Yeah i know what troubles you
I can hear something in the background almost like a draft or wind is/was blowing when they recorded the song
But i do not mind it at all xD

omg stahp

that would also so be her baby if she had a baby with like Gackt. Or Max.
It's bothered me ever since I first heard it. It's such a weird thing to add lol No one ever hears it.

no, it's not me. it's ayu at her 50s when she finally gets a baby with the help of surrogate mother. that's quite sad actually, because when a child turns 20, ayu will be like 70. that's why I think she'd better give a birth in near future.

it'll be sad if she dies without her biological children.

I wonder how Ayu feels about kids. I would not be surprised if she did not want them at all.

You might think so, but Ayu could have a completely different opinion on that. I don't mind people saying "I want Ayu to have a baby!" or "Ayu would be great as a mom" but to pity her for her possible childlessness is disrespectful. If she wants to have a baby, she'll have one (biologically, via surrogate, or even adoption), if she doesn't want it then you respect that she makes her own choices in life and you have no say over them. This isn't a question about the direction of her music production or her being a questionable role model (unless you, not specifically you but people, are an idiot who thinks women needs to have children to be good role models), it's a question about her personal life and decisions.
And as a last note, has anyone ever considered the idea that Ayu's lack of pregnancy could be more due to an inability to have children rather than a choice? It's unlikely, but possible.
I might have come across as aggressive (which was not my intention), I'm not directing this frustration towards you or anyone specific. YUKARI, I realize your post wasn't meant to be malicious, the concept of it just irked me, I'm frustrated by the societal expectations that a woman needs to have a child or it's a tragedy because her life is so incomplete and bullshit, eugh....

Yeah, not everyone wants children.

Ayu is not _THAT_ old. She still has like, at least 10 years to have kids.

^^ yes, I understand your point of view.

I also tend to think she may be unable to have children, because I remember there were some rumors of her abortion back in 2005 or so. But I continue to hope that one day she'll write in TA that she's pregnant and I hope everyone will be happy for her.

it's not like her life will be incomplete if she dies without children but really, you know, I'd love to see her as a mother too. she'll be close to perfect in my eyes if she ever becomes a mother.

That was also when she had the rumors of "Timmy" the guy who bought her a Tiffany bracelet or w/e. Somehow the story of Mikajohn or w/e buying her a replacement ring/bracelet turned into someone else, haha.

It's nice for ayu to have a baby.... But I sense that ayu might have a different opinion. Perharps she wants to focus on her music career and a baby coming might be just to troublesome for her to handle?

It will also be too dangerous for her to be jumping around in concerts if she's pregnant... And her future hubby is going to be a doctor, so he wouldn't be free to take care of their baby when she's having her tours.... LOL!! Haha!

I bet people here think about ayu having a baby way more than ayu herself :shrug

Her life is always so overanalyzed in here, I wonder if you guys get chronic migraines.

I've never understood why people are so obsessed mwith the idea of Ayu having kids. I personally don't feel obsessed with the idea. Maybe she feels like she doesn't have what would make her a good mother. I know I don't so I already decided I'm never gonna have kids. We never know what ayu thinks because she doesn't really talk about it. Maybe she decided that it's not what she wants from life. :) With or no kids Ayu is stilll a great person, isn't she? ;3

Thank you so much! My thoughts exactly and I wouldn'tbe able to put them into words as good as you did it.

Yeah, I can't say I'm too bothered whether she decides to have children or not. I'll be happy for her of course if she does have a child but I'm more interested in the music.

has ayu said anything about a new album because on generasia there is an entry for a new album that is TBA, http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Hamasaki_Ayumi

No, but we know something is coming out in the Spring with Pray.

thx, hope its not an album (though i would love more music) because its too early for that, hope she releases more singles instead to build up to an album (plus dominate oricon single charts):D

If the theme for Kouhaku is A song is here, why not performing A song is born? That song really hit everyone emotion in Power of Music.

agree with this! A Song is Born is so beautiful and powerful.....INSPIRE is amazing too, but ASiB just, I dunno, more perfect for the theme

The only good thing about performing A song is born is that I will be sure I won't waste time with kouhaku! xD

that song is generic as hell.

sorry, not sorry.

+1

Seriously, A Song is born is so annoying...

a song is born is perfect I'm gonna need y'all to go take hearing tests and get yo ears checked.

Better a song is born than Feel this love :yes

I like it, but I'm somewhat biased towards it. The first time I ever saw a performance of her singing live, was the performance of that song with Keiko. Where she's wearing that weird jean thing lol She looked so cool back then.

omg and then Boa and Koda sang, and then Namie and Verbal. It was like, my people were all there before I even knew I liked them.


I wouldn't mind her performing it, if she had a new, pretty arrangement for it. She needs to do that more.

...^ ouch she can barely sing it there though lol


And. JEWEL best ballad ever. Official.

^ The MY STORY Classical/POM version is beautiful and touching.

The I am... version.. ew..

The I am... version reminds me of 2000 lol But I think it should since it's a Tetsuya song and everything he touches sounds dated.

ASiBo for me is one of a technical songs. She has to really in a good condition and preparation to sing that due to the high notes at the chorus so that when she sing, it doesn't heard like she was yelling or trembling or out of notes.
Different with an up beat song, since it doesn't necessarily need a vocal control. I mean, most of it is 'covered' by the up beat music. And mostly she's yelling. Imo

The music in Asib is so boring, lol. Basic as hell.
The lyrics are pretty but can't save that.

Oh lord! If that horrid duet with Keiko where both of them started a competition to see who sounded more like q cat being burned alive was what made you an Ayu fan, I will never take your musical taste in consideratiom anymore! xD *runz*

man, Sweet Scar how can we havent had this live yet, I wanna see the home plant flailing with Ayu :irked

Was watching the first 10 minutes of A BEST Live and I thought I was watching a Broadway musical

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...-heads-007.jpg

Lol my mum wants to watch A BEST LIVE DVD with me I'm scared haha

I hope my mom would do so with me. A Best Live is great nothing to worry, the opening itself and then followed by 2 powerful songs,

I've just felt that my fav songs are all soooo dated :/

for exemple?

I know it's great, but my mum has never listened to Asian music, she's more used to western stuff haha

Aaaanyway, our DVD is region-encoded, so we ended up not being able to watch this :D

Today its been three years since Ayu released my favourite album from her, Love songs (along with RAINBOW and NEXT LEVEL). Time flies so fast...Today I also noticed that Sweet Season is a really good song for winter holidays :)

I force my sisters to watch ayu with me and after 2 months they're worn out lol... There's only one girl that likes ayu in school so far -sigh-

i love her performance of a song is born here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xls...o05-live_music

she sounds soooooo good!

Well, I didn't see any live performances for a long time after I became a fan, so. Dial-up internet back then you know.

It was just a different time too. I didn't care so much about vocals and things. I thought it was just so cool to see this Japanese christmas, big music show and all these Japanese artists, and especially one I already loved, even if she was singing this weird song with this weird girl.

Remember, I was only like 12 years old or something lol

When I discovered Ayu, it was how emotional and honest she looked in 7 days war RnRC lol. I mean, you don't see many artists nowaday cry so freaking much like that on stage, and I don't know, it just moved me to see how amazing it was. Also for the fact that she looked like an anime person lol, I was pretty oblivious to the Japanese people and culture.

It wasn't until my sister pointed out that her voice is WEIRD, and that performance was dragging on, that I realized what kind of video I just watched haha. But then I started getting addicted to the RnRC performances more and more, and yep...

I NEVER THOUGHT THIS WOULD HAPPEN BUT. GACKT COVERED "SEASONS" IN HIS CAMUI GAKUEN TOUR: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18...12-22_creation

lol, Gackt.

:thud

Omg didn't see that coming haha

Don't really like his cover though. Or maybe I'm just too used to Ayu's voice in that song xD

^i love the arangement, but the vocals during verses are awkward and sound a bit out of place for me lol However the fact that he had to take time to do all the planning for the song and memorize the lyrics makes me smile ^^

The arrangement is awesome! I'm glad that he finally covered an ayu song =D

I'm sure he is a hardcore ayu fan if he decided to do that (besides seeing her lives).

She needs to do another cool hybrid kimono cd cover again. Like ayumix 4.
Something with color and attitude, not soft and muted lol.

If only Ayu used that beautiful arrangement

Wow.
http://majide2ch.blogspot.co.uk/2013...-that-she.html

This one stands out...
There's nothing more disappointing to fans than finding out that the person you like is actually just someone shallow.
It's like finding out that the person you're following was actually in the same position as you.

Ouch lol

He also covered Fantastic Baby by BIGBANG and WHITE BREATH by T.M.Revolution. Fantastic Baby was super awkward. WHITE BREATH was good though.

apparently ayu leaked information of her arrival to tokyo airport with her fiance to the paparazzi/media before arriving at the airport? http://majide2ch.blogspot.ca/2013/12...-that-she.html

^ Why are you guys trusting such sources?

I believe it...no one never know if she's back in Japan until a tweet gives it away usually.

I honestly won't believe anything from those 2ch sites.

like Fly High. it's so 2000 :thud

Is't 2ch the ones that started the whole "Ayu was rude to a handicapped person" rumors that compelled her to write free & Easy?

You guys are so gullible, srsly.

uhhhh 2ch isn't "reporting" the news they're just commenting on it

The assumption that the reporter made was still stupid though, haha.

thanks for sharing
awesome cover!
maybe ayu could consider to release a rock album " A ROCK", all her hit songs in rock version lol.

Reading the ViVi interview, I wonder just what other new people she's been collaborating with on new songs besides m-flo and DJ Hello Kitty....

what song she did with Bentley Jones?

yeah, i've seen those, Fantastic Baby was obviously for laughs. They fool around a lot in those tours and always does covers on Camui Gakuen, but we never get video footage, this is the first time, and apparently it's gonna be on DVD. So SEASONS on GACKT's DVD...it's just odd...lol

Or ayu-mi-x ROCK ver. *__* ayu-ro-cks :D (I wanted to say ayu-ro-x initially because it looks less awkward and somehow fits the theme more, but it could be confused with ayu-ro-mix)

GACKT's cover of SEASONS is really nice . I enjoyed the choruses.

Happy Merry-go-round X'mas

:hat:hat:hat:hat

Oh my God guys. Party Queen FINALLY sunk in! I can legit say I have favorite songs now!

reminds me, call, Serenade in A minor, the next LOVE, and how beautiful you are

omg <3

I can't remember the song, but didn't Bentley actually come on AHS a few years ago when we were talking about his Depend on You cover? That was cool :love

(unless I'm imagining it, in which case my imagination is cool)

I hope Ayu didn't resort to leaking her arrival to the media :( It doesn't do much to raise general perception of her if it is true. I hope this is just an annoying rumour

oh yeah I knew about Depend on You but I didnt know that he came here :)

what Im asking is that recently he tweeted that hes been working with Ayu for a new song on his tweeter.


bout that,I do believe that Ayu knew bout the media is waiting for her and she surely did tell it and taught her fiancé on her to react when you are in front of dozens medias and press. You can see him and Ayu are well-prepared with their outfit,look and sunglasses lol

I really liked his DoY cover so that sounds really awesome :D It's cool to see fans getting to work with her!

I think the thing is that someone close to Ayu probably leaks that she will be arriving each time... it always happens because someone in the inner circle says something. I don't think Ayu does it personally.

The arrangement in Gackt's SEASONS cover it's beautiful :O

Im so excited that my singe finally shipped. I'm gonna open it and hopefully ayumi will be in my life again!

My Feel the love shipped along with a Fate/Zero Lancer cleaner cloth because it was on sale~

I love that arrangement, if only Ayu use it!

Gackt guest starring at CDL or AT14 would be great, hahaha.

I want her to perform Close to you.

Has she ever performed it before?

Yes, on 23 Dec. 2002 at a tv show (Hey 3x) with a choir.
here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2TQUlVfrjo

It is a superb performance :)

THANK YOU SO MUCH!
:thud

thanks for the link!!

This obviously comes along with growing up, more precisely, a part of leaving puberty behind oneself. It's a cute conclusion, nonetheless.

The rest of the comments were funny, too xD

i love it as well, but i kinda think it would be a little too heavy for Ayu's style as someone said Ayu should use it.

Also i still think he could have done better, but i guess he wanted it to be more for "band" than for "solo". I appreaciate he guitars a lot! Lots of Ayu's songs lack of them for me, and she has so many sings that are powerful enough to carry guitars.

She sounded great in that performance of Close to you. Such an underrated ballad from RAINBOW. It's one of her better compositions too.

that was my christmas jam last year...
wait. I still got some time to play it this year!!
::goes to play close to you:::

I'm sorry that GACKT cover of SEASONS is awful. His voice is unbearable to listen to. The only song of his I will ever enjoy is Koakuma Heaven and that's because it's heavily auto-tuned.

Close to you is such a great song; too bad not many people listen/know of it lol

I feel the same about it. The arrangement is good, but when he started singing.. ew..

I LOVE Close to you.

I was re-watching A Concert Tour 2000 just now, but well... can anyone provide me translations of what Ayu said during transitions of each songs? She surely said a lot of things during that first tour, I'm curious to know.

just saw that Ayu liked Fashion Police page and guess what, LA paella on her fb page!!! lolol

Was reading over the countdown set list and hope its real...
it looks like an amazing concert! CANT wait!!

I don't know why but I'm really feeling Ayu these last few weeks. I've put the CDL setlist into a playlist and was watching the performances from this week. I almost teared up...I haven't felt this strongly about Ayu since FIVE until this month...

Ayu came back at a good time in my life. I met my own "Manny", you could say, a few months after FIVE was released and we parted ways this past summer. We stopped talking completely just before Christmas.

As I have nothing to do I'll try and see if I can understand something XD

I loved the arrangement for SEASONS in that cover, the voice is, well, awful. But I liked it in general. Has anyone linked this to ayu on twitter?

edit: on concert tour 2000 vol. 1
after WHATEVER:
We can forget
We can live without forgetting
But
There are some things which can't be forgotten
welcome to the world of dreams.

after immature
The true shape of oneself
comes and goes into the interval between dreams and reality.

Concert tour 2000 vol. 2
before seasons
In the middle of the limited seasons, how much more delight will we be able to know?

before love destiny
In the middle of this limited time, how much more sadness will we be able to endure?

A big thank you to your efforts!!!!!!!! :love

^if she can wrote something delicately beautifully meaningful like this, why can't she wrote it as a lyrics? These days Ayu's lyrics mostly talk about love, pain, love, pain. I'm so done with that.

I just had a dream about going to today's CDL *___* I was not far from the stage, but somehow ended in the first row. Ayu interacted with the audience quite a lot, and she even came down and talked to some people in the front row, it was so lovely T^T But she gained some weight XDD

My dreams are so weird tbh

Thank you very much. So poetic~

why i have no feeling for Ayu now,dont feel like watching her concerts or songs...

You're all welcome guys <3 to me is a pleasure as I get to do some practical exercises while doing something I like XD I was wondering, would anyone be interested in a translation of what she says during the mc of those 2 concerts? I found it particularly moving and I wrote it down already, so I could make a thread :)
@refix: I understand what you mean, I think she is focusing more on some themes lately. But you can see that this poetical ayu is still there, for example in lyrics like gloria, ivy, do it again... In general i find even her lyrics about love/pain more profound than those of other pop artists, but that could be me! Those are very profound and lovely messages, anyway. Sweet young ayu.
@
@rainbow_smile: what a nice weird dream haha XD i wish i could go to the cdl ;___; once I dreamt of working behind the scenes of cdl for a staff. It was a great dream. I got to hlp ayu dressing <3
@ayu_world: it happens to me some time in a while. The biggest one I've experienced wasi in 2010/2011, in fact I didn't even watch that year's CDL. Eventually I get into her again at some point, it lastes max 2 weeks for me XD

^I think you right. I just focussing on the song (melody, how she sing it and so) not the lyrics sometimes. Just read the translation once or twice and try to find what she's trying to tell in the song then ignore it.