The vocal track was sometimes out of time. The arrangements were sometimes average, and other times brilliant. Consequently, MY STORY Classical still holds the crown for my tastes.

7.0/10.

You are being whiney... Nothing that you complained about happened in My Story Classical either.

I love the fact that the classical arrangements are faithful to the original mix, unlike MY STORY classical which is a total remake in arrangements. It's basically the same original mix with classical instruments lol.

It's a nice album, just with boring song list :/

I think that's what will separate most people.

I didn't want them to be faithful to the original mixes. Oh well. It's still nice.

I'd prefer new takes on the songs, but not at the cost of quality. Most of Ayu's orchestral versions are complete muddled messes of vaguely melodic sound. The layering is too complex and you just get.... gray. you know? Not horrible but completely unmemorable.

"Missing" had the same issue here - it was the one that went most off the original source material, and I couldn't even tell what the rhythm was for a good chunk of it. Muddled, gray, dull.

It was a smart, albeit amateurish, move to follow the original accompaniment with nice, classical instrumentation. Uncreative maybe but when you're in a time crunch it's the best way to go if you wanna do something that's guaranteed to be listenable.

this. in fact that's the reason i prefer MY STORY Classical than this. A Classical is very nice in arrangement but it is just too similar to the original mix, which is a little boring to me.

This is, what I also think.
Only Dearest and Voyage is ok.. but the original Versions are so much better.

it turned out to be much better than I expected :)
but the packaging is boring & unpretty

I personally never liked My Story Classical either. But the arrangements there were at least quite different from the original song..

It's bad that I like the single orchestra version of Song 4 u more than the one on A Classical. :/

^^this. I quite liked how he said they were just "pretty," rather than complex.
Pretty much sums up my opinion on the album.

As for the "boring" feeling everyone's getting, I have a hunch it's because the track listing was so safe. Most, if not all, of these songs could be played with live instruments anyway, so an orchestral rearrangement must have not been that difficult to pull off.

I think a more interesting tracklist would have included:


I find it interesting that although STEP you was the most popular song when A BEST 2 was released in 2007, it didn't hold up to the test of time like the other songs selected for this. Either that, or it was overlooked.

^ Results may have been different if people knew what they were voting for.

i feel like all these classical albums are huge orchestral productions and it just starts sounding the same after a while. i wish they would do these arrangements simpler and with a smaller orchestra. something like Endless sorrow with just the guitars was soooo good! because it was only a few instruments and the message of the song just impacted me that much more. and then when she did Love song live with just the guitar... ahhhh! love it!

all in all, i rate it a fair score. :/

Listening to it now ~
Must say that I wasn't interested at all in it but gave it a chance now. It's really cozy, but other than that nothing special. I have yet to feel that "Wow!"
The songs are nice though.

i feel sort of the same.... better songs could have been in place of some of these

Days acoustic orchestra was WAY better than this, every song was sort of w.e nothing really stuck except two

songs like M and Dearest were also bland in the end

SEASONS was the only old hit that came out moderately well i think, as in I would listen to it again

love song was such a disappointment...

the only one i LOVED and thought it was done so well was Missing. what a good rendition! i love it better than the original. takes out the generic jpop flavor and gives it some oomph.

well a lot of people think it's good so i guess that's all that matters?

I think NEXT LEVEL and RNRC tracks could have really benefited from Classical versions.

Sad that they chose the tracklist by voting.

I can't bring myself to listen to the album again lol
Even Days is boring me..
Now it is just a boring muddled mess, with an awful hue.

I got high expectations from this release. The tracklist wasn't my cup of tea, but as long as the songs were good I don't care if it was made of her classics mostly.

Despise of the boring yet pretty cover, A Classical is an high quality album. The orchestra did a wonderful job.
But it lacks creativity. Most of the songs sounds almost the same to me. They're all beautiful, but there's nothing more. The only one I remember is You & Me. Amazing, much better than the original. I will replace it with the classic one when LOVE again will be out lol.
But the whole album sounds like it follow the same pattern, adding just few irrelevant things.

It's hard to make a classical album, especially when we have heard so many acoustic and orchestra versions of most of the songs on the tracklist before. But it feels like they wasted a great opportunity to make another wonderful classical album like the MY STORY one.

Actually I like A Classical (especially because acoustic,orchestra and classicals are my favorite remixes from her), but hardly I would love it as MY STORY Classical.

Im liking this album more and more. =) The beginning of SEASONS sounds so similar to Poinsettia by shimatani hitomi which I really like also..