Originally Posted by ayu_fan929

Meh. Article is based on a westerners POV and probably for Western audiences. What matters is Japanese POV. However, I do agree the middle singles were kind of boring. The beginning and the end were good. I would've given the album a B.

Originally Posted by Akurei

I also Read that persons comments about Namie Amuro. And I will Honestly say that their an a - -

Originally Posted by that Francis guy who wrote the column before the Teresa woman

In this series, clicks’n’cuts dilettante Francis Henville describes his descent into the netherworld of Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean commercial pop. Track by track, he navigates deeper into the genre, searching for ever-more-toothsome morsels with which to satiate his jaded appetite…


Ayumi Hamasaki
Moments (Acoustic Piano Version)


Is Ayumi Hamasaki even real? Plug her name into Google’s image search and her face will pop up. Surely human beings like her couldn’t have existed before the industrial revolution. In the cuteness category, she makes Bjork look like Meatloaf. I prefer to think of her as a calcification of caste, breeding and modern elitism, secreted by years of consumption and eventually congealed into the perfect delicacy.

Of course, beauty wouldn’t be beauty without an expiry date. But for now, Ayumi is one of the strongest marketing tools Japan has, and she is used to sell every species of clothing, cell phone, makeup, television program and food that can’t be sold without the blessing of flawless twenty-something estrogen. When I went to Taiwan in 2000, her first album had just come out, and I remember seeing enormous images of her in a gattopardo catsuit—pouting, flipping a limp wrist—plastered to the exteriors of multistory music retailers. (I’m sure that image fueled the disgusting imaginations of the furries that Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka always aims his diatribes at.)

I hated Ayumi’s music. Most of her biggest hits were moronic, glassy happy-hardcore songs that battered the tiny speaker-systems of street vendors and bulk candy stores. And since then she has recorded albums that have milked the enormous teats of the lowest common denominator, jumping from lifeless techno to impotent rock to insincere ballads. Despite Ayumi’s figure, her music seems inherently fattening, and full of bad cholesterol.

This year, her biggest single has been “Moments,” which I found impossible to keep down until I heard this version. Her vocals are accompanied by a single piano, playing a simple but carefully inflected arrangement. It’s a track that lets you put her voice under a microscope.

And a new world is revealed. Ayumi sings lead and backup on this track, but she’s most effective when replicating herself in unison. Rather than rerecording the song with a rubato pianist, it seems that her producers have simply replaced the original pathetic rocking backing tracks with a piano. This piano couldn’t possibly be what Ayumi heard as she laid down her parts.

Her voice is full of breathless anticipation: perhaps she is imagining the future heights of media penetration and profit that her career will reach. Although her phrasing is carefully contrived, her voice has none of the whininess of Christina Aguilera’s, and when you place her next to American Idols, they seem like soulless husks. What’s more, the piano arrangement allows the unquestionable professionalism of Ayumi’s songwriters to shine through.

Not understanding the words, I’ve come to conceive of this as a paean to marketing. Play this track on headphones and look up at the bald blue sky, and you’ll hear her negotiating the price of the clouds and the distant birds. It’s impossible to think of Ayumi addressing this song to any lover but capitalism.

Poor thing. I wonder if she can lust after anyone as much as they can lust after her? It’s not enough for her to be stunningly proud and weak. No matter how many mirrors she looks into, she’ll never be attracted to her own exquisite lines. She couldn’t possibly love herself enough. I believe she knows this, and as evidence I submit the desperately polished perfection of her performance on this track.

Originally Posted by truehappiness

The guy who wrote one Ayu review was like.. high or something cause he's like badmouthing her.. and not...

Originally Posted by Josh Love

By now everyone knows the cultural stereotype—the Japanese are hopelessly, adorably behind the curve when it comes to Western music styles. Need I remind you how Full House’s Jesse Katsopolis and his band Jesse and the Rippers scored a number one hit in the land of the rising sun with the hairspray-damaged power ballad “Forever”—in 1992?

But seriously, how Japan’s sluggish echo chamber ever became pejorative is beyond me. One listen to multi-platinum princess Hamasaki Ayumi’s newest release, My Story, opens up a world of possibilities for pop-rock cross-pollination that our current slew of ingénues can barely imagine.

See, America’s rocker chick revival is fairly recent, which may explain why it still sounds so clean. Adding guitars marked a huge leap of faith in the post-Britney era, and the transition needed to sound as seamless as possible. The resultant Avrils and Ashlees may rock, but it’s tastefully, tamely done, the baby steps necessary after a forced derail from the dance-pop gravy train (more on the inherent silliness of such a split later).

On the other hand, like her fellow countrymen who’ve taken it upon themselves to sustain the careers of Night Ranger, Nelson, and Mr. Big, Ayu isn’t at all averse to pop-metal cheese, which we Yanks appreciate in a VH1-list kinda way but don’t actually want to hear on the radio anymore, despite the fact that it can still be brilliant when properly used. “Moments” seems like innocuous pop-rock fluff until the sweet-ass Guns ‘n’ Roses-styled solo comes out of nowhere and sends it into the stratosphere, never to return. “Liar” and “My Name’s Women” are also coated in the stuff, the former with a riff that exudes twice the sleaze and abandon of “La La” and “He Wasn’t” combined.

Of course, Ayu’s not just a momentary idol that happens to pack a few hot hard-rock licks. She’s arguably Japan’s biggest and most beloved pop star of this millennium, an industry standard that inspires messianic devotion from schoolgirls and salarymen alike.

Not only does Ayu hawk an array of products and set fashion trends as often as most folks do laundry, she delivers at the cash register as well, single-handedly accounting in 2002 for 42.6% of the revenues earned by Japan’s most lucrative record label, Avex.

Certainly savvy marketing plays an estimable role here, but listening to Ayu’s music makes it abundantly clear how she’s able to fill the girl-for-all-seasons role. For one, she pens all of her own lyrics, and while I know you’re already rolling your eyes cuz the authenticity defense is always Dullsville, you have to admit that Ayu’s poetic inclinations lend another fascinating element to her music, and in fact her verses account for a large part of her appeal in her native country (the translations are definitely worth a Google, especially “My Name’s Women,” the most sonically derivative and ridiculously artificial track on the album, which also happens to be a fiercely pro-feminist tirade against sexual exploitation—“Me Against the Music” indeed).

More importantly, however, while American chart pop remains highly compartmentalized (Brit and Jojo’s dance-pop here, Ashlee and Avril’s rock moves there, the more introspective and “serious” Vanessa Carltons somewhere else), Hamasaki gladly salts her club-ready hits with power-chord propulsion and spices up her unrepentant rock with credible beat science. Maybe “About You” sounds like a cut from Under My Skin superimposed with Japanese lyrics, but “Game” is on some next-level ****, initially a New Age red herring that quickly blows up into pure dance-rock madness. Hell, “Inspire” actually sounds sorta Latin even, the kind of groove Paulina Rubio could easily own, but a Japanese girl with a fondness for mall-punk guitars? Muchas gracias, Mr. Roboto.

Originally Posted by walking proud

A lot of Jpop artists have more talent than her and have been working hard to get their name out but only get barely any CD sales because they don't have marketing campaigns- and it only takes Koda Kumi 3 months to get herself in the limelight.. That's kind of disappointing.

Originally Posted by MC Tatsujin

*cough eri nobuchika cough angela aki cough*

Originally Posted by walking proud

I believe that the person that wrote this article was very accurate. I'm not going to comment on the oversexed comment, but I will say something about the whole, "She's managed to make it into the spotlight through a clever marketing campaign" thing. A lot of Jpop artists have more talent than her and have been working hard to get their name out but only get barely any CD sales because they don't have marketing campaigns- and it only takes Koda Kumi 3 months to get herself in the limelight.. That's kind of disappointing.

Originally Posted by tobygirl2020

Right. And the very same thing can be said about Ayumi Hamasaki. You don't think that there were other artists who could sing better and who had better songs when Ayu debuted with weak vocals and bad songs on her first album? That there were other artists who were sturggling to make it big, who weren't discovered in a karaoke bar, who were going from label to label trying to get signed? And yet Ayu made it big with what? Oh yeah clever marketing as well. The girl who could write lyrics, face was everywhere, put out tons of material for fans to gobble up. Koda Kumi and Ayu may have different images, but their promotional techniques really weren't that different. :innocent

And why compare Koda Kumi to artists like Angela Aki or Eri? They are totally different breeds of artists. Kumi is not out there to produce thought provoking material, she said that she wants to make songs that people will sing in karaoke bars and that will be liked by a lot of people. That does not make her worse than those artists. I bet you watch TV shows and read books that hold no thought provoking material, that you read for pleasure, and yet I don't see you complaining about why writers with "more talent" don't have their shows on TV or books on shelves . . . :rolleyes

Let this be a lesson to the thread creator--at AHO, keep all Koda Kumi discussions in her thread, unless you want it to turn into a bash-fest.

Originally Posted by tobygirl2020

Right. And the very same thing can be said about Ayumi Hamasaki. You don't think that there were other artists who could sing better and who had better songs when Ayu debuted with weak vocals and bad songs on her first album?

Originally Posted by truehappiness

Oh, it's not just because of her dressing sexy...