I'm so glad this isn't a closeup but has an interesting background.

Are you deaf or simply ignorant?

That's what I thought, but there's no portrait like that on net so we can be 100% sure xD at least, google haven't showed me it yet ...

Neither, I just know enough about vocals to realize that anyone calling Ayumi's vocals right now worse than before is talking crap. Especially since the quality of someone's vocals are to the biggest extent objective. I can see how some people may not like her vocals nowadays since they are very different from before and her nasal tone has a quality of it's own but it's a fact that her technique has increased a lot. She didn't even breathe correctly until 2011.

Wow now. Isn't good and/or correct singing a very relative term? There are many different vocal techniques and ways to use your voice, no one is more correct than the other. For instance: I absolutely despise Celine Dion's way of singing, but I find Björk's vocal technique so powerful and beautiful.

I used to love Ayu's vocals and think that they were unique and beautiful. But, at one point I stopped listening to her and started listening to singers like Miliyah and now I don't love her voice the way I used to. I dunno what happened.

THANK YOU :yes
I think absolutelly the same without even having knowlege, it's true that her technique changed but in my ears she has much better control over her voice and vibrato is just flowing not over the place to right and left... she does sound different but i wouldn't say BAD...It's almost like you like one painting and totally don't other because every artist has it's own style and techniques they use.

However i think most of even those who had never had anything to do with learning vocals know that there is in fact a RIGHT way of singing which has different techniques....

I really like the change with this cover, it`s far away, and shows a scene, great job to the whole team!!

The song is a grower

Why did Timmy join Ayu's team? I've seen an youtube video of him doing a madonna ballad...

So? lol I don't get what you're trying to say :shrug

Sorry.

I was wondering where did Ayu find Timmy?

I've googled him and found his youtube videos.

^Timmy once told a friend of mine they were introduced by a multial friend

Aww, this is lovely.

http://recochoku.jp/recochoku_ranking/index.html

she got number one on the bottom chart, i don't know what is that...
i wonder when Tal will create official thread of chaku-uta chart like he usually do

Thanks friend.

it looks like she got number one in in-coming phone calls... and number 3 over all

oh, i didn't know that either. lucky timmy that he had that friend! :yes

Did he also compose Party Queen (the song)?

^Yeap, he did ^^

Lovely but then the words 'how beautiful you are' can be better i guess

the more I look at this the more I like it!
This could have been an amazing album cover too

I'm hoping that CREA will make a return on this album, though that's kinda useless to hope for. :/ For the album cover I'd have ayu all diva-ish :love.

how come vocal has increased if she can't hit high notes in HBYA second part of the song in its peak, aka starting 4:19?

She can't or the song wasn't written that way? :P

Because the song was not written specifically for her vocals. Timmy said himself that before writing for Ayu, he has not listened to her back catalogue, he didn't know exactly what she can do with her voice. And she can hit them. Not very well but she can. A handful years ago she would have done it much worse.
Also, vocal control is not all about pitch. It's about tone, dynamics, even vibrato...things she has gained a whole lot control over.
While pitch is the aspect influenced by her hearing. And her hearing hasn't gotten better obviously. It can't get better. She learned to deal with it better though.

Learn more about vocals before you continue please, you have yet to bring a valid argument aside "she can't hit the notes in this specific song we have never heard her sing before her vocals changed well".

I would hope for this as well!!

you didn't reply to my question, I understand about vocal/singing control, but you said her vocal has increased, in which I understand that her voice has become more powerful. it might not sound as strained as earlier, but how come the voice is stronger when it's not?
in the song the music & sound starting 4:19 seems to cover Ayu voice and Ayu can't sing it over. I do not know and I don't think anyone else knows if it is intentional or is because of her incapability. then I do not understand why even record the song she's incapable of singing?
of course it might not be important but I guess I personally would have liked this song much more if during it's peak after 4:19 she would have made it bloom with the power of her voice. to me this is what made the song dissapointing to a certain extent

+1 :yes

it's been a while........

So, is it safe to say that Timmy wasn't an Ayu fan previous to working with her?

Honestly I'm just not sure what you're talking about in some parts of this. What exactly are you talking about? The vocals being overpowered by the instrumental?
She's not incapable of singing the melody, she hits the notes clearly, they are quite high for her and there's a gigantic jump up to them, making it much harder to sing them, it's a rather hard melody in the last minute so there is a bit of straining but it's not nearly as bad as the straining she had for similarily hard parts before. Her vocals clearly improved, the song just gets hard for a mezzo in the end parts. I'm comparing her vocals to how they were BEFORE, I'm not overall judging them. Ayumi is still a mediocre singer, she's just much better than she was before.

yes, the vocals being much overpowered :yes

That's more often the arrangement than the vocals themselves. Mariah Carey and Celine Dion are overpowered by their instrumentals all the time.
Ayumi sings the melody well, the instrumental is just so full and loud it overpowers her for a moment there.

if u are talking aboy the studio version i think this is a cause of bad mixing job after everything was recorded...

lol her vocals are obviously better.

End of story.

^This :laugh

----------------------

btw, here's my HBYA cover remake :

(thanks to Aderianu for the textless cover ♥)

this happens so many times in Celine songs and I have to tell you she does not have a weak voice!

ditto!

@Heavenly
I don't like the choice of font but it's a lot better than the other fan-edited cover in this thread.

My thoughts on the song have changed. I liked it at first but now it reminds me of meaning of Love.

That was my whole point? Celine and Mariah are amazing vocalists, yet they are so often overpowered by their arrangements.

then i do not approve of studio mixing or whatever it might be! :laugh
because it really ruined the song for me:)

for everyone it might be different, but I'm not a big fan of her vocals after GUILTY, live or recorded. 2012 doesn't make a difference for me either.:shrug

anyway, I'm really neutral to the song. I'm eager to listen to the vocal on other songs and most of all live :)

A lot of french fans find her voice very ugly and that she has never done worse than that i'm very disappointed because i think totally the opposite ... sad lol

Well studio wise I absolutely love her vocals tbh imo. I mean like the whole FIVE album; all her vocals were great on it INCLUDING progress imo. When she's performing LIVE she almost always sounds bad imo (I'm talking about CDL 10-11 and CDL 11-12, she sounded great imo @7 days and the recent progress performance on tv imo). imo imo imo imo. I don't want to hear any theory about how her vocals are super awesome right now, and that I might be deaf or stupid or retarded or whatever because I don't think she sounds awesome, hence the imo's. Oh this is off-topic, I realize.... :/

okay I just searched HBYA live @Youtube to see it live and I gotta say that live it's even more obvious she can't hit high notes and it was painful to see :(

Have you seen her UNEDITED live performances between 2006 and 2010? They were MUCH worse when it came to hitting notes as high. She wasn't far off for HBYA most of the time, while the notes are amongst the highest in her reach. Her range stops at E5 nowadays(ever after her hearing loss) and HBYA scratches at that.

I find this interesting cause Ive been listenimg to more french stuff, and they seem to favor lower, more soothing, sensual, and sometimes even husky, vocals.

in fact they really dislike her vibrato and her current way to sing ...also her actual music style but it's another history lol

which is ABSOLUTELY not my case, just sayin haha still haven't listened to hbya though, but i know i'll like it anyway

I'm part of the people who hate this kind of voice. It's so husky and manly... :shakehead
It's not pretty at all to me.
She's never gone so low in a studio version. I hope she was ill when she recorded the song because I really don't like it.

I love this song, it's beautiful and calming. I wish they would sell the cover art as a poster- it really is her best in a while.

I just have a question. In the Instrumental of the song we can listen to the chours as always, usually it's herself making the other voices, but this time I can't say if it's her or is other woman. Does anyone know? I'm almost sure is a woman so it can't be Timmy.

Btw, I'm in love with this song, is not her best, but I don't need a masterprice to enjoy a beautiful song. The only thing I can't get used to is the final part when she sing "you are, you are uUuUh" thing lol but it doesn't ruin the song.

It might be Junko (Ayu's usual chorus singer) or maybe even Yumi (the new backup chorus singer for lives)?

I completely agree with you. Someone just needs to listen to the edited Asia Tour 2008, and then listen to the vocals from the UNEDITED Countdown 2011-2012, and you can hear the big difference.

Also, the live version of How Beautiful You Are, I thought she actually was off at the low notes, but she was so great in the last part of the song. So much power and control. And of course, the Countdown version doesn't use the vibrato a lot like the studio version, so I'm sure she recorded on the days she was sick this song in London.

Her vocals sound so much better lately than ever. Have you guys honestly listened to her in the past? It was good in 2003 - 2004, but even Memorial Address and Teddy Bear weren't so perfect at the Arena Tour, and everyone loves those performances. And Concert Tour 2000, don't even get me started LOL.

From what I can tell the typical French vocal ideals are just very different. Just look at Mylene Farmer for example, she often breathes her notes more than she sings them, it's soft and very controlled, the notes are straight-forward until their end but sang very, VERY gently, but not powerfully.
It's just completely different ideals. None is superior to the other, they are just different approaches and when you are used to one the other may seem weird or even wrong.

link please?

Im not understadning it.. I think she is sing quite well in the song and hitting all the notes just fine... the music tends to get a little loud and she isn't trying to over power the music, which is a good thing...

If you ask me, Timmy is a little obsessed with chanting... hope he doesn't over use it.

it's pretty much the first thing that pops up when you search for the song

^ I've just realized that you're talking about HBYA lol I didn't even know that was the song lol

I dont know why but i love it.

then I must be French too, lol :laugh

no way you can compare the greatness of Mylene & of her voice...:thud

I'm not comparing vocals, I'm comparing voice ideals. Please read before replying, it's completely different things...

That said Mylene isn't an outstanding vocalist, she's rather average. She's a great artist, performer, lyricist...but not vocalist. Like Ayumi really. Both have rather average vocals but are AMAZING in some other aspects.

I am surely completely deaf then, because Myelene's voice is much much better than Ayu's & more powerful.no one can persuade me to see it another way:shakehead

You mean you LIKE Mylene's voice more? Please stop confusing liking something with it being objectively better. You do it alot in this discussion and it starts being annoying. Especially since I JUST explained voice ideals a few posts before.

I just do not understand why you always misquote me and find some weird pretextes. I mean what I say

maybe you'll say then that Ayu & Mylene's vocal/voice ranges are equal too, huh? :shakehead

I'm dying :laugh, you just made my day :)

I don't even know what you're talking about right now. Please learn English, your grammar really confuses me. As do your trains of thought since they seem to jump a lot and ignore points. Do you understand the difference between liking vocals and vocals being objectively good?
The problem here is you mistaking liking a voice more for it being objectively better, which is simply not true. You can like Mylene's voice more than Ayumi's(I have no problem with that, Mylene has a beautiful voice), but her vocals are NOT objectively better, yet you state it like they are.

Ranges were never a part of this discussion but since you brought it up: Their ranges are rather equal actually, Mylene's range is higher since she's a Soprano compared to Ayumi, who's a Mezzo-Soprano. But they both have ranges of around 2 octaves chestvoice(Ayumi:F3-F5, Mylene around G3-G5) and comfortable ranges of around 1.7 octaves chestvoice(Ayumi is comfortable up to Eb5, Mylene fluctuates, but she usually gets to E5 just fine).

your tone of lecturing me makes it even funnier
I have A+ for grammar, want to see my diploma? :laugh

dude, I know you want to sound 'like a boss', but some things you say are just funny and ridiculous to me. I think she failed with this song, you think otherwise, okay...

P.S. your objectivity doesn't correspond with mine :P

Talking as a Mylene fan, what I am, it's actually very hard to know how good singer she actually is considering the amount of lip-synching she does... Even ballads are constantly lip-synched by her, and when I listened to a fan recording of her last tour, a great amount of her vocals were pretty fishy... (DVD doesn't count as it's edited, as any other live DVD)

Still, both girls are just average singers, with pretty limited technique and more misses than hits vocal-wise...

edit: I would go even farther and say that most top popstars of their own country I know, from Madonna to Jolin Tsai are either average or a little above average vocalists, even if some are amazing performers and musicians.

^ I am a Mylene fan too, I did attend her 2 concerts, and her vocals unedited there, at least to me, sound better than Ayu vocals edited, lol. thus I just cannot put them on the same level. I'm not a kind of expert like everyone there claims to be, so...

I would have never brought up comparisons of these singers, I guess I've got another state of mind, because to me they are absolutely incomparable...

If comparing them is ridiculous to you, why do you compare them then? You yourself called Mylene's voice more powerful.

You think grades matter? How cute! :) I got an A in English as well, my English sucks, getting an A in a foreign language does not equal actually being good in it. I spend 5 years learning Latin, was constantly a B-student yet I don't understand a word of the language. xD

What exactly is funny and ridiculous to you? You have yet to bring a SINGLE argument, instead you ignore every point I make and try to make my entire posts seem less worthy.

And that's because your so-called objectivity is subjectivity while mine is objectivity. You talk about whose vocals you LIKE more, while I haven't even mentioned whose vocals I like more until now: I like Mylene's voice more, too, I just see that she is FAR from being a great vocalist. (And like Andrenekoi mentioned, she lips a lot, most of her "good vocal performances" are playback)

Well, I must disagree about that... As I consider both girls to be extremelly similar, both on the way they work their careers, the tone of their releases, their strong points, their low points and on the status their archivied on their own areas... I even consider Ayu to be more similar to Mylene than to Madonna.

honestly i think it's more bearable than her poker face sqeeks xD it's just terrible xD

(I honestly think you have some personality issues, the way you like to be bossy & dictate everything might indicate something of inferiority complex)

did I call her a great vocalist? you misquote again. I just mentioned she was better & more professional than Ayu at some points, because you've brought the topic of France & Mylene yourself. but you can't stand someone saying a word against your objectivity?

I wasn't implying she was ideal or smth, sorry to know you got it like that. as I've said, I cannot put them on the same level
and as I've said, I'm still waiting for the whole album to come to make up my mind, because her vocal at PoM last year was great, but CDL seemed bad for me. I do not understand all these her vocal tranformations at all. that's it.
it makes it all seem like either she doesn't care, or she doesn't have a technique...that's frustrating! she's a singer, after all...

YOU are the one misquoting there. I never quoted you as calling her a great vocalist. I said I realize she is not great, not that you don't. You mentioned she was better, yes, and that's the problem, because that is simply not a fact, yet you state it as one.
And I brought up voice ideals, I did NOT bring up comparing vocals, you did that. I also did NOT bring up France, that was brought up before me. You think I misquote you? You misquoted me 3 times in one short part of your post.

They are basically talking about as far as I can tell, mostly about differences in timbre which can to a certain extent be a result of different vocal techniques. Not about failing a song. I don't think anyone is trying to be bossy, just making sure in a more or less efficient and clear manner that the same thing is being discussed.
_
Obejctively, there's no ideal vocal timbre / quality for pop music IMO because it's so versatile and englobes elements of every other genre out there. As mentioned above, many reknown performes have rather poor ranges and capabilities compared to what's required for many other genres (musicals, operas, enka etc). There are however several "tradtions" or at least some sort of perceived ideals that apply to certain parts of pop music industry as well, which is why the average japanese female pop star sounds very different from the american one and why enka singers sound different to the members of AKB48. SO in a way it's measurable as long as one knows the measurements.

Ayu has problems with pitch, more so than most pop singers I can think of partially from being deaf, but also probably due to issues with her technique and exhaustion. I don't know why or who made her sing like she did on her first albums, but I don't think the way of singing she did during her first releases was very healthy for her voice at least considering her schedule. The more "natural" and less streneous one her voice way of singing was probably more similar to how she performed during idol on stage shows, which is deeper and a little more grounded sounding. It's like she pushed it too far, lost it and now is getting closer to finding a more comfortable way of doing it...

Personally I like the way her voice sounded back then more than how she sounds now though..

Compared to mylene since everyone seems to be, her timbre is very different, mylene has a very eerie and airy quality to her voice and as far as I can tell it's stayed mostly the same throughout her career. Ayu has always had a more piercing voice but it has gone through some pretty radical changes otherwise. Strangely I fin ayu's more versatile and interesting to listen to than mylene (even if her voice goes really well with certain types of music) also when ayu's off pitch and sometimes even more reciting than properly singing (this seems to happen a lot these days =/) or more husky. The main aspect of ayu's singing that keeps me coming back is the expression of and range of emtion she's able to convey, even at her "husky" stages. I can't think of any other singer capable of doig that except those that are foremost doing voice acting. Even among them, there aren't that many.

PS hope I made some sense. Hehe

Clever post, I bow to u :D

IMO both Ayu and Mylene (and any other top pop performer out there) has a huge emotional range while singing, something that is usually valued over technique on pop music, but obviously, the way them both shows those emotions are more apropriated to their own cultures and musical aesthetics, as French and Japanese don't use the exactly same ways to express the exactly same feelings... So, it's just natural that some people can relate more to one or another

Thanks for this post. That brought it all to one point, my phrasing may have given off a wrong impression sometimes but that was much of what I wanted to convey. :)

I agree with everything you've said. I do not know how we can be objective in such things as music taste/preferences, because normally someone founds something for himself in music/art/books, we cannot force 'likes/dislikes :)
and standards?

I just do not understand why me, a fan of 10 years, should be blamed for expressing my frustration. I have a right, anyway. I want a good quality product after all. my last Ayu album was...many years ago. and I am not happy about this.

glad to know someone thinks Mylene is different too. thank you:D

looks classy, me likey :yes

Ayu is better than Mylene, who the **** is she anyway?

^THIS.

^
How do you know when you dont know who she is? :laugh

She is the queen of french pop, with an almost 30 years old career, the record for the most consecutive and overall number 1 singles over there, known for her deep lyrics and huge concerts (and mediocre dancing :p).

She is very similar to Ayu in a lot of ways...

LOL!!!! :roflmao

love the warm and smooth colors in this <3 beautiful!

finally, a cover photo that is stunning and inspired!!

Just love it when Ayu's wearing purple, really beautiful <3

im sorry..can someone repost the textless cover? thanks.

thanks so much douggn :) probably her best single cover since BLUE BIRD

I saw on a french site that several people think that the woman in the painting is Elizabeth Báthory (wikipedia) @_@
It's very disturbing if it appears to be actually her x_x

the textless cover is amazing =) realli awesome cover! loving the details

That would be reaally creepy if it was her. But she don't seem to have had that kind of collar though. Tricky painting. Who know, maybe some Ayu staffer just googled "old royal paiting" and got the one on the cover up. xD

Why?

Don't quote me on this, but I think the woman I can imagine why people find it creepy, I do. :dead2

It's more a legend than actual facts, but still, legends don't come out of nowhere.... A painting of a murderer on an Ayu cover, it's still very creepy.

I hate to think too deep in stuff like that cause I dont want to end up being creeped out by her symbolism and later hear that she just find it cool.

This is super creepy but kind of cool at the same time >.< like a female dracula

There is also the theory that Elisabeth Báthory was a victim of a political motivate intrigue of Habsburg and that she never commited those crimes.

she does look like her!

and what makes it creepier? is that the single titled 'How beautiful you are' with a portrait of 'Bloody Queen', who killed virgins to have blood bath to keep her youth & beauty, in the background:tired

so does that mean ayu will kill young singers to remain her status LOL

I don't think so.
http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/2...ryerzsebet.jpg
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/965...ethbathory.jpg

Don't look alike: Nose and face shape are different.
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9...nttulo2whl.jpg