Ayu's "worsening" voice?
 

I've watched all of her tours and I don't think her voice is worsening.
I love her deep voice now... it's very beautiful. :yes

Where's the evidence of her "worsening" voice that everyone is complaining about? I'm not sure I can understand what's so bad about it unless I'm not listening to the right stuff...
Even if her voice IS worsening and some people do not like her newer style, I still love her! (and yes I am one of the few who loved Guilty and NEXT LEVEL).
A link, please?

I dont get it either, I see it as her voice is maturing and that her voice is usally tired/overworked when she signs bad but I dont listen to voice complaints anymore. I almost skipped buying her CDL 01-02 DVD because I herd her voice was bad in it, and when I did get it, I thought her voice was fine in it. I think that people just complain about it because it doesnt sound 100% the same as it did when she started like other little things about ayu :P

haha nice to know you like her maturing voice as well... :]

I also love her deeper voice much more, too. But the problem lies in her singing, not her actual voice. Many people think she is screaming all the time... Which I don't find to be necessarily true. For me, she seems to be having major difficulties in breathing correctly. Her voice often sounds strained or breathy the past few years, and yes, sometimes she does scream a bit (though, that isn't the main problem, as some seem to think).
Overall, she's singing as though her voice is just worn out and overworked. Which means there's a high chance that her voice is unhealthy due to incorrect singing in one way or another. And that's the worst part of all, especially if she doesn't try to fix it immediately (though, I think she must be). Also, because of this, a main concern for most people bringing up her "terrible" voice is that she will severely affect her ability to perform as a singer (at least, I hope that's why they're expressing these thoughts, and aren't doing it just to bash her, lol...).

But really, the past few performances have been great. Rule at Kouhaku was amazing, and most of the You were... performances were wonderful, especially for what it's worth (that's a very hard song to pull off live). I think she just hit a rough patch last year, and that she's working on fixing herself up as we speak. :yes And I mean, it's not as though she sounds as bad as she did around, say, 1998-2001, lol...... As long as she doesn't sound that bad, I don't think it's the end of the world or anything.

^ I don't really have a problem with her early vocals though surprisingly. I prefer her deeper voice, but I can at least stand her early voice.

Her voice being deeper is not the problem at all. Her deep voice is great. The problem is her technique is bad and I do feel like her chords have probably become damaged. Compare a performance with her deep voice in 2003 - such as Tokyo on Music Fair or her duet with Akina Nakamori; the deep tone is great, but her technique was so much more stable and it sounded a lot better. Now almost always she is either screaming/yelling, sounding out of breath and choppy and it seems lately like she has maybe lost the ability in her vocals to do soft tones/notes; everything is overpowered and it often makes her voice sound strained. I still keep holding out hope though that it will get better.

^ Exactly this. Her voice really can sound gorgeous, but lately (since PCDL08-09, at least) she's been working so much, it's been bad form and it doesn't seem like she's focusing on taking care of her voice better. =/

Exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth. I don't have a problem with her deep voice, even if I do prefer her earlier higher pitched voice. I loved the Tokyo performance she did on Music Fair. A lot of people don't but back then her deeper voice didn't sound as bad as it does now. Her singing technique is what's bothering me. Yes she sounds out of breath and choppy at times, she can't hit certain notes anymore, and to make up for that she resorts to yelling/screaming-singing. <--Not a word. I just want the control she had a few years ago back in her vocals whether they be nasal or not. Her 'You were/evolution' performance was just subpar, she's done and can do better. I'm not sure if it's her hearing, breath control, technique, or if her vocal chords are so worn out she needs a rest-- I just hope she takes her own advice because even she noticed her voice was not at it's best. Otherwise, she wouldn't have apologized for it.

Just one thing which I feel: watch past lives, it seems it's really easy for her to sing every notes, with a clear and controlled voice. Now she is literally struggling to sing properly.
Just one random 'old' live from youtube:

Compare it to You were... lives (i think those songs are quite similar to sing) and the gap is pretty obvious isn't it?
I think that her last lives where she seems to sing well without much effort were in 2007 (A BEST 2).
It's worsening in the sense that she can sing properly nowadays.

^I :love you!

You picked my all time favorite performance of No way to say. :cry

I've been trying to figure out what happened between then and now. :shrug

if you want proof just watch cdl 09-10 from beginning to end.

It's very clear and controlled, but it's also very nasal. Up until 2004 or 2005, she'd been singing through her nose for most, if not all of her lives. I wonder if it's a lot harder for her to sing from her diaphragm, and that's why it's seemed like she's been struggling, because she doesn't want to have that nasal tone all the time. I don't know, it's just a thought and I might be completely wrong, haha.

What is that supposed to prove? That the people in charge of mixing upped the volume on PECO's microphone and everything basically drowned Ayu out except during teddy bear? If so, I agree, haha. (Pride and Because of You were rather strained, but eh, I'm willing to forgive her, haha. Because of You is a hard song to sing well...)

Haha, I came by chance on this performance the other nigt and I was like: "I wish I knew ayu before 2003 so that I could have enjoyed her voice more (yeah, I'm one of those people who think that ayu IS/WAS a GOOD singer).

I miss those days : /
Even with this performance you can tell that the voice from 1999 to 2007(?) is coming from the same person. This performance reminds me of her early lives for example. But with her actual voice, it's pretty difficult I think. Well it's not a problem in itself, but sometimes I feel it's not ayu's voice. I don't know how to explain this.

Edit: Maybe it can be part of it. I don't know much as regards singing/technical stuff ^^". But her nasal voice didn't boher me. yet I know some people doesn't like it.

I don't really understand what you're getting at here.

Her singing has changed a bit [changed technique + bad breathing] but when she speaks, she sometimes gets into that nasal KAWAII mode she had in like 2000-2001... so it's like the same Ayu as always for me, just that she uses a very different technique when she's singing.

I guess I can give you that. :/ But I still heard ayu's voice pretty well and I don't think it was all that it would have been years ago. And the dvd version is only going to disprove me because they'll audio mix it for sure.

This is actually very possible. For those who don't know how, or even simply aren't used to, singing in a professional, "correct" way, singing through the nose is much easier and enables more control, even if it limits range and sounds kinda gross (lol).
Singing correctly gives you so much more freedom with your voice, but to get that control it takes a whole lot of control to do so in the first place...if that makes sense, lol. (Like, it takes a lot of practise and control to sing correctly - from the diaphragm, and not through the nose.) And considering Ayumi never had wonderful breath support to begin with, this may certainly be making it harder than it has to be for her.

I thought that her vocals were very muted compared to previous TV versions. You could hear it, but there were obviously many things that were louder than Ayu. Like PECO. It was so weird hearing her over Ayu during certain songs...

Believe me, CDL 2005-2006 (note: this concert was 4-5 years ago) really wasn't that great until they mixed everything correctly for the DVD, haha. A lot of people didn't really love it until the DVD came out, and that's fine since the TV versions are kind of done on the fly, or whatever.

I meant that during some of her actual lives (usually not on CD) the voice I'm hearing is like not ayu's voice. Her talking voice may have not really changed (a little deeper). That's what I feel sometimes (and I'm not talking about her edited voice on some dvd *10th anniversary live!*).

Yeah, it doesn't really matter how low her voice was in the mix or not. You can still clearly hear the problems in her voice. And I still think its entirely possible that the mixers were intentionally lowering the sound of her vocals, afterall, Avex isn't going to hire such incompetent people for an Ayu concert.. Teddy Bear was definitely the best performance of the night, but even that she oversung.

She did oversing a bit, but it's not really that uncommon for her. Just look at HEAVEN at AT06. Lord, Ayu, you do NOT need to add that many aaaAaaaaAaaAaaaas to the end of that song.

Her vibrato was nearly nonexistent that night, which was nice.

It's a possibility, but with live broadcasts anything can happen. (See: various lip-sync catches on camera on accident, stuff like Ashlee Simpson's jig on SNL, etc...) I wonder if they even noticed that something was up while the show was going on. Oh you and your conspiracies~

^ haha. It's not THAT much of a conspiracy theory. :) A singer doesn't sound good, so the engineers bury the vocals in the mix; it happens quite often I think. I'm especially noticing it on more and more studio albums these days it seems. That's why I'm kinda worried about the new cm that we heard; the quality is low but it sounds like her vocals are buried in the mix not just of the cm, but the song itself. Hopefully I'm wrong on that one because otherwise I really really love the way that song sounds so far.

About Teddy Bear - I just keep going back to her AT03 performance. She had emotion on her face but at the same time her vocals looked and sounded relaxed. This time it looked and sounded like she had to put extreme effort behind pushing each note out.