sarcasm is kinda hard to read.
Some people like her older vocals a lot more then the new ones now as well so its okay to be confused.

It's the other way around; she's had a lot more back-up vocals in her earlier days than nowadays. At least that's what I get from watching her TV lives.

Her dancers are massively annoying, indeed :msneaky I just need Ayu, Peco, Princess, Nobuo and Yoshio on stage.

Edit: I have that Shu-ya fetish, though ^-^°

Oh, I see now what was meant :-))))
Yep, that's why I was confused, you got it right :-)

Honestly you guys, I think my ears must be so terrible, because this version of Seasons is honestly not that bad to me...

It doesn't even begin to compare to the disasters of You were... lives.

I've been reading so many articles which will say she is so bad at singing this time, but I really dont get the deal... can someone explain to me? LOL

To me this was a pretty solid verson of Seasons. She has always sang this song in a cute, helium voice, and honestly this live sounds even better than the job she did in 2007. Her voice is actually solid and nice... I dont understand LOL

She is old, didn't have a hit in a while, half deaf and envolved in controverse... She is an easy target.

The fact is... Ayu never was a good singer, and she never will be. The closest she ever got from it was being a so-so singer. She may be off key sometimes on this live, but she is off key sometimes (or a lot) on ALL of her TV performances since day 1. The "she can't sing anymore" thing is ********, cuz by these parameters, she never really could.

A 34 year old woman with a childish voice ! strange lol

I really like her voice in 2001 but it's an immature voice like for exemple Kana Nishino now ! In 10 years her voice will be different and fortunately ! It's very rare when a singer keeps the same voice throughout her career like Koda Kumi, Nana Mizuki or Misia (...) but these singers have attended a vocal training since their young age ! Ayu is not one of these singers ! She has she learned how to sing when her career was launched. The difference is big because she became a phenomenon she was everywhere but her voice was not prepared to that IMO and she pays today the price of all these years with a bad lifestyle !
Personnaly I've find this performance of seasons quite good but I think people confuse sing off key and to use a different tone ! it's two differents things ^^
Maybe she sing like that because she can't sing like before ? or because it's a better technique ? It seem that her vocal coatch has said on twitter that the performance of Ayu was successful ?

I hope my english is correct ^^

Maybe it's true but she is not the worst singer of japan ! I've seen an old program (2002) where a lot of singers were interpreting Ayu's songs and they were terribles... I think she is a decent singer when I see how she sing in her debut she has a good technical level now ! maybe it's not as good as before but I don't consider her like a bad singer =)

I think her innocent voice is what makes her old songs so good, and it's also why they don't work now with her "mature" voice when she sings them live.

The old songs are very clearly the feelings of a young adult, and her voice now doesn't have that innocent, and maybe even insecure tone (compared to how IN YOUR FACE she is on songs on MY STORY and (m)u), that it had then, so it makes the songs themselves seem rather odd.

The other is injured too?? :tired

IIRC, Nana Mizuki was into doing enka and stuff early on in her career. It also helps that she's a super professional seiyuu/voice actress. It is true that Ayu was never a 'singer' in the sense that she had an amazing voice that was operatic or able to hit high notes/belt easily, but she's able to move people with her songs and I think that's enough for most people... though she gets a lot of flack from people for 'not being able to sing' like she used to. I think it's just a change in technique and a maturation of her voice for the most part.

I don't think her other ear is injured. At least, that was never mentioned before.

you know what is the problem here for most people i think? That her voice was changing. Also she was just looking for a right niche to be in a right voice for her, and everyone likes that changing period, because it's interesting and it makes you hear different things. You get that kind of variety there. But eventually artists settle down with what they feel comfortable and true for themselves and they develope a technique that that are comfortable with. And they stick with it.

I have the same thing going on with other of my favorite artist. Comparing to the vocals from years ago when it had variety and color in it now his voice sound the same on each song. However, still amazinglu beautiful and memorable.

The thing is, you can actually hear that old voice getting through sometimes, they don't loose the innoscence or whatever u wanna call it, they just get older and more experienced. And most of the fans don't realize that it's most likelly not the artists that get worse, but the fans that get stuck with the emotion they heard once, they don't mature/grow together with the artist, and there's absolutelly nothing wrong with that. Weall are different. It's trully spevcial if you get to grow as a person together with the artist you like so much at the same time they are going through the looking of temselves and all the learning. This is the most difficult to get.

Also you HAVE to know the fact that LIVE singing is not an easy thing. Fact that if you want a show full of dancing and moving or a LIVE performance you will have to deal with being out of tune at one place or the other, and singers are humans too, our bodies aren't robotic creations (even robotic creations need some oiling to be done), their voices can go bad one day, be out of tune the other and blow you mind away the third.

I can't listen to her pre I am.. songs because of her voice being too plain and unspecial for me, but i never said she couldn't sing, or she sounds horrible. Cause she doesn't. They might not do the thing for me or you sometimes (like an example I am not thrilled of her vocals on any of the Love songs tracks, but lots of people love it there, and I loved PQ vocals to death, most people didn't) I think who who but Ayu has clear development in the vocals department. Also i think for a person who's on stage for more than 10 years singing live is a fact of being able to sing and if she did lypsinching, that wouldn't be the level for an artists and performer as she is, so you have to give her a credit for that. Better sing live and miss a note or too here and there, than lypsinch....

What a relief!:thud

I know that ! that's why I chose her like an example ^^

True ^^

You're right. Nana Mizuki had enka training from the age of 6 or 7? She still does the occasional enka performances here and there too. I don't think it's fair to compare Ayu to Nana Mizuki though. Nana's voice has changed slightly, but the level of her training means her singing very very rarely falters. A bad Nana Mizuki performance is when she sounds the same as the CD, rather than better.

Odd anecdote time. To make a long story short, a Japanese girl from my uni commented that: "she (Nana) sings like Ayumi Hamasaki though" on FB a few weeks ago. That is something I have never heard before.

After watching the SEASONS live, she did a fantastic job of it. It was one of her most controlled TV lives in recent memory, she never sounded like she was screaming or yelling. Only out of pitch on a few occasions.

Still baffles me why she sang SEASONS in the first place. Should have done Missing orchestra version or Sweet scar.

this same as I thought, shes holding back at some parts at some high notes otherwise everything sounds good.


:(

I've also heard that ^^ strange ?

I think it's because Nana, like Ayu, does a lot of... whatever the technical term is for that a~~~a~~~ kind of thing? Nana does it on pretty much everything she holds.

Music is not my strong point.

Yes that must be it ! something like that ^^ http://youtu.be/kKNvi66Op2s?t=14s

You guys mean this.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrato ?

Yup, that. Nana does it way more than Ayu does haha