I actually feel the opposite. I find SEASONS with her more current voice much more pleasant to my ears so to me it's a good change. Nice to see different opinions, though :)

I agree, but it's weird cause SEASONS is a reflecting song. There's so much potential in signing it from the perspective of maturity - the strength and meaning in the subject matter of the song can only grew as she gets older - but yeah, it has yet to sound quite "right" with her newer vocals.

ASFXX benefited a lot from the rearrangement that allowed for a deeper / heavier vocal. I don't think many songs have had changes as drastic done do their arrangements aside from very few concert staples.



Watching through SEASONS COMPLETE, the song remains rather airy but her voice in the time between the '07 and '15 performances changed a lot. Looking back at the a-nation '15 one she really looked amazing at that show.

I agree with the anation 15.. she looks gorgeous

Am I the only one who thinks Kalen's 世界の全て敵に感じて孤独さえ愛していた chorus sounds like Trust?

It was so weird to follow the drama around her time with Alvin, he would keep on doing odd and mean stuff, ugh.

At least we have this photo that always makes me laugh cause it looks like ayu is reaching to Alvin's pants lmfao

^LOL

She was serving looks in 2015

Honestly Kalen's music and voice remind me way more of Nami Tamaki's than Ayu's.

^That have been my thoughts exactly since her debut!

Can we give kudos to Ayu for one of her best intros ever?



it really feels like 2000 Ayu was thrust out of some sort of time machine in 2019

Musically it should be Ayu leaning since it's a lot of her composers/arrangers but Nami Tamaki's vibe seems more evident for sure.

Fun fact: that song I posted was actually arranged/composed none other than Yuta Nakano. In fact Nami actually has had quite a few songs composed by the HAL team (Yuta Nakano and ats in particular.) However, I find that their work with artists other than Ayu to have more of that stereotypical high-energy anime opening sound than their work with Ayu.

the notes are different, but the "flow" (idk the right term) is quite similar actually

Kazuyoshi Shimomura posted about Ayu again. Something about the Light and Shadow interview being criticized? Can anyone translate?https://www.instagram.com/p/CBNFU6nj...=16id825sgloo5

^He’s showing her admiration to Ayu again. Saying her influence on society and avex was astounding. Also, not getting hopes up, but he mentions something new is on the works.

Seems like he was watching it maybe for the first time.

And it does seem like they have a project together. Wonder what it'd be for... magazine? CD covers again? He shot a lot of what we got most recently like the covers for TROUBLE and the flowery/sleek black shoot for a magazine that was repurposed for a tour, then the A^3 cover.

In his Sparkle post, he mentioned that he was in charge of key visuals for the 10th/15th/20th Ayu anniversaries, which is odd to think about but true though for 20th he seemed to share it with Leslie. (he did Mirrorcle/Days, then the smudgy tour shoot, then the black/flowery thing for 20th anni.)

Love that he said that Ayu has big ang beautiful eyes like a Siamese Cat.
Nice words!

Yeah, I'm gonna need the people who called Kylie Minogue a flop to SIT DOWN. A flop is someone that never became successful. You CANNOT call Kylie, an international superstar, a flop. She had a couple of hits here in the States when I was in high school and that was actually what led to me discovering Kylie and I've been a fan of hers ever since! It's also very obvious that Ayu has gotten inspiration from Kylie and that's wonderful! We know Ayu gets inspiration from other artists like Madonna, etc, so no flops over here! :rainbow

Look at this fantastic Ayu imitation by this little girl!

^So cute!!! and she's really good, I also love that shye has her own Yocchan :luv2