I am surely completely deaf then, because Myelene's voice is much much better than Ayu's & more powerful.no one can persuade me to see it another way:shakehead

You mean you LIKE Mylene's voice more? Please stop confusing liking something with it being objectively better. You do it alot in this discussion and it starts being annoying. Especially since I JUST explained voice ideals a few posts before.

I just do not understand why you always misquote me and find some weird pretextes. I mean what I say

maybe you'll say then that Ayu & Mylene's vocal/voice ranges are equal too, huh? :shakehead

I'm dying :laugh, you just made my day :)

I don't even know what you're talking about right now. Please learn English, your grammar really confuses me. As do your trains of thought since they seem to jump a lot and ignore points. Do you understand the difference between liking vocals and vocals being objectively good?
The problem here is you mistaking liking a voice more for it being objectively better, which is simply not true. You can like Mylene's voice more than Ayumi's(I have no problem with that, Mylene has a beautiful voice), but her vocals are NOT objectively better, yet you state it like they are.

Ranges were never a part of this discussion but since you brought it up: Their ranges are rather equal actually, Mylene's range is higher since she's a Soprano compared to Ayumi, who's a Mezzo-Soprano. But they both have ranges of around 2 octaves chestvoice(Ayumi:F3-F5, Mylene around G3-G5) and comfortable ranges of around 1.7 octaves chestvoice(Ayumi is comfortable up to Eb5, Mylene fluctuates, but she usually gets to E5 just fine).

your tone of lecturing me makes it even funnier
I have A+ for grammar, want to see my diploma? :laugh

dude, I know you want to sound 'like a boss', but some things you say are just funny and ridiculous to me. I think she failed with this song, you think otherwise, okay...

P.S. your objectivity doesn't correspond with mine :P

Talking as a Mylene fan, what I am, it's actually very hard to know how good singer she actually is considering the amount of lip-synching she does... Even ballads are constantly lip-synched by her, and when I listened to a fan recording of her last tour, a great amount of her vocals were pretty fishy... (DVD doesn't count as it's edited, as any other live DVD)

Still, both girls are just average singers, with pretty limited technique and more misses than hits vocal-wise...

edit: I would go even farther and say that most top popstars of their own country I know, from Madonna to Jolin Tsai are either average or a little above average vocalists, even if some are amazing performers and musicians.

^ I am a Mylene fan too, I did attend her 2 concerts, and her vocals unedited there, at least to me, sound better than Ayu vocals edited, lol. thus I just cannot put them on the same level. I'm not a kind of expert like everyone there claims to be, so...

I would have never brought up comparisons of these singers, I guess I've got another state of mind, because to me they are absolutely incomparable...

If comparing them is ridiculous to you, why do you compare them then? You yourself called Mylene's voice more powerful.

You think grades matter? How cute! :) I got an A in English as well, my English sucks, getting an A in a foreign language does not equal actually being good in it. I spend 5 years learning Latin, was constantly a B-student yet I don't understand a word of the language. xD

What exactly is funny and ridiculous to you? You have yet to bring a SINGLE argument, instead you ignore every point I make and try to make my entire posts seem less worthy.

And that's because your so-called objectivity is subjectivity while mine is objectivity. You talk about whose vocals you LIKE more, while I haven't even mentioned whose vocals I like more until now: I like Mylene's voice more, too, I just see that she is FAR from being a great vocalist. (And like Andrenekoi mentioned, she lips a lot, most of her "good vocal performances" are playback)

Well, I must disagree about that... As I consider both girls to be extremelly similar, both on the way they work their careers, the tone of their releases, their strong points, their low points and on the status their archivied on their own areas... I even consider Ayu to be more similar to Mylene than to Madonna.

honestly i think it's more bearable than her poker face sqeeks xD it's just terrible xD

(I honestly think you have some personality issues, the way you like to be bossy & dictate everything might indicate something of inferiority complex)

did I call her a great vocalist? you misquote again. I just mentioned she was better & more professional than Ayu at some points, because you've brought the topic of France & Mylene yourself. but you can't stand someone saying a word against your objectivity?

I wasn't implying she was ideal or smth, sorry to know you got it like that. as I've said, I cannot put them on the same level
and as I've said, I'm still waiting for the whole album to come to make up my mind, because her vocal at PoM last year was great, but CDL seemed bad for me. I do not understand all these her vocal tranformations at all. that's it.
it makes it all seem like either she doesn't care, or she doesn't have a technique...that's frustrating! she's a singer, after all...

YOU are the one misquoting there. I never quoted you as calling her a great vocalist. I said I realize she is not great, not that you don't. You mentioned she was better, yes, and that's the problem, because that is simply not a fact, yet you state it as one.
And I brought up voice ideals, I did NOT bring up comparing vocals, you did that. I also did NOT bring up France, that was brought up before me. You think I misquote you? You misquoted me 3 times in one short part of your post.

They are basically talking about as far as I can tell, mostly about differences in timbre which can to a certain extent be a result of different vocal techniques. Not about failing a song. I don't think anyone is trying to be bossy, just making sure in a more or less efficient and clear manner that the same thing is being discussed.
_
Obejctively, there's no ideal vocal timbre / quality for pop music IMO because it's so versatile and englobes elements of every other genre out there. As mentioned above, many reknown performes have rather poor ranges and capabilities compared to what's required for many other genres (musicals, operas, enka etc). There are however several "tradtions" or at least some sort of perceived ideals that apply to certain parts of pop music industry as well, which is why the average japanese female pop star sounds very different from the american one and why enka singers sound different to the members of AKB48. SO in a way it's measurable as long as one knows the measurements.

Ayu has problems with pitch, more so than most pop singers I can think of partially from being deaf, but also probably due to issues with her technique and exhaustion. I don't know why or who made her sing like she did on her first albums, but I don't think the way of singing she did during her first releases was very healthy for her voice at least considering her schedule. The more "natural" and less streneous one her voice way of singing was probably more similar to how she performed during idol on stage shows, which is deeper and a little more grounded sounding. It's like she pushed it too far, lost it and now is getting closer to finding a more comfortable way of doing it...

Personally I like the way her voice sounded back then more than how she sounds now though..

Compared to mylene since everyone seems to be, her timbre is very different, mylene has a very eerie and airy quality to her voice and as far as I can tell it's stayed mostly the same throughout her career. Ayu has always had a more piercing voice but it has gone through some pretty radical changes otherwise. Strangely I fin ayu's more versatile and interesting to listen to than mylene (even if her voice goes really well with certain types of music) also when ayu's off pitch and sometimes even more reciting than properly singing (this seems to happen a lot these days =/) or more husky. The main aspect of ayu's singing that keeps me coming back is the expression of and range of emtion she's able to convey, even at her "husky" stages. I can't think of any other singer capable of doig that except those that are foremost doing voice acting. Even among them, there aren't that many.

PS hope I made some sense. Hehe

Clever post, I bow to u :D

IMO both Ayu and Mylene (and any other top pop performer out there) has a huge emotional range while singing, something that is usually valued over technique on pop music, but obviously, the way them both shows those emotions are more apropriated to their own cultures and musical aesthetics, as French and Japanese don't use the exactly same ways to express the exactly same feelings... So, it's just natural that some people can relate more to one or another

Thanks for this post. That brought it all to one point, my phrasing may have given off a wrong impression sometimes but that was much of what I wanted to convey. :)

I agree with everything you've said. I do not know how we can be objective in such things as music taste/preferences, because normally someone founds something for himself in music/art/books, we cannot force 'likes/dislikes :)
and standards?

I just do not understand why me, a fan of 10 years, should be blamed for expressing my frustration. I have a right, anyway. I want a good quality product after all. my last Ayu album was...many years ago. and I am not happy about this.

glad to know someone thinks Mylene is different too. thank you:D

looks classy, me likey :yes

Ayu is better than Mylene, who the **** is she anyway?

^THIS.

^
How do you know when you dont know who she is? :laugh