A little sick and tired of this... (re: singles releases)
 

Well not really.. :D Lol, I just don't understand why some of Ayu's best songs are never released... seriously, it's been happening more often ever since RAINBOW came out.. well album only had one other song worth releasing:

Rainbow
Heartplace

MY STORY
About You
my name's WOMEN

(miss)understood
Ladies Night <--it's a travesty this song wasn't released
(miss)understood
criminal
Rainy Day

Secret
until that Day....
Secret
JEWEL
momentum

WHY OH WHY?

I really do think that on top of downloads and such... that this is the reason her album sales have been falling.

Look at the singles we got from Secret: BLUE BIRD, Beautiful fighters, Startin', Born To Be...

The four I suggested would have done better as single A-sides and would have helped the album a great deal more. This album could have been a classic:no .

But I still love her =).

I just ordered my copy. lol

well..we never know what ayu thinks about choosing songs to be released..
probably, when she thought BLUE BIRD and Beautiful Figthers were good enough for people to listen..
but then, they turned out to be awful by some of people..
well, i found them quite good..

i have to agree for Secret album..
JEWEL & Secret are the best..
it would be awesome if she released those as singles before she released the album..

JEWEL/1 LOVE single should make good sales!!!!

ah you mean, why those songs were never released as singles?

Come to think it. If those best songs are released as singles, wouldn't that mean we won't have a bunch of nice album tracks? :D
Something that make us think "Wow, I'm glad I bought the album", which we won't get if they were released as singles.

Just because a song is good doesn't make it single material. "until that Day...", "Ladies Night", "criminal", "rainy day", and "Secret" are all awesome songs. However, they just aren't commercial-sounding enough to be singles. The melodies are either too complex or too simple, the arrangements are too non-standard, or the song is too lyric-intensive. Singles should be the most, for lack of a better word, generic songs, which reach the most massive audiences. They should be catchy, and they should be unique without being hard to understand to the average listener.

I don't think any of these songs would have helped her sales much.

However, I do believe that "Heartplace" should have been released instead of "Free & Easy" ("F&E" is still one of my favorite songs).

^ I do see where you're coming from, believe me.. but I think that Ayumi's single releases have been very very accessible for the last 3 albums. She isn't taking any risks which kind of makes her a little boring sometimes. I still love her music though.. lol, i'm a sheep in wolve's clothing =(.

btw:

I didn't think that until that Day was all that different to M/evolution/UNITE!/Free & Easy in it's style and they generally did really well.... but that's my opinion.

momentum, is very M too, but an updated version. Very accessible and but better than either of the songs released from this album.

*shrugz*

*dances to momentum*

lol.. perhaps ayu didnt release songs like until that Day..., Ladies Night etc as singles because they were not created then. right? haha.

i have a premonition that ayu will stop at 40 singles. cos its rare for ayu, in fact never has it happen before that ayu releases only 2 singles a year. and her following year 2007 is a deviation of her normal years. she will have an ASIAN TOUR!!!!!!! ah!!!! does that meaning anything? haha :)

^ well they weren't created then, which sort of shows a lack of planning on her part. Maybe I'm just used to the Australian/American/Everywhere else in the world style of releases, where albums are completed, and then usually the best songs are picked to promote the album... lol

Well, I guess Ayu releases songs according to the type of advertisement it goes with. (Since her single tracks are very often used in CMs.) And I think her album tracks are recorded after the single tracks. Therefore, some of the better some ends up as a album track instead.

But that's just what I think.

I agree with some of your song choices.

For me, I am at least satisfied she performed 'Heartplace' numerous times. I love that song...

we found out that Secret has best tracks like JEWEL, 1 LOVE, Secret, momentum and any others..
but unfortunately, the sales aren't good~

I totally agree with evolusean!
And okay... even if she released all the great tracks as singles it wouldn't really matter.
People would have bought the singles but they'd look to the album and think: "ew, Beautiful Fighters, ew Born To Be..."
Why would they buy the album if all their favorite tracks were previously bought singles???

She should just... release good album tracks along with good single ones! xD

yeah, i think that Ayu needs to release more singles before an album release from now on. like kuu's doing.

I think our methodas are weird.... lol

I don't think this is right at all except for Secret. I think both momentum and jewel could've been a-sides, perhaps mostly momentum) and 1LOVE and untill that day could've been b-sides. Also, kiss o kill, mightve been released as an A-side with slightly more commercial arrangements ( more like endless sorrow perhaps).

But for (m) u I think the single songs were awesome, and I don't think there were many songs suited for single release except perhaps for rainy day and ladies night. But I don't really see why she should've put out more singles from that album, she usually has some (many) really good album tracks. She never released all her songs that had single potential.


And BLUE BIRD wasen't a bad choice for a single at all, remember the sales...?

I think that her single songs are meant [like she's said before] to appeal to the wide audience that she has, and she saves the really deep/good stuff for the album..

i think it should be 1 LOVE/JEWEL
i loooove 1LOVE!! :luv2

yea..you rite..haha..
i mixed it up..hha...

I think it would have been enough if she filmed more PVs, I think 1LOVE is a bad PV choice. Momentum is good, since I believe it would work as a single quite well, so is JEWEL, but I don't like 1LOVE, I think Kiss o' Kill would score a lot more attention, it has a really catchy chorus and is more generic of a rock-song than 1LOVE (which has a lot of tempo changes).

And PV is the perfect way to have a song promote the complete material, without spending money on a single release, what is always followed by the risk of charts failure.

Also, you need to remember that re-cut singles are almost non-existent in Japan, since they're not new material (they can be remixed or have remixes included, but that doesn't seem too helpful) and thus they don't do well on the charts, while they still do need specific budged to be released (Daybreak was a re-cut single, it reached 'only' number 2 on Oricon - I wrote 'only' becouse it's technically not a bad position at all, but it broke a string of consecutive number 1 singles, if not Daybreak, I believe Ayu's current consecutive no. 1 singles count would have been like few numbers higher).

That way, re-cut singles are not too much of attractive products. Original singles are indeed - but the more singles before an album release, the less new material on the actual album, and thus the less attractive it is to a potential listener.

So... it's better to not release too many singles, but instead - to assure proper promotion - just film PVs for TV rotation and release radio promos for radio rotation - this way you don't spend the money on single release+promotion, but you still have songs playing on TV and radio.

i think single songs have this "yea i suppose to belong to a single" kinda feel..i dunno thats how i feel...the album tracks are just great on themselves being in the album (like wad Sean said)

and more album tracks means more new stuff (not the case now..sales not related to NEW stuff anymore)

i think she picks her single songs wisely...im thinking JEWEL is the supposed to be single 1 LOVE is great an an album track being the only more rock track..i consider until that Day... trance with SOME rock..but not as much as 1 LOVE

indeed many good tracks are not released as singles. my favourite, WHO is not released as a single. i really wish ayu can go back to her 2000 and 2001 days when she released 8 singles a year. or copy koda kumi and release 12 singles in 12 weeks.

i really want more singles!

Yeah I kind of agree on this. I think there are better songs of her's that would be better singles. So hopefully her next one we will see a change and it will top the charts so insanely that everyone will be like DAMN!

I am sure she wanted JEWEL to be a single!

she seems to like that song alot! It's all shes performed since her near disappearance off the face of the earth!

why cant she release JEWEl in nov and release the album in January again :S
so weird !

Ayu will be criticized for copying, and she'll lose popularity... but yeah, more singles is a good idea.

I was guessing those songs in the singles would be based on popularity and the time when she wrote it.

I love criminal (hmm), but it shouldn't have been released no matter what. You need to be in a special mood to listen to the whole 5 minutes of the song.

I thought it was a nice a surprise to see all those good songs that you wouldn't expect instead of hearing them all in the singles released. :shrug if this was a mini album it would have even worse sales, because every thing on the album you would have heard already. IMO, at least. It'd be kinda anit-climatic if all the good songs were given singles before the release. anti-climatic and disappointing. :)