About 2 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to JPOP. The first song she sent me was evolution by Ayumi Hamasaki. I wasn't quite sure how to react to it. It was definitely different than anything I ever heard before. I didn't know if I liked it or not so I put it on the backburner for a while.

Eventually, I had began to learn about more artists and slowly shifted from listening to domestic music to JPOP. I then started buying CDs. I got Utada Hikaru's 3 albums, First Love, Distance, and Deep River, Porno Graffitti's Foo?, and Ayumi Hamasaki's I am... Unfortunatly...I am...didn't get as many spins because at the time, Hikki had completely attracted my attention.

I then started to download any video clips I could find from Kazaa. When I started looking up Ayu videos, I was amazed by how many clips there were out there. So I started downloading and downloading. A lot of the videos that I got were from her LOVEppears album. The TO BE PV was the one that completely turned me over and I became an avid fan since then. This came about right when RAINBOW was released. So I picked up that album and it came with a coaster! SCORE!

damn...this thread again LOL!...well heres my story, ah i started dating this girl...and well, i was and still am a big trance freak :D and i asked her for somce good techno adn she sent me M (Above and Beyond Remix) oh man!!!! after that song, i started to be a big ayu fan...which was....4 years ago...jhaha yup!!! :) 4yrs of being a ayu fan!! :D

I was only 11 when I saw Ayu for the first time but I didn't have a good impression on her, the first album I saw of hers was LOVEppears (!) and I was shocked at this girl going half nude for the album (okie I was really conservative and narrow-minded when I was younger) and didn't like her at all. It was until end of 2000 when she was so hard to ignore on the tv that I tried downloading an mp3 of her which is SEASONS and got hooked to it, then I slowly ventured into all her other music and came to what I know of her today :)

Well, I've been into "techno" music for a long time now. By techno I mean trance, club, house, jungle, etc, etc etc... Back when Napster first started to get big I used to download all kinds of music and a lot of times I would just search Napster for a remixer's name...like I would just type in Hex Hector or Jonathan Peters or whomever and download whatever I could find. One day I typed in Johny Vicious and from that search I downloaded the Johny Vicious remix of Automatic by Utada Hikaru and really liked it. I downloaded some other things from her, like First Love and noticed a lot of the files had "jpop" in the title, so I thought I'd find out more about jpop and I started searching Napster for it. It wasn't long until I discovered Ayumi, and I was immediately drawn to her because of her abundance of remixes. Well, when I searched the internet for more information on her, I found her cd's for sale. I think it was on the old angelpop website, before it became yesasia, and there I found her two newest singles M and Evolution had clips that you could listen to, and when I previewed those songs, I was in LOVE. I bought both of the singles on the spot and I haven't even looked back since!

mine was about 5 years ago... that was when the BEST of J POP vol one cd was out... so it was when jpop was gaining popularity in asia n singapore... i was watching this channel on tv, a local one...so it was showing Ayumi's YOU pv!!! wow i immediately fall in love with her... i like her type of music and voice.. i just liked it !! ^^ and that time was about november of the yr if im not wrong... and not long ASFXX is released and there is also one radio station keep on promoting her cd... and i get so into her liked that... but too bad i didnt have internet connection back then... so kind of too bad.. but now i have ... hahaha i can get to know her more which i m so glad.... ^^

A couple of years ago when I first started buying stuff at YesAsia, I noticed Ayu's releases mentioned. When I got Kazaa I started downloading her stuff to see what it was like. I don't remember what song I downloaded first, but amongst one of the first ones were Naturally and Endless sorrow. The more I downloaded, the more I liked, so I started buying CDs.

hahaahahha!! thats so cool! :D

I started to like ayu last year. But I knew about ayu at around 3 yrs ago. A friend told me her favourite singer is ayumi hamasaki. At that time, I only liked Chinese songs so I ignored that. I only knew there was a Jpop singer called ayu at that time.
Last year, when I was taking the bus, I saw a PV on the bus's TV. It's the forgiveness PV. I thought the song was quite special and was quite different from Cantonese songs. The PV was beautiful and I tried to download it on the Net. Then I found No way to say. After listening to it, I bought the No way to say single and listened to Seasons and Dearest... That's how I was hooked :)

Well, it doesn't hurt to tell this story again, I think - and after all, it makes me feel nostalgic, and I love feeling nostalgic.

I was a big fan of Chrono Cross a while back (still am, actually) - I loved that game to death and played it through a whole lot of times. On top of that, I've always loved game soundtracks. I also had the Chrono Cross soundtrack and gave the thing lots and lots of spins - but always skipping the one regular vocal track on it, 'Radical dreamers ~unstolen jewel~', since I somehow figured I wouldn't like it anyway. In any case, I was listening to the soundtrack some day and forgot to skip that very track - and my god, was I happy to have forgot to do that! What I heard was a tremendously beautiful song, with beautiful, astonishing vocals. I went and looked for information on the song and who did the vocals, and came up with a name: Noriko Mitose. However, I didn't find a whole lot of info on her, and certainly no music by her. I did want to find more music like this though, and somehow figured 'would this be Jpop?', having heard the term being used once and not paying attention to it. I ran a search on KaZaA (yes, still had KaZaA back then) for 'Jpop' and came up with a number of songs. I randomly downloaded a few and then I heard Ayu's Seasons and Immature. Absolutely BRILLIANT. I deleted all the other Jpop and started downloading more and more by Ayu - I immediately got addicted. Bought her albums soon after. Can remember it like it was yesterday - I can still pinpoint the exact day I downloaded those songs: April 18th, 2003 - it was a Sunday, if I'm not mistaken. About five o' clock in the afternoon.

lol..it must be an unforgettable day to ya!

I was listening to an online Jpop radio station when Ayu's independent came on...i made a note to myself to check out that song since it was rather catchy. At the same time, the name "Ayumi Hamasaki" seemed rather familiar, like a big artist. But when i heard the whole song of Independent, i was turned off by her voice...then slowly at different sites, i saw bit by bit some of her songs, but it took me a long time to get into her stuff...i really liked Real Me though. However, i also read some articles and interviews on her, and totally disagreed with her perspective; she didn't seem like a good role model to me. Then after a long time, i got bored from some Jpop songs and decided to download some Ayumi songs. Soon enough, i became a big fan!!
By the way, now i totally agree w/ her on some things...she did have a rough life before getting in the music industry...probably what makes her such an outstanding artist because she knows the hardships of life and conveys it through her songs...

My friend sent me Ayu Trance 3 the day it was released (September 25th 2003?), he knew I liked some Japanese music and maybe it would interest me (I liked Hikki a lot and Maaya Sakamoto without knowing it..) I really liked the album, I listened to it a thousand of times. Then I looked up who was that girl with a weird voice singing. It was a Japanese singer I never heard about before, called "Ayumi Hamasaki". Then I found this website and I looked up some pictures of her. I was freaked out by most of her album covers, especially LOVEppears and I began to hate Ayu because of her "sexy" looks. Silly me. :rolleyes My friend was always talking about her, it was quite annoying. I decided to find out what was so great about this big eyed, naked Japanese girl with a strange and nasal voice. I browsed more and more websites... and I tried downloading more of her songs, original ones this time. I was really shocked by her original songs, since I first heard them remixed. I found UNITE!, WE WISH, flower garden and July 1st which was my favourite original Ayu song at that time. I joined some forums, got used to her original songs, watched her kickass CMs and I became a fan in October 2003. My friend stopped talking about her when I became a fan. :laugh

I blame vinylfantasy... He sent me a bunch of her trance and got me hooked.

DDR has Jpop songs -> Internet has songs for download -> Download random JPop songs -> Like ayu the most -> Follow ayu! :]

I cant quite remember when it was, but I can easily look it up.

I read about Ayumi in an article in a german anime and manga magazine.
it only featured a short collumn about her but I made me really interested and the same day I dl my first Ayu songs
(SEASONS, appears, etc.) and I loved her right from the start.

a few days later I joined the first Ayu Forum (well it was rather a BBS back then) AyuDesign (soo nice memories :) ).

and then another few days later I orderd my first CD's at CDJapan.
^________^ she's still my absolute favorite

I saw her picture and thought she was sexy.


..lol. I was on Neopets, (yess wayyy back when) and I saw a pretty girl on a user profile's background. And I saw her name there, and for no reason, I just searched, and I saw that she was this big singer in Japan, and one day I decided to search for her on Kazaa and I DLed Seasons. ..and I was like, "what the hell O_o" and eventually I ended up like it, and now I like her music and yay :D

I'd heard her name mentioned on a message board some time long ago, and then I went to Chinatown and saw one of her concerts. I got it, and it was awesome, and I've liked her ever since.

Well, about a year ago my cousin was flipping through her songs and showed me Endless sorrow by an Ayoomi Hama-whatsit (that's what I called her >.>), but I like Endless sorrow anyway. Eventually, I forgot about this and was searching for random artists on WinMX. XD So, I actually remembered her full and proper name, and searched, to see what I'd find. Surprisingly, many results popped up, and I stumbled upon evolution (Time Is Pop mix). I fell in love with this song, and immediately recognized it after watching a flash cartoon that featured Ayu's evolution and it had it in the credits. So, I was curious. I downloaded Fly high, immature, Real me and the original version of evolution. I fell in love with her music, but eventually drifted away. Again. So, I was listening to random songs one day, and found these songs and couldn't believe I forgot about them. So, I downloaded Boys & Girls, Moments and Voyage and yeah. I got addicted again, this time for good. I downloaded more and more and more and eventually, that's lead me to download other Japanese songs too. Yay.

i actually got into her a long time ago... from SEASONS. but it wasn't until fall of last year where i became a hardcore fan... my best friend liked her, and got July 1st as a ringtone for me (Which i still use!), then I started to look for songs... and it's history from there.

My dad actually played the acoustic orchestra version of SEASONS... at first, I thought it was SPEED, but I later found out it was Ayu, and it was on all my burnt CDs since.