5 million copies in Japan (yearly no. 1 in 2004)


I'm not sure whether First Love has reached 8 million copies or not. That was the shipping numbers tho..
Side note: RAINBOW was yearly no. 2 in 2003 (CHEMISTRY was no.1)... I really hope she will have an "album yearly no. 1" title in the future.. well at least she got yearly no. 1 in single once --> H :D.

utada will be ontop again right now she is just relaxing

XD BOUNCEBACK owns. I want 1LOVE or the untitled track to be a mix of ourselves/Because of You/No way to say/Greatful days. :laugh no j/k but BOUNCEBACK would be fancy. No BOUNCEBACK in the 2006 songs right or..?

But somehow I think the untitled track is gonna be a ballad :|

random: my MY STORY booklet says BOUNCEBACK did "HONEY" XD...

Did memorial address sell over a million as well?
If so, I believe it is possible for this mini album to be sold at millions as well, since as some of you said, this will be a more economical album and people will be thirsted for the album

Memorial address sold slightly over 1 million. It was released after a full lenght album that sold nearly two millions.

The new mini album will be released now, sales have declined. It will be released after full lenght album that sold almost one million.

I think there will be a huge difference.

BOUNCEBACK didn't do HONEY.

Booklet was wrong, correction was made that it was done by Tetsuya Yukimi.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa :<

Well the same could be said for Ayu.

Well, the thing is that usually the Hikki original albums did 2 million ++++

:|

I guess....but the last time she released 1 was 4 years ago, which happens to be like the last year that Japan had high high sales

I wonder if JEWEL is the opening track since the new 'studio' JEWEL is 01. JEWEL..

That's very possible... but it can also be randomly named so by the tagger.

That'll be so weird if the album opens with JEWEL..


OH GOD PLEASE DONT DIRECT TAKAHIDE >WDWQE@E(@)@

I thought you liked Ayus recent PVs ;)

I thought they were okay.
But the directors = need to be stabbed.

The use of the same director THREE TIMES IN A ROW + 'direction aid' = NO! NO NO!!N!O!NO!NO !N!O!NO!

It's like, NOT AT ALL like Wataru Takeishi and instead we get like some novice director who can't do anything >>

each director have their way of doing stuff, it can look amateur, but maybe in fact he is not amateur. if you know what i mean.

Yes, but he's 'seemed' amateur for almost '4' PVs in a row [since he helped Luis Hernandez with Beautiful Fighters].

I believe he has nothing to offer Ayu in 'PV direction.'

I bet Ayu could direct her own PV better than he can with all the directing 'skills' she could've picked up from Kouki and Tetsuo.. :)

yes I agree luis and takahide should be stabbed...please bring back wataru!!

I... still really do not see what was so bad about the 2006 PVs (except maybe Born To Be...).

I guess people just like exaggerating, I dunno.

No. If compared to her previous works, it's kinda like comparing home videos with works of art. :p

If stood alone as just 2006 works without taking older ones into consideration, they're OKAY.

But they're definitely terrible directors. x.x

Okay, whatever. I honestly think the Beautiful Fighters video was cute and fun. And snazzy.

Startin' was funny (and, well, meant to be a parody), and BLUE BIRD was fun. Nothing terrible about those videos at all. They fit the light, happy feel of each song. I don't see how that's terrible. I can see how Born To Be... was - too bright and hard on the eyes.

People just expect every PV to be Ourselves or alterna and whine when they aren't.

I don't expect them to be like ourselves or alterna.

But the evils of Takahide Ishii shouldn't come near Ayu more than 3 times in succession..

It's like, overload of something that is lower quality than what you're used to. x.x Ayu might have the general idea, but sometimes the directors EFF IT UP beyond recognition. The reasons why people HATE the 2006 songs so much can be traced to extreme dislike of the PVs [I love the songs but I kind of ignore the PVs, sad huh? x.x]

That's why I feel so strongly about the PVs.. if maybe Wataru or Tetsuo or even Kouki worked on at least one PV, it might've satisfied Ayu fans with somethin a little more than -panning camera shot- + -candid shot-..

Something about this year's PVs seems a bit 'lower quality' than last year's for some reason.. while BLUE BIRD and fairyland shared similar sceneries, fairyland LOOKED so much more appealing..

-writes Luis Hernandez and Takahide Ishii on a desuu-note-

edit: I kind of will still believe that they realized that they ended up kinda spending a LOT on the 2005 single PVs [all 7 of them] so they didn't spend like, ANY MONEY on the single PVs this year.. [except maybe Startin' but eh.. it didn't look like it was much other than green screen and a small set..]~ But the money would be saved for incredible album PVs a la rainy day / Ladies Night <3333333

Probably a lot less than the usual PV average.. x.x
Same goes for BLUE BIRD. But Beautiful Fighters looks slightly higher of a budget than BLUE BIRD..

I always thought Daybreak was the ugliest pv until I saw Born To Be. At least Daybreak is artistic in a way, and it seems like telling story. Born To Be.. well I know it's about that Winter Olympic, but besides that there's nothing else in the pv (except the golden/yellow lights).

All the pvs this year (except Beautiful Fighters) are quite meaningless. There aren't really distinctive plots/stories in those pv. I wish they will bring back something like Dearest, appears, No way to say, etc..

The lights could be represented as the dreams of all across the world.. increasing in brightness as Ayu cheers them on with her song of destiny..
But.. eh. :p

I think the most expensive thing for the BTB PV was the electricity they had to pay for those lights. xD And the most expensive things for BB PV were the lobsters. :laugh

Nah. The most expensive thing for BLUE BIRD was paying the dancer at the 'party' :p

i actually agree. born to be pv is very disappointing, but the almost naked guy dancer saved it from being the worst pv ever.

I really hope for a bonus track. Seven songs is a little too few, since most of the songs have already been on the single. I actually think they should have left some of them out to be just a single track. ;D That way there would be more new songs on the album and that single would be more valuable. But 7 PV'S *___* omg, that's amazing! Being a minialbum, the quality should be better ( like in Memorial address, it's Ayu's best album ever! ). I hope for amazing covers and that poster better be great, too! ;D Can't wait, I'm actually very excited!

Thanks for the info!

Ayu's official site have been updated today, the title of the new mini album is 『Secret』

http://www.avexnet.or.jp/ayu/news/061019.html

Wow, Secret! I guess I wasn't, um, expecting that.

Ditto, but ... i like

Great title, but a little off... compared to the rest of the songs.

But which album title by Ayu was not a bit off compared to the content of the album? Except possibly MY STORY.

We'll get used to it.

I mean honestly, did RAINBOW fit Voyage, independent, July 1st, HANABI, and Free&Easy? I don't think so. LOL

I don't like the title...

it just seems so skanky....whenever that word is used in general, not just as a title...haha...

Do you want it to be called R U JAPANESE!?!

-strut-

Very much agreed on that, the same goes for all her albums. I though this too when I saw this thread and some replies.

Basically, Ayu MAKES the title fit the songs, even if it's a bit weird at first.

I mean come on, I didn't think (miss)understood when I heard HEAVEN and fairyland.. but now I do x.x

lol this is funny the worst pv has to be Trust

A bunch of her PVs from asfxx were slightly bleh.

LOVE~destiny~ was goodsauce though :>

i agree. i think ASFXX did not have a big budget, that's why the pvs are bad in comparison to the subsequent ones.

i like 'for my dear' pv though.

i am disappointed by the lack of new songs, but i will end up buying it anyway.

Is it going to be the first album since 'Duty' without any CREA involvement?
Hmm.

I really hope not. Ayu is a very talented composer. She should do more composing as CREA :yes

where did you find that out?

^ But it will only be one!

it's better than nothing

That wasn't a statement, it was just a little pondering thought. I'm going to be a little disappointed if she doesn't compose for this mini-album, especially when she only released two singles this year.

I imagine that she might have some involvement with the unnamed track..

So far composers lined up are:
Kazuhiro Hara [Startin', Born to Be..]
DAI [BLUE BIRD]
Kazuhito Kikuchi [Beautiful Fighters]
Tetsuya Yukimi [JEWEL]..

Usually after having at least one or two of some composer, she has herself.. in at least one.. like HANABI -episode II- and forgiveness for Memorial address. She had more variety in this album than Memorial address..

Tetsuya Yukimi [ANGEL'S SONG, Memorial address]
BOUNCEBACK [Greatful days, Because of You, ourselves, No way to say]
CREA+DAI [forgiveness, HANABI-episode II-]

~__~

I am very disappointed too. Can't imagine I ended up pre-ordering it, even though I never thought I'd buy anything again.

Seems so.

Because there's only two songs that has the chance of involving her work, 1LOVE and the TBA one.

I truly hope that will be the case.

immel you certainly made full use of the multiquote function :)