I'd love for Ayu to find new songwriters. Like, totally new. Ever since Hidetomo Yoneda became Ayu's A&R person she's defaulted to the same people over and over, and as they retire or leave avex her pool of musical collaborators just seems to get smaller and smaller... the only "new" people to come on board are seasoned professionals like TK & GEO (and Makihara Noriyuki, who turned out to not be a great fit) or friends like Timmy. Where's the inspiration???

I miss when avex were daring enough to give ayu unknown and indie talent based on how their work sounded rather than their name or reputation. :(

Wish that Ayu would stop working with Tetsuya Komuro and go with someone else. -_-

yoyogi arena will closed at 2017 until 2020 so CDL16-17 is the last CDL ? may be or change another arena ?

http://www.nikkansports.com/general/news/1596397.html

Wow three years?!

I hope she could shift to a different venue. But she's been very lucky. She picked up Yoyogi at her peak and has been able to keep it. For three years I hope she can get Yokohama? Or Saitama?? Tokyo Dome is Johnny's. But not sure about the other smaller venues in Tokyo. Budokan is probably not possible either.



I'd be interested to see what Giorgio Cancemi could do for Ayu. But he's mostly done stuff for Nishino Kana I think?

2016 is going to be a difficult year for artists having concerts in the Tokyo area (Yokohama Arena is closed until July, Saitama Super Arena will close in February for approximately three months, Yoyogi is closed beginning 2017 for two years, Nippon Budokan is closed for an unspecified time and Tokyo Dome is closed as well).

Maybe more concerts will be taking place in other cities in Japan to make up for the closure of so many concert venues in Tokyo or possibly an Asia Tour?

^why are they closing them down?o_O It's kind of odd to close down all the main venues in a capital city of the country, even for that.

Are they temporary closing down for major renovation for the Olympic 2020?

Yes it's for the Olympics.

I guess that's why they're staggering the closings. But three years for Yoyogi is really long...

she may tour in Zepps again =)

Yes so much !! It's the reason why her music was really apart and different from others J-Pop singers which nearly all jumped on the bandwagon of R&B or radio friendly pop-rock in early 00's !!! I'm still amazed by songs like SURREAL, M, Naturally etc... I mean these kind of arrangement were very bold for a mainstream singer like her ! Could you imagine at that time Britney Spears in the US having this kind of boldness ?? No way !!

Yeah It's strange in the Ayu case it's like she is only allowed to work with Avex related producers which is very strange I just can't believe that she don't receive offers from other japanese producers !!! Album after album I pray for it but it just won't happen ...

They actually still produce for Konami under HAL on occasion. If Ayu contacts them both, I'm sure they'd return for at least a couple songs. You think?

Yeah that´s rly long. And all at the same time... I mean we have 2016, that´s 4 more years to go till the Olympics, why not take more time o.o

^Is Tuesday already and no news xD

Still 5 more days to go...

Damn, when she first mentioned she's working on the next album I was ready to patiently wait for announcements that I thought would take a long time to come, and then she goes and says there would be lots of news news coming up and now I'm so excited because I feel that announcements could pop up at any minute.
She's successfully managed to get me hyped for the new album's announcement, so I hope it's not just some vague news and I got excited too early...

Ayu could do a hall tour instead of a arena tour. Or maybe there will be no tour at all this year or maybe she'll do a couple of stadium lives in summer as a mini tour or something. After all, we don't know when the new album will be released.

^ I think she's fine this year... Yoyogi's open, and when it closes next year the Yokohama Arena and Saitama Super Arena should be already open I think? I assume other cities' arenas will be open as normal as well, so it shouldn't be much a big of a problem...
But now that you mentioned it, I would LOVE some stadium concerts :D

Yea. I still wonder why they didn't come up with a couple of interludes for "Colours" back then. A few electronical anthemes would have easily fit into the album's tracklist. Moreover, to me 13 tracks appears a tad richer than just 10.

So is next week because she was in Monday in Japan local time, ok xD anyway the early album release date will be like March or April so we don't have to get all the info now.

Maybe in February we get a new valentines single or Classical Album again xD

Are they still releasing new stuff? I thought the last thing they did for Konami was still before the start of the decade...

I'd love for ayu to get SOME combination of Toshiharu Umesaki, Takehito Shimizu, and Atsushi Sato together.... MAYBE with Yuta Nakano in there too so he can re-learn the HAL production style, lol... I doubt she'd have the power to do that but I'd LOVE to see it happen.