The song that made me like her was WILD. I heard CYC and I hated it, so when she released WILD I was pretty impressed. And what made me love her for real was the whole past<FUTURE album (FIRST TIMER, LOVE GAME and Defend Love) and her singles ALARM, WANT ME WANT ME and What A Feeling :)

The first time I watched Namie was in "Put 'Em Up" PV. I think to date it is one of the finest PV ever produced for a jpop artist. I remember the PV was everywhere in jpop sites.

Then I went nuts with "Uh, Uh,,,,,,, feat. AI" PV. I absolutely adore Namie+AI combination.

I was never a big fan of her TK produced songs.

The first song that really made me a fan, I believe, was Say the word. It was randomly played on a jpop music video stream and it was super catchy and caught my attention. From there I searched for her songs myself. I had known who she was just through being a fan of Ayu, but that’s the song that really got me into her music.

not my first song, but my second and still my most played song by her today.

I believe the first song I heard of her's was Can't Sleep, Can't Eat, I'm Sick and I wasn't a fan of it at that time. So I tried listening to her older, 90s stuff with TK on 181920 and I loved all of it! Her hip-hop stuff took a while for me to warm up to but I came around eventually.

Well, I guess my very first song was Come from Inuyasha, but I didn't know her then. I just remember I loved the song.

My first song knowing she was Namie Amuro was Baby Don't Cry. The PV played all summer when I was in Taiwan, so I fell in love with her long hair and thigh-high boots

I honestly was tired of seeing her face on every single magazine lol I didn’t pay attention to her music at all, didn’t even knew how she sounded. Until, I don’t remember how, I listened to Wild radio leak. And I was sold. After that, I listened to Best fiction which was still selling like hot cakes, and it became the album of my teen years honestly. I listened to it non stop, watched the PVs thousands of times, but what I was mesmerized by the most was her hair tbh. Vidal Sasson campaigns were iconic.

I got into Namie after getting into Utada and Ayu. If I can recall, I was aware of her from Inuyasha, but didn't pay attention to her until Can't sleep, can't eat, I'm sick. I first heard it from this intro to Jpop video called Jpop101 which I think was for a anime convention LOL (that video also introduced me to hitomi, kotoko and Olivia and helped me get into BoA more). Anyway, Baby don't cry came out shortly after that and I knew she was the one for me.

Past<Future still remains as the best and most underrated Namie album imo TT

In what universe is Past<Future underrated album exactly?
It debuted on no. 1 on Oricon, it sold approx 600 000 copies, that is more than her two previous albums (Queen of HipPop and Play) and even more than her next album (Uncontrolled). It includes her smash hit single Wild/Dr. And it is seen as her 'fresh start' and received stellar critical reception. Not sure if you have been around Jpop music at that time, but it was just huuuuuuge.

I can understand calling Style album underrated since it was selling poorly and debuted only on no. 4, but PastFuture is one of her most successful album (not taking into consideration her Best of albums).

People on the internet are just using that word ("underrated") without truly understanding what it means, I guess

I've seen mixed opinions on FEEL and _genic, but never about P<F. That album was perfection.

I agree that hearing the word "underrated" to describe PAST<FUTURE threw me off lol. It's definitely a favorite for a lot of fans here! (Myself included.) But maybe kashifaita meant that it's so amazing that it deserves even more attention that it already gets?

Either way, the music of that final phase of Namie's career starting with PAST<FUTURE till the end of her career still feel really fresh to me. The production quality of those songs is top tier.

For me it was Come (I think!). I had started getting into JPop with Hikki, then Kumi, BoA & Ayu so thought I would try Namie next. I had a listen to a couple of samples on CDJapan and Come was the one that sold me. Technically the first song I heard from her in full was Namie's Style when I bought the Style album.

1st Namie song I heard and seen PV wise was Hide & Seek

It's very easy to get obsessed with the song on 1st listen & it still is even though it has been so many years

PLAY was & is still a great album

Mine was ALARM I'm sure.

I told a friend back in 2005 that I was curious about Namie so he made a mix-tape and the songs that got me hooked instantly were "WANT ME, WANT ME" and "Put 'Em Up". I'm still obsessed with those songs. I can't believe how long ago that was...

I understand what you both said but I really believe that the 'underrated' wasn't about the album's success, but it is underrated by many of her fans and Namie herself.
past<FUTURE is, by far, the album that had the least amount of performances of Namie's career besides her flop eras.
It is understandable that GENIUS 2000 and Break the Rules didn't got many attentions from Namie herself because she was on the "low tier" that time, but she was at the top of her 'game' during pF era and still it got zero promo from Namie herself. No TV promo even for the single. WILD was only in two tours and cut out of her next era tour Live Style 2011, and she ALWAYS got the lead single of some album to stay on her next era tours. (Let's us remember how Uncontrolled received A LOT of promo, from TV to anime to tours... Break It was in five tours and even Let's Go and In The Spotlight got more performances than WILD).
And I do remember a LOT of Play fans talking a lot of trashy things about the album because 'Namie was sold' and they wanted R&B Namie back... and I still read some things like that mostly from Play fans than the Style or QoHP fans.
So the "underrated" pF era, at least for me, comes from this :yes

When I see this thread gets new replies, I assume she is coming back but sadly its not true...

Thats sounds more like your view on the matter than what is actually going on. I never met any Namie fan who doesn't feel like P<F is among her best albums. The album and the tour were a fresh start for her, the tour had one of the longest runs overall and gave her a second boost after the success of BF.
As for TV performances - she mostly stopped them after 60s70s8s and it has nothing to do with her 'underrating' her own album.

You can't even compare it to Uncontrolled because 1) it had a very different single rollout and 2) it was meant to be her good-bye album (only stopped last minute by the fact that she couldn't do the final performance she wanted).

If anything, uncontrolled is much less liked by fans than P<F and the fact she performed Break it so much maybe just due to the fact she like it live (the song has frikin' 3 versions) and even that fact does not 'underrate' any other of her releases.

After Uncontrolled she even went a totally different path again which also showed in her tours.


I don't know if you were around during all the eras, but your perception on this is really weird to me.

edit: also the spotify stats for both albums show that P<F is the much better received album overall where as Uncontrolled is mostly sold by a few hit songs.

Oh wow! I didn't realize I would generate this much controversy. Sorry y'all LOL.

TBH by underrated, what I meant was I felt it wasn't spoken about as much compared to other albums. I've been a Namie fan for quite some time since 2008. So I've seen her rise, and how she stayed there. It's just I always see more discussion about BEST FICTION, FEEL, Uncontrolled, Play, etc. I see even STYLE, Concentration and GENIUS get mentioned more (because those are actually underrated albums haha)

P<F was a GREAT album, had awesome sales, had one of Namie's best singles. I'm not saying it was the worst album or that it wasn't successful. But it terms of the hype it got, the tours, the promo, the discussions, I felt like it didn't get so much attention as her other albums. It was kind of overshadowed to me, especially with it being wedged in between BEST FICTION (which was a milestone in of itself) and Uncontrolled (her 20th anniversary album), both of which were huge for her. Even with Namie herself; I felt that the only thing she acknowledged in her tours was WILD/Dr. She really barely paid an ounce of attention to other P<F songs, especially later on in her career.

Anyway, I agree with everything roddypii said. Again, this is from my view point. Maybe it was bad taste of me to call P<F underrated, so I apologize. I was just basically trying to say I never see a lot of people talking about it, despite the general consensus. Heck, I felt like Namie barely acknowledged that era. And that, to me, felt like it wasn't getting the appreciation it deserved (which you stated perfectly jean-baptiste lol). Which made me feel like P<F was an underrated album.



Also...the passive aggressiveness in this forum is still really bad lol. Y'all gotta calm down.

^I don't think we are aggressive, but we are the "fans that overlooked the album" you talk about. It may felt like that to you, but you are talking about something general that does not affect you.

The album got huge sales, it got wide media coverage and the fact she did not perform others songs after 2011 may be due to the fact that she made all tours a mixture of the newest album and staples.

It just is a really weird thing to say to me, as the album was gene-really much better received than PLAY.

I also don't think C20 or GENIUS 2000 are underrated. Style is the only one that is - and even if I like all the songs, besides the singles it is not that well put together.