Crocodile scale.

After listening to TROUBLE at least dozen times:

W is the worst thing she has ever released. It's deplorable.

The way I am is really lovely, the melody is so good. The acoustic version is better though. I tacked it on the end of my TROUBLE playlist.

WORDS is nothing as a standalone song, but it works in the context of the mini album.

Aeternal has a nice atmosphere (if that makes sense lol) but I get bored with it pretty quickly

I even started liking We Are Queens. I guess it gives this EP a welcome change of pace, while not being awful like W.

This was not worth the 2 year wait. She can do much more, but at least she gave us The way I am.

It’s very subjective. Ayu isn’t that good of an actress. It is also very obvious when she is doing it as a part of the performance. As I said I find it hard to belive that day after day and year after year after performing a song so many times it gets you so emotional and at the same point.

There are times when it seems more or less genuine and at times it’s real, but as is everything else during her shows, most of those tears are staged and over exaggerated.

It’s evident when going to multiple dates of a tour and witnessing her “breakdown” at the EXACT same portion of the song, almost as if it’s timed, right down to her body movement during the “cry,” her facial expressions, and the lyrics she omitts.

Well, I disagree about her acting skills. It's not a naturalistic take, it's very theatrical, but she delivers.

I agree, irritating song, trying to be something, but it is all over the place (musically...but also I didn't like lyrics). The rest of the album is ok.

And here I am, having "W" as my most played song from the album so far xD Love the drums there(I do air drumming with this song!), lyrics too. Maybe a bit too much woo woo, but it doesn't bother me.

Taking a naturalistic take on acting on a stage doesn't even make sense :P

for me personally, most of her crying seems staged. which I don't mind most of the time. especially when she's reaching her hand out or "running" after a male dancer portraying as her love for that performance is definitely staged. the most convincing staged cry one ever for me is during Ballad in the 2010 RnRC tour. I've cried during that performance. but you can tell when it's real and she gets really choked up with tears. in those instances I believe it's a moment she's experiencing like in an encore of her final show or a certain song or event. but yeah I'd say most of the time it is staged.

I do also feel her voice is very hoarse after watching the clips. I can understand that because she was touring soooooo much last year and barely had time to rest her voice. I'm definitely not digging that performance of "I am". she looked gorgeous and was a great performance, but musically I really am not digging it. I don't like it when she messes with the octaves of the originals. "I am" is my most all-time favorite song of her's. I can understand where she has to lower the octaves of songs because she wouldn't be able to hit notes anymore. but it's my favorite song lol it sounds better in it's original octave. and the hoarseness made it meh to me. I would've thought avex would fix the vocals at times when they release DVDs of her performances. hmmm.

She definitely has worse. W is not that bad.

I thought I was the only one who thought her voice sounds very hoarse! She hasn't really had much time to rest her voice after AT15. I watched a few clips of the Okinawa performances and was surprised that didn't they try to make her voice sound less hoarse.

So... after almost three entire threads, I finally had the opportunity to give TROUBLE a careful listen and I thought I'd share my opinion here. :)

I have to admit that this is, in my opinion, one of her most disappointing releases ever. I haven't been expecting much from Ayu since 2010-11, but she always manages to surprise me once in a while—with Last minute, FLOWER, Mad World, and all songs from sixxxxxx, for example.

With TROUBLE, I just don't feel... anything. :weep I'm not mad because the EP doesn't sound terrible, but I'm also not excited because there isn't anything groundbreaking or remotely interesting about it. Sonically speaking, the songs are bad but æternal and The way I am sound like leftovers from A ONE, while W is a bit too cluttered. I still bought the EP on iTunes because I enjoy Ayu's voice and I think I'll be listening to TROUBLE in between her old albums. In the end, I just wish I even had more to write about it, but with only three new songs, no clear concept, and no videos... I can barely have a long conversation about this release.

Anyway, I'm definitely interested in seeing how TROUBLE performs on the charts, especially now that Oricon counts digital sales!

What really bugs me is that one of the main selling points for this album is the “fact” that “all 5 songs are of single quality.” Every retailer is echoing this same claim made by avex and it angers me for a number of reasons.

First of all, none of the songs hold a candle to ANY of her previous single releases. They don’t even sound remotely as polished as previous album-exclusive promotional pieces (aka, the new songs used to promote an album’s release). I’d go one step further and say she has songs that weren’t promoted at all on previous albums that surpass those on this release.

Secondly, especially with it being a mini album, with nothing but 3 new additions, they SHOULD be of single quality!! That’s not really a claim one should have to make - it’s an expectation, a minimum!

Finally, if avex deems these tracks “single quality,” it really destroys my hope for future releases. This is not the standard they should be aiming for. If this is top tier for them, how can we expect anything better to be produced hereafter?

As always, they are blissfully unaware of all the issues this release has, which means her release are bound to continue suffering from the very same issues in the future.

Waitt...
Oricon now counting the digital sales???

Oricon counts digital sales but in a separated category: "digital ranking".
Physical and digital sales are not all put together in the same ranking.


https://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/dia/w/2018-08-13/

they deleted all of æternal demos from Spotify (and also from apple music i guess), including the poetry reading. nice to see they're keeping her streaming page organized.

Much as I like æternal & The way I am , I feel that TROUBLE is just a typical mini album release , not something memorable that commemorates Ayu's 20th anniversary

I know Ayu has been having problems with her hearing but as a long time fan , I felt a bit short changed on this . Even the TROUBLE photoshoot for once didn't wow me a lot :no

Just like oaristos , I've been keeping my expectations on Ayu quite low over the last few years but yet she still can surprise me in a good way from time to time

But with TROUBLE , I didn't had a big pow wow impression on it and that's unfortunate :x

Until yesterday, I still was debating with myself if I should just go into the store and buy the mini, because buying an Ayu release early in an actual store was always something I wanted to do. In the end I didn't and even though I listened to the mini now a couple of times, there is nothing to enjoy.
It's by far her worst release ever. It's boring and uninspired, there is no magic going on.
Songs like aeternal, WORDS and The way I am already exit in her discography a dozen times, just better and the only reason I can tolerate W is because at least it doesn't put me to sleep.
It's the first time I don't enjoy a single song on an Ayu release and it is disappointing to see how are releases have gotten weaker and weaker over the last couple of years and how a lot of her albums are just a bunch of songs she basically already released.
I listen mostly to artists who are 20 years+ in the business already and all of them put out a release at one point or another I didn't like, but Ayu is the only one who, besides at one point being the Queen of reinvention, stopped trying to give her songs some magic and is just rehashing old sounds besides very few exceptions. I guess this is what disappoints me the most, it seems as if she, as an artist, has completely lost her vision and in the end doesn't even care about it. She already trolled us with LOVE and again, but TROUBLE simply feels as if she just had finished three songs and threw them in with the other two and released it.

I feel the same way. However, I am looking forward to what comes next! With this out of the way as a (mini) album, there's no reason to believe any of it will be on a future release.

If TROUBLE will be the only mini release Ayu put out this year that will be really disappointing :x

2018 hasn't end yet so there might be a possibility for her to put out something else before the year ends , I hope

@ Chibi-Chan - agree with you on that . You see artistes that've been around even longer than Ayu but their releases don't sound stale to me and I still like what they put out even as their discography grows