I believe this is something she wrote on TA after a friend had committed suicide. I might be mistaken though.

Scenery from the Shinkansen in painfully beautiful shines in the rain
http://i.imgur.com/uUg5ZObl.jpg

She must miss her husband x

Her hair :heart She's looking so naturally beautiful these days!

reading all of her recent tweets, did her dog died?? they are so sad.. A BEST LIVE videos and everything

i'm kinda sure someone died, ugh this makes me feel so uneasy

from miccie instagram
http://i.imgur.com/zOGUJ0Kl.jpg

and ayu comment to previous photo from weibo
"I love rainy day. Especially at the night..... So beautiful........."

Her husband is still seen at her concerts, so he's likely to be in Japan with her.

That's one of my favorite performances ever and I had NEVER payed attention to Peco on it until now that you mentioned it.....

I don't miss Peco on the stage at all tbh, but it's good to know she's still around, she and Ayu are good friends :)

Yeah, I seem to remember that text from a TeamAyu entry from years back. Maybe when Bacchi died? Perhaps it's an anniversary.

Also one of her drivers died around this time few years ago?

I think that was the person that Life was dedicated to? Or did they really like the song...? I forget. I remember that they wanted to see Ayu but couldn't.

That's funny I was actually thinking today about Life and who it was dedicated to! So is that the story? Was it one of her drivers? If anybody can shed a light on this....

Wasn't it SAKURA? And that's why she axed it for the final shows of A BEST LIVE, it was too emotional for her and she was having a hard time with it?

Daijōbu
http://i.imgur.com/bfiZ2LM.jpg

^what is that?

It's like she's reflecting back a lot on her career/life these days, posting compilations of her on stage and pics like that

It's something she said a long time ago after the death of a loved one. I remember cause it was beautiful and I think I posted it to facebook lol.

Laughing ayu is always so adorable. Love her.

^ She's adorable laughing! I love that picture from Love songs, I feel like she's gonna eat my entire face.

"Thanks for 2 days, Shizuoka. We'll come back next year"
http://i.imgur.com/H5XBcQ5.jpg

That pictured confused me so much.

I thought I was looking at a boat on a river with the moon and a tree.

Note: refrain from AHS upon first waking up lolol

She considered quitting? Why?

I know she considered quitting when A BEST came out because she felt it meant the end of her career but i don't recall her wanting to quit when LOVEppears came out ?

Hasn't ayu always been almost quitting?

I smell new album and new tour 2016 from this message.

Well, I'm not going to complain.:rolleyes

Really ?

In many interviews I always read sentences like:
"I can't live without"
"Music is my life"
"I'm not quitting"

If you did not complain or criticize, this forum would not be AHS.

She mentioned she wanted to quit before A BEST released because Utada "gave" her lots of pressures. It was in the interview on TV (It's called Light and Shadow or something..)and then she cried in the interview.

Except Utada had nothing to do with it, so...?

^i think what they mean is that utada was releasing something at the same time as aye's A BEST came out and probably was getting successful so she had a lot of pressure to be better than her?

Most of the time the first Best album of a japanese artist that got big early is the last relevant release they will ever make. The artist goes from million seller to nobody, so, the first compilation is on several cases seen a headshot on the career.

Avex forced A Best on the same day as Distance to capitalize on the rivalry, and Ayu probably wasn't all that sure if there would be something left for her after that... This is actually the main theme from Duty (the album), her duty to keep her career going on even if she (thought she) knew everything would be over pretty soon.

The Girlpop interview from December 1999 is actually REALLY revealing about her state of mind after the A single (which I think did go into the "Duty" album a bit)...

She doesn't go into her reasons for it, but it seems that during the recording of "A" is when she started thinking she was ready to leave avex & stop singing. When "A" came out she didn't watch any music programs on TV, she didn't look at rankings - if she happened to see sales figures on TV by accident she'd change the channel as quickly as she could. She'd written "too late" as a sort of "goodbye letter" without really saying so in interviews or anything at the time, but fan messages & emails were like "This song feels like Ayu is going away, and I don't like it!" In the Girlpop interview Ayu said that the fans who sent those messages were actually pretty on point, and that she was actually VERY sure she wanted to stop... She apparently said she'd take some time to think about it after "A," even though she was pretty certain, but she did take that time - She actually spent about a month not coming into contact with anything that had to do with music, and then saw how she felt afterwards.

Fun fact, ayu had no idea what the sales figures were for "A" until after LOVEppears was done being made, and her reaction was just "...Eh?" lol

I'm still working on translating this interview... it's got some pretty interesting stuff, I'm really sad I never worked on it until now actually.

^She also said during AB2 promotion or the 10th anni that she only started to actually love what she was doing around the time of the Dearest single... So, the song is pretty important for her.

Some more stuff about it...
More here: http://homepage2.nifty.com/morimasa/love1.html

Kinda hard to follow as the author's self-translation is a bit awkward.

^I remember the blond girl from ABBA saying something similar about being "forced" to perform songs about personal issues... On her case, singing and performing songs about the failure of her marriage written by her soon to be ex-husband

The band Touche Amore has a great song about the same situation, actually (called "To Write Content"). It can't be easy when you're a singer or songwriter and your pain is also the source of your income and popularity, but at the same time it's really hard to write when you're not miserable, so what's the trade-off? You either lose your soul, or you lose your job cuz you don't have anything to sing about.

It was the public media pressure to her. At the time media often made comparison between her and Utada, and she has received lots of pressures from the public. I remember that was the reason. Utada didn't give her pressure directly.

Regarding Dearest, that was the first song in which ayu wrote and implied "management, go f*ck yourself. My personal love life should not be involved in my career and you could not control my love life. My songs should not be forced by you, f*ckers." That is the message behind Dearest PV. That's why she started loving what she did. :P

I believe this is more a case of personal taste than a fact... But for some reason we tend to see "negative" feelings as "more artistic" than "positive" feeling on the west...

^ don't they say that bad memories leave a deeper impression than the good ones?
I mean look at McQueen for example. It is very biased but that guy did very very dark stuff in his career and he was considered a genius at some point a provocateur, because it pulled strings of people's brain and hearts. They didnt know what to make of the things he did, and why he did them. We all know where he ended, though. I just think negative feelings in people make some of them think more out of the box, it beomes less direct and more abstract and symbolic.

All of those bad feelings have a lot of things mixed up in there, some that are taboo. Hapiness, however, is happiness. It always comes off as, well, happiness. Maybe that's why it's not so interesting.

Hey I agree with you for once lol

This. Andrenekoi, it's not personal taste alone, though that does enter into it. There's a difference between music as "art" and music as "entertainment." Entertainment is to be enjoyed; art is to be examined. Which one is which is up to the beholder, but I think it's safe to say that music that comes from negative feelings is far more likely to be art - subtle, nuanced, complex, and to me, more interesting. Music that comes from a happy place is gonna be more entertaining - simple, fun, most likely very solidly crafted and well-manufactured for consumption and enjoyment by most people (myself included, I DO like happy music a good deal of the time, it's just not my preference).

For those who listen to music as a form of escapist entertainment, a simple, content song is certainly preferable to musical sobfests. But for people who listen to music because they like hearing that someone understands how they feel, because they like having a sort of one-sided conversation with the musician, because they enjoy hearing how complex emotions are expressed musically, then music with at least some negativity to it is just plain more interesting.

I listen to too much music; when too much of it is simple, it's really dull and it all blends together. So I prefer sad music to happy music, like, 80-85% of the time.

There's already only a few different kinds of happiness. Luckily for my music taste, most of them at least have a negative counterpart to them - there's relief, for instance, after a long period of hardship or after a nerve-wracking experience. And there's also excitement, which by definition has a negative counterpart that you need to refer to for context. (for instance, "my work week sucked, so I'm excited about this weekend!")

If you're happy in a more profound, lasting sense - if you're content rather than excited or relieved - it's REALLY hard to write anything with any gravity to it. It's easy to just write "Everything's good, everything's fine, nothing's wrong - I got my house and my lover and my pets and my mom and some awesome co-workers & friends. How about you?" but is that gonna resonate with anyone? Not bloody likely. More likely it'll just piss them off because their lives aren't that dialed in.

I mean, think about it - when someone asks you how you're doing, the polite response is something like "Oh, just fine!" because no one wants to hear any more detail than that. And if you're fine, there's no detail to give! There's no story to tell without some kind of pain that you're growing from; there's no heroic tale without evil to vanquish.

Now, on the other hand, there are a TON of different negative feelings to write about - anger, mourning, fear, anxiety, doubt, low self-esteem, rejection, general malaise, embarrassment, and any combination of those since so many of those can lead to one or more of the others. And the specific situations that cause those things are manifold as well, and when you hear a song that sounds like it's totally about you, like it's about something you went through, the feeling of relief and calm and solidarity is immeasurably important to some of us.

I know, Andrenekoi, that you absolutely hate that I prefer when Ayu expresses negative feelings in her work, but I feel like her talent for nuance is wasted on joy. I think conveying complex emotions IS what she's best at, it's what MANY of her listeners prefer, not just me (and it's certainly what got her popular in the first place).

Besides, so few artists feel any need to express themselves when they're content. Contentment isn't a feeling you want to get out, it's something you wanna keep snuggled up inside you forever, you know? It's a struggle to get happiness out of our hearts and onto a piece of paper. Or a note on our phones.

For a very long time, the reason Ayu was able to write as much as she did (and as well as she did for her age) was because of the sorrow she felt, and her desire to treat negativity as something that wasn't necessarily bad. Because it's NOT! The human condition is about finding a balance between them - if you acknowledge the sadness within you, it can't sneak up on you and take you by surprise. If you address the things that cause you pain, that pain can heal better. Science has proven, for instance, that poking a bruise actually accelerates healing. Same goes for the pain in our minds & hearts - catharsis doesn't work, no, but you have to examine and diagnose problems in order for them to be fixed. You have to nurture both the dark and light parts of yourself, and Ayu has always known that. Her happy songs, at their best, are statements of relief or excitement - when she writes about happiness, it's always better if she does so with the sadness there as a contrast.

If "Dearest" was when she started truly liking her job, I can understand that - that's one of her best "happy" songs because it's so multifaceted. It's about "things suck sometimes, but you're there and you make it go away." It's about "I wasn't any good at this romance stuff at first, but we're together now and that's fantastic." It's not just "Yay! happy! Everything's great!" like many happy pop songs are.

When Ayu writes in a more 100% content way we get songs like "Hello new me" which isn't TOTAL drivel - it has some touches that elevate it above that - but it's pretty damn close.

Happyness can be pretty layered on it's own, and still be mostly set around "positive" feelings... Maternity for example produces wonderful songs, as does romantic love when the writter is actually trying... Ayu has some pretty interesting happy songs herself: Voyage, Virgin Road, November to say some at the top of my head. Strong religious sentment also tends to produce wonderful music. We tend to favour sadness over happiness as something "deep" or "complex", but a lot of joyful sentment can be pretty complex themselves... On the same way, sometimes sadness is just sadness (90% of Lana Del Rey's discography for example).

RUN TO THE HILLS EVERYONE!
I don't think we disagree all that much Ayu's career direction aside.

If to you happiness = escapism or entertaiment, I'm sorry for you, that must be hard. Sadness doesn't produce depthness, strong feelings or remarkable experiences does, and they don't need to be all bad. Ayu is a negative person, so, it's natural that she has very little positive music on her discography, but that's a fact about her, not about art in general.

If I didn't like my own share of sad music I wouldn't even be able to listen to Ayu (or Mylene Farmer) because a good 80% of her releases are depressing, even when they are meant to be fun. And I don't hate that you prefer her sad works over her positive ones, wtf? We aren't close enough for me to care how do you like the mood of your music... But you I do know you are on the gloomy side of the spectrum (or at least, this is how you seens to be based on what you post), and I find just natural that you feel a deeper conection with her sadder, darker material than you do with the happier and brighter. My favorite songs from her are all pretty dark themselves, but we are attracted to different aspects of her personal darkness. That being said, something isn't objectivelly more or less artist because you like that better or worst... On the same way it isn't more or less artist because I like it better or worst...

BTW... Her music since Colours is far less personal and it does make her recent releases to feel flatter.
But I'm not surprised, considering how much mess people made over the fact that she mixed her personal and public personas... Now she is giving us only the popstar side of her, what is exactly what people were asking during the whole Love triology drama.

Delirium-Zer0 I always adore the walls of text you posted =)

I can't feel ayu's happy songs, they are like fillers for me. I prefer her dark music. I want her to be happy, but for me she's better as artist when she shows her negative emotions.
On other hand, sad songs from other artists are like simple annoying whining that I can't stand. Mostly they are better when they happy


preparation to exhibition. Ayu also was there today
http://i.imgur.com/4pJ8lOGm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ZOwa5jPm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/MQprkXWm.jpg

Thank you for that link, it's really a bit hard to follow but this is so interesting to me. Especially since I haven't been a fan for a long time and finding out how complex ayu is just makes me love her more and makes me more interested in her.

And it may come as no shock to you that Virgin Road is the only one of those that I like - because of its darker overtones (the chorus doesn't end on a tonic, which makes it sound unfinished - whether Ayu realizes it or not, she sounds very nervous and doubtful in this song, and like she WANTS to be happy, but isn't entirely confident she will be). I find Voyage cheesy and disingenuous, and I find November very nondescript although I like the rhythm of the chorus. I don't understand why anyone would hate OR adore November, it's competent and only okay to me. I find it contributes very little.



While your patronizing comment is amusing, it's based on the faulty assumption that hearing a sad song means i'm wallowing in my misery (and you're not the only AHS member to make a similar comment so I now feel the need to address it).

In fact, it's inspirational and uplifting in a way that happy music can never be. When I hear a sad song that reminds me of an upsetting event, I'm not hearing sadness - I'm hearing the singer's willingness to be vulnerable, open up, and get on their feet for long enough to tell their story. I don't hear the pain, I hear the recovery, and that in turn helps me recover.

I don't NEED escape from happiness, so I don't need happy music. I would need escape from sadness - so I listen to sad music to help me heal, because it makes me feel less alone and reminds me that if someone can be sad in similar ways and yet still be successful, still get up & go to work in the morning, still have friends and family who love her... then I can too.

:yesMy how things changed over the years. Lol.

^ they certainly did :dead2

But then they changed back for the good lol.

I think that ayu is pretty down admitting she has done many mistakes, in all the years of Love songs~LOVE again (excluding FIVE which was kinda taking off from the whole issues), she made major mistakes and admitted them later (up to and on A ONE), and the albums were talking about the mistakes themselves, but it was just after Maro/LOVE again where I think she stopped herself while she still could from making more major mistakes.

I never said you used sad music to wallow on your miser, on the same way I love my sad music but don't listen to it in order to wallow on my own miser either... And I don't personally think there's anything bad on the way you consume your art, but I find it funny that you got bothered by my "patronizing" comment, considering how patronizing you tend to be towards me most of the time :P I just think that your personal taste in music and how/why you like what you isn't a global standart of artistic merit to anyone that isn't you, on the same way my personal tastes say very little about artistic merit ot anyone else but me.

Another one of Ayu's happy songs: Rainbow, and this is probably my favorite happy song from her.

From a RP point of view, she did several mistakes... Other than that (and I won't enter on the discussion of the quality of her releases at the time), she was pretty much doing what she done her whole career at that point: capitalizing on pop music that talked about her personal issues. IMO it's less about she exposing herself (considering her career is basically her exposing herself over and over again) and more about people disliking her love life choices. Had her marriage with Mannie worked out or had the Maro relationship not ended on scandal, people wouldn't be as turned off by the "discovery" that Ayu isn't some pure virgin idol.

MV shooting (ง • _ •) ง
with KO @Benjamin_OHBOY & LICO @CHELICOPY

bang cutted to high
http://i.imgur.com/1ZQrpOGl.jpg

Ayu..please created something dark but conceptual and creative out of the box...symbolysm all of over the place...

Not lico again x.......x

Lico and ko...maybe they're just like...the choreographers. Please.

XOXO again :headache:headache:headache

Warning also was created by A CREW, it wasn't that bad... let's hope new video will be good

:no i really hope Lico isn't on this PV again.. i liked her earlier but she's like new Timmy nowadays. IN YOUR FACE-kinda style

I really love these articles and I wish there would be more!!
the aothor has some great insight and interpretations in all things ayu
I read these essays about once a year. I don't think anybody else did a cohesive analysis like this? if yes, please tell me <3

p.s.: is there a threat with lyric and pv interpretations/analysis?
after reading the lyrics to "too late" I am very interested what people have to say about it :yes

Long shooting finally ended
Thanks to KO @Benjamin_OHBOY LICO @CHELICOPY Alvin @alvingohsg
http://i.imgur.com/PKt7QXxl.jpg

^ She looks so young and fresh! :heart

Ayu totally dropped Timmy for Lico.

seems like a summer PV...the clothes and everything

Alvin Goh again, I wonder if he'll be the photographer of her new mini album or not...

^he is her stylist, not photographer

weibo: "I know I know.... I cut my bangs too much...... Sooooo short!!!!!!!! Lol"

I do not need any PV if it's cheap and tacky

I'm going to have to agree with Andrenekoi here. I don't think positive emotions automatically mean a work is entertainment and negative emotions are much more inherent in art. In fact, I'd argue that joyful art requires even more skill to create. And I can think of many examples of art with dimensions of happiness: Shakespeare's comedies, Aristophanes, great children's literature (Alice in Wonderland, for example), musical and comedy films. If this is true in these art forms, then shouldn't these naturally extend toward music? The Barber of Seville, several pieces of classical music, several Beatles songs, several Ringo Shiina songs. I'd actually argue that it takes someone who has been to or knows the darkest of places to create truly joyful music, in the same way that the most unapologetic of atheists can create great religious art (Pasolini). All I'm saying is that I disagree that happy music cannot contain the nuance or depth that darker music affords. Nuance and depth lie in the skill of the artist, not in the mode of expression.

That said, I think that Ayu is strongest expressing herself in darker music, but I do wholeheartedly enjoy her happy music as well. I believe that Voyage has the same insight, depth, and nuance in its understanding of human love as her darker songs, and November is highly underrated. It is a song of complete, unabashed, and unmitigated joy, without irony or cynicism which can often times be tiresome and cliche in works of a lighthearted nature. I do believe that Ayu is more prone to depth and insight when she resorts to darker music, but that doesn't mean that her joyful pieces aren't capable of the same. Ayu is a more well-rounded artist than one who can only find the truth about human nature in darker places. Although, frankly, it's been a while since she has managed to capture the rawness and essential nature of human emotion in her music. Much of her recent stuff feels tired and phoned in.

Just no another Shake It and XOXO PV..

WARNING is alright. Just be good and creative. Good PV does not need to be fancy and expensive.

Uuuh... I suddenly wanna reproduce.

All changes for Yoyogi confirmed (?)
http://i.imgur.com/UtVxuF3l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/GrjufAql.jpg

Is ayu wearing an UN (Urata Naoya) hat? lol.

^ omg, I'd have never noticed that!

Her high bangs look super-cute IMO

Ayu lost lyrics

Toilet again? (no pun intended)

Didn't she say they were on iCloud? Still, girl won't learn to keep her lyrics safe lol

I wonder how she lost them this time, but if they're on her icloud then it's fine

She doesn't sound confident, but Ayu rocks the short bangs.

Nooooo
Ayu ha body excretion masterpiece is on its way.
"I don't give a shit feat. Koda Kumi"
"I gotta go (held it all day)"

OMG now I wanna see this happen haha

この夏に魔法をかけていたいよ、ずっと。

そして君の隣にいさせてよ、ずっと。

http://i.imgur.com/mrgB2dJm.jpg



@ayu_meg725: Is it lyrics for new song?
@ayu_19980408: Maybe this is lyrics of this year's summer song

@ayu_19980408: Maybe at night I will show another summer song (?)

https://scontent-gru1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...41&oe=55FABBE6

Taiwanese boy group? I can't think of anything ... but who knows ... Lollipop F? JPM? EXO It seems out of the question

^ wonder if it'll be like Namie and jolin's I'm not yours. Hopefully!!

Interested I all the sudden info!

I hope we get a super emotional ballad.

Not on the mini album since it will only have up beat songs.

So ayu pretty much admits that she has in some years a yearly summer song lol (Greatful days, You & Me, July 1st, BLUE BIRD, glitter, fairyland etc.)

EXO isn't remotely Taiwanese and all their Chinese members jumped ship anyway lmao

Also ew I hope it's not a collab

It's highly possible to be Spexial...
https://www.facebook.com/SpeXialofficial

^someone on an other forum basically said it was them, dunno how they know but... lol this is sooooo going to be a collab mark my words xD

They mentioned that they are working with a diva and from their social media, they started following ayu... so pretty obvious... just hope the collaboration is gd...

I've never been on Ayu's Weibo before so I didn't realise she posted in English so often on it. I did quite like when she referred to herself as a "typo queen" lol.

Another asian collab, I can't wait!

I am a little disappointed as the choice :no . Taiwan has so many artists and groups ... SPEXIAL? Really? :( It does not seem so good, but I will wait for the release anyway ...
After all if Ayu is involved it can be wonderful ...

i am... not digging these guys....

I wish she went for a K-pop band instead, but let's see how this turns out

Why is that the band suspected? Did they say anything? Was there any info on Taiwanese news? Just wondering why people are suspecting this band.

I'm not bothered either way, just generally curious lol

They tweeted about working with a diva and followed Ayu recently.

About 10 days ago:
Something about being in talks to work with a top Japanese superstar.

LOL...why the hell didn't Ayu just work with a group like BIGBANG when they expressed the desire to do so years ago..now she's doing a collab with some nugu Taiwanese group? I can't..

Gotcha ;)

Their production/execution seems better than Ayu's lol so I'm actually excited.

Actually I think she did tried... remember the tweet she gave after seungri said that he would like to collaborate with her during a radio telecast?... think he's just slip out of his mouth and the rest of the members or maybe the management doesn't allow it...

Praying for Ayuma ha choices. Maybe they'll help each other though. Ayuma's gotta help the lessers.