Love the picture! Love the pose, it does remind me of LOVE&HOPE. Love the outfit!
If I could change anything it would be the hairstyle. I prefer a messy look, instead of a flat/wet hair.

that pic in full would have made a great cover. I'm not asure why they cropped it so awkwardly.

And i think we should meet people we idolise, only then you can actually appreciate who they are when you realise they are just an other human being, like you.

Every time I saw how many viewers in this new album topic, I thought I would get some new info about the album...

OOT: That picture of her, I think it's only me who saw her like Morticia lol

Really nice pic. Regarding a collaboration between Ayu and Madonna, I don't know how to feel if it's was true.

because she's gonna reuse the shot for the new album cover KEKEKEKEKE

The picture is gorgeous :heart

the negotiation between the record companies is problematic with Britney Spears took two years , then I imagine that with Ayu could be an even longer negotiation...

I'm hoping we get news regarding the new album in the next month or two, even though Ayu should be focusing on A BEST's ani' release. I loved A ONE and Sixxxxxx, and I consider them two halves of the same whole, but I really hope Ayu produces an album that has a diversity of tracks (i.e. the major criticism of A ONE was the numerous ballads present), but also achieves that cohesiveness that A ONE exemplified. I think I would like to see another (miss)understood. All the tracks are different enough, but you can tell they were birthed from the same era.

idk if it's that opposite, at least for Ayu. She did become immensely popular in part for her deep lyrics and music. She also stood out for her differentiated sound compared to what was common at the time... But then again, now a days most fans seem happier with a safe album like A ONE than something deeper and different like Party Queen, so maybe you're right about that.

Well, most of her biggest hits are the summer/winter singles, that are also her safest releases most of the time. She did have some big weirder tracks like M, evolution, Surreal, but most of the time she goes through her major hits, there will be a lot of innofensive ballads (even if some are pretty af) bubbly mid tempos.

As you can see almost the last 2 pages of this thread went to trash.
Please stick to discussing new album news (new photos or recording discussion are good) and refrain from bashing other users bringing Madonna/sexism/comparisons and attracks.
Thank you.

Isn't it a little bit logical ? People who are not melomane are more receptive to these kind of "safe"songs especially if they are seasonal like summer or winter songs because they put you in the mood lol

I wish she would release singles again. It's the best possible promotion she can give her albums, and what has been sorely missed in the preceding...six, eight years? I do miss her double A sides. Rule/Sparkle, Days/GREEN, You were.../BALLAD, MOON/blossom, they are what ultimately sparks interest in an artist...we had Zutto.../Last minute/Walk relatively recently, and it really was a welcome return to form. I don't feel the giddy excitement for Ayu's albums that I did prior to 2010 as now I simply expect Ayu to release a digital single, or churn out a few track snippets a few weeks before the album is due.

Essentially, before her 20th anniversary, I want her to promote the **** out of an original album. I want her to make an effort to really sell an album to me. It's probably not going to be this album, but I hope in the next year or two we finally see Ayu fully exercise her public profile and appeal to the public with her words as she did before.

she can totaly produce something like six themed with some colours vibes hidden inside the tracks! although i dont like colours some of her beats are very listenable.

Would love if the album turns out like Sixxxxxx A one or Colours!
enjoyed those albums a lot so anything like that is welcome by me.

I do think this is logical, that's why I don't expect anything deeper even if I want it xD

Colours, A One and Sixxxxxx seemed to do really good to her public image, so I can't even get pissed at her for getting a safer road for a while

Mostly Ayu's albums just need to sound complete and finished. A ONE was such a return to form IMHO not because of its genre or its lyrics (although they do help), but because it didn't sound like a ton of demos. It sounded like it was done. Good mixing, good flow, a couple of bonus tracks that were indeed bonus tracks rather than lazy additions to the album. With Colours the tracks sounded finished (even if they weren't great) but the album itself felt like a thrown-together, unfinished concept and the "seriously, amateur youtubers do better than this" videos didn't help.

LOVE again likewise sounded like a bunch of demos - Yuta Nakano's same-sound-over-and-over approach to string-based ballads was a death sentence for the album IMHO. The mini-albums had some truly great tracks on them that actually sounded ready for release, like "Wake me up" and "Sweet scar," but the album had stuff like "Bye-bye darling" that just didn't sound like it had been polished & completed yet, which kills me cuz the instrumentation is actually pretty excellent... but with the right mix, and some added flourish here & texture added there, it coulda been the new "Liar" or "kiss o' kill."

Party Queen would have absolutely been an old school style Ayu album in most of the right ways (she used to ALWAYS sort her albums more or less by genre, in case most of you have forgotten lol, and yes it was always awkward that she did so) IF the mixing & production had sounded finished. The production isn't NEARLY beefy or textured enough. I do also think the design team misused some of the photos from the "Super Ayu" shoot for the booklet... for instance, the photo with Timmy really shouldn't be there at all, it derails the entire message.

Recent songs have been formulaic, perhaps, but when there is a problem that's not what it is. The problem is the production.

Ayu's songs, at their best, pack some sort of emotional punch - lyrically, yes, but the sound has to do it too. And that means bass in the right places, synth fills when needed, simplicity when the song calls for it, strings as punctuation & emphasis rather than the foundation of an entire pop track. It means a more raw, less cleanly rehearsed sound to some of the more emotional songs. It means reverb & echo in the right places. It means planning out "okay, what is this song communicating?" and "what is the BEST way to convey that feeling through sound?".

Right now Ayu's production seems focused on ironing out imperfections and sanding out any unintended texture (things like cracked vocals, instrumentation that's slightly off-time, guitar fret noises, piano that sustains too long, etc) which results in a flat, synthesized, plastic, fake-sounding record about 99% of the time.

Sometimes that timing & vocal perfection is necessary, like with EDM, but even then you want some echo, some real guitar, some synth with a scratchy sound to it in order for it to sound finished and genuine (see "Sparkle" for an excellent example, and more recently, "Lelio" worked VERY well and I do think fans responded to it.)

But like, I think "Sorrows" isn't anywhere near as effective as "Last minute." Musically they have a LOT of similarities, and even the same chord progression through most of the song, but "Sorrows" sounds like it isn't quite done yet. It sounds like a demo made in GarageBand in many ways. The mix is "good enough" but it's not perfect. And that's the gist of most of what Ayu has released recently - it's "good enough." But no better than that.

They should have shown more of this photo for the cover of A7. I don't think the hair looks awkward, nor the ear piece, nor the glossy look in her eyes, when I see the full picture.

Plus, what a beautiful outfit!

They really missed out on a good cover.

Both Sorrows and Last minute are examples of how little her team seem to pay attention to the arrangements and mixing of her albums now a days.

I totally agree about the unfinished and unpolished feel of her latest works. I'm not one to notice bad mixing that much, but on some of her newer works the poor mixing is so obvious that it's kinda impossible not to be bothered by it, like Last minute, Sorrows or nearly all LOVE again. I don't even dislike those, but the mixing do bother me anytime I listen...

What I want the most for her isn't a certain gender or type of songs, in that sense I just wish her to do whatever se truly feels like doing, but I really want the attention to detail she and her team used to have, with good mixing and arrangements that suit the feeling of the song (and an album that sounds overall cohesive is always welcome as well).

I listen to LOVE again today and the production sounds so flat, even compared to Party Queen. There's almost no kick to the kick drums, and it just sounds muddy, like every instrument is playing in the same space and on the same part of the spectrum. Which is sad because Ayu has some memorable tracks on there, like SAKURA and Ivy.

Compared to snowy kiss, TSMGO has a lot more depth and dynamic to it, but her vocals are still too compressed.

So I have to agree that what's hurting Ayu's recent albums is that they're so generic in terms of mixing and mastering compared to her older works. It's sad to sit here in 2016 and think I am... sounds better mixed than sixxxxxx. But that's what I hear when comparing songs side by side. Sixxxxxx just sounds like it's in a box compared to the openness of songs she recorded even 15 years ago.