i'm starting to love CD+DVD+DVD album cover..

its look more natural than the others..

I think it's not so much "turning into a new koda kumi/lady gaga" as "doing things the way she honestly feels about it" or something along that line. This is what she sees fit in her current situation, so maybe it was her intention to provoke both bystanders and fans alike. However, I think when the album is released we'll get more in-depth about what's going on in her mind when she decided all this. With her there's almost always more than meets the eye ;)

^^ Actually I kind of agree...Now that we got the bigger covers & I can see more I think Ayu looks quite pretty in the CD+DVD2 cover :yes. I still think my favorite is the CD only though.

It is amazing how the two images fit one each other...

I looked at the "table" and tried to figure out why it has a bottom and a mirror and I just thought about something (maybe someone likes to read my long interpretation :dead2):

The "table" shouldn't represent a table (if this makes sense, but I don't know how to call this thing, so I will call it "table"). The room around the "table" is very white and bright and so is Ayu's skin. If you would put her directly before the wall it would be hard to recognize her, the black bra and slip form a contrast to her white skin and it isn't that kind of lingerie that you would think of as REALLY sexy. Instead it is very simple and also her hair isn't glamourous at all. Like her underwear the rose petals also form a contrast to all this white.
When I looked at the cover for the first time I didn't noticed the mirror and its reflection at all. All I had seen was Ayu almost naked and in front of her the rose petals. I think that's why she hasn't glamourous hair and isn't wearing special lingerie, simply put there aren't any details concerning what she is wearing. Because if she would wear special lingerie and have a great hairstyle people would get sidetracked by those things.
After noticing Ayu half naked the second thing I noticed was her pose - Ayu on all fours. Of course I had to think of sex, like almost everyone else at ahs also. The rose petals, which stand for romance and passion, intensify this thought.
By a first look on this cover most people will be shocked because all they take notice of will be half naked Hamasaki Ayumi with the image of sex in their minds. It is a very controversial photo of Ayu which leads to people talking about her as a b**** and that sort of things. That's what tabloids are made for, presenting pictures of people to the world to defame them and to satisfy the publics demand of gossip. People buy tabloids not because they are really interested in the life of celebrities and care for them, it is nice to see the beautiful people fail. You don't have to think twice by reading tabloids, you just have to look at the picture and it is clear what its meaning should be. In Ayu's case people will say "she needs to sell sex to sell CDs". In the past there was a lot gossip about her and for long people think of her as a fake doll and don't care besides of what the tabloids write. People woudn't be really surprised that Hamasaki Ayumi now "sells sex to sell CDs".
And because Ayu mentioned Duty and referred to its cover: I think the connection of those two covers is the leopard print, the shoes and her pose. For Duty she posed dressed as a leopard in a cage. For Party Queen you have her on all fours like a cat, this time wearing shoes with leopard print. Furthermore maybe the "table" symbolises a cage and Ayu is caught by the spotlight (indeed it is so bright as if there are spotlights directed at her). But because this time the cage looks so open and more like a table it isn't obvious.
Besides that the "table" might symbolise a cage it looks as if the mirror captures how the room Ayu is in really is. At first sight it seems everything around her is bright, beautiful and perfect, but if you have a closer look you can't really tell how it's really looking. The only things you can for sure see in the mirror are shoes, a flash and Ayu, but everything else is covered in darkness. People who are only looking once at the cover and are satisfied by calling her a b**** and so on because they like to gossip about her won't see the darkness.
And to come back to the "Ayu sells sex to sell CDs" point, by selling sex you always sell yourself, so not the CDs are the product anymore, Ayu becomes the product - what obviously dehumanises her. alterna PV picks up on this topic, but this time for me it seems Ayu isn't referring to avex but to the public and media, because of the tabloid aspect.
And for my last thought I will quote myself from the last page:

After writing so much about the cover I think it is on purpose another color. Because if you have a close look you can see that the brightness became dirty at one point.

Nice long interpretation, the only problems with that is, the photos were taken when it had nothing to do with an album or trying to be tabloid like. These were the photos they had her do for her lifestyle book. They can make all the excuses they want to now for the pics, but it comes down to they had her do one of her most disturbing photoshoots in her career for nothing more than showing off her shoe collection and part of her house in a way that will likely haunt her long after her career is over. This is probably why around the time the photos were being taken was another of her messages to TA saying she's being asked to do something she's uncomfortable with again. But since you would rather support those using her because you get to see her boobs and butt in her underwear regardless of the effects it has on her personally in her life, then feel free to keep accepting the PR that's being done to support a "deep" meaning behind it.

That's a really plausible read-in, Chibi-chan. I hope there will be an interview or something where she confirmed that it is indeed the case.

I begin to think that the thing below her head is a Photoshop failure, but given what I believe about this cover/concept having meaning behind them, I think she's not unaware of this and that behind it, therefore, there's a reason. But maaaaaaan that just plain looks fugly >.<

I hope she speaks up about all this soon :(

Max Matsuura said ayu is very meticulous when working, in that she makes sure everything goes exactly like she wanted it; it doesn't seem likely to me that she's being subjected to someone else's bidding over something as fundamental as her album cover. Even at times when she was forced to do stuff (e.g. the releases of A BEST, UNITE!, NEVER EVER) she still had things done the way she wanted them to be (A BEST featuring a crying face of hers on the cover and containing new versions of songs unusual for a best-of album, UNITE! and NEVER EVER having no PVs). I think the same thing goes on for this cover and concept.

And she once tweeted, never regret what happened because at some point it was exactly what you wanted. I know I sound like a crazy ayu-stan but I think, if anyone, she's the type who stays true to her words...at least most of the time.

And I'm curious about the article. Can you give me the link to it? If it was indeed these covers that she meant (something she "was uncomfortable with"), then it might indeed prove your point that she's making a supermassive-black-hole-sized mistake with this choice. But then again, her tweets following the release of the covers indicate that she "love [the covers] so much".

Maybe the shoot for the lifestyle book involved a tabloid parody already and she decided to rather use it for the album? Your logic is flawed, yet you try to prove someone else wrong with it. We know the shoot isn't new, we do NOT know if the concept has been changed.

EDIT: Then again, I just noticed your user name and using pseudo-logic to "prove" people wrong with questionable "facts" without sources is all you've done on this forum so far.

U r overreacting, really. Nothing tragic and apocalyptic happened - does anybody consider Kylie Minogue to be a b****?

I really don't get what you're trying to say. Are you saying that people are talking about the covers "poor execution" meaning the "sexual" position that she's in, or the overall cheapness of the cover? I'm just confused as to what you think Ayu's "trick" is.

...I just realized as well. This person does that, doesn't s/he? Nevermind my heartfelt response then :grumpy

You guys DO know saigodansu is the jhobo right? This isn't new.
I'd rather support her because this is what she wants :/

I really don't give a **** if the cover has meaning or not. If this is how she wants to market her material, then I'll support her no matter what, because that's my choice.If other people don't want to because they don't like it, then that's their choice.

I think these covers ARE a little uncomfortable, but I think that's a part of their ingenuity. It's like, Ayu showing off all the sides of both who she is, and who the media wants her to be. They're gritty and raw, but gaudy and full of this lifestyle that sometimes she has to be a part of, whether because she wants to, or because she has to. I'd bet my life on both.


In any case, I don't think it was to just show off her shoe collection. Like the world hasn't seen 50 million Louboutins already.

If anything, it was just to show off her boobs and ass.

^ I realized rather late, so. Yeah. ( ._.)\('v' )

Has nothing to do with pseudo logic, I'm just pointing out what she's said herself. If theres any truth to the way she talks about feeling caged or when she talks about being forced into things she's uncomfortable with, then the whole thing of her being in charge of decisions is PR itself anyway. And yeah Emiko, it probably is more to show her off than the shoes, Avex wouldnt want to lose their sales to men and lesbians by just letting her shoe collection be photographed with her other favorite things for a book.

And we all know how many people buy Ayu's albums because they think she is ultra hot, hip and sexy. You're over-reacting. She's done worse pics.

tl;dr

The covers were shot around the time the album was recorded and the PVs were filmed, so, obviously they are old pics.

Still, having the same concept (or even only the same photos) for a album about how sad is to be on the spotlight and for a book about how wonderful her celebrity life is... Well, this is rather smart in my opinion.

lulz

Glad you didn't get me wrong haha. I love A BALLADS covers soooooooooo much <3 :love:love:love

Looking at a better quality pic, I think the CD Only kind of illustrates a "sad" look, but more than anything, her eyes are going in different directions :P

And I'm 99.999999999998% positive it's a mirror placed over a fireplace. That "table" looks like a fancy mantleplace!



I only wish Google didn't suck so much at finding better pics, because I've seen this a lot in home improvement shows!

But if you look at these fancy fireplace mantles, you can see that they look "table like", it's not a stretch of the imagination to think Ayu's mantle had two "leg like" posts on it ^^

@Chibi-Chan
Really loved ur interpretation...

And I love how all the covers have a discret hint about how messy her "life" is...