Is This True About A Best?
 

I heard a story that A Best was to mark the "end" of Ayu's career and that the reason she was crying on the cover was to reflect her emotions about how it was going to end, but because of how successful A Best was Avex renewed their contract with her and kept her and one of the mainstream artists for Avex Trax.

I can't remember where I heard this from, but I don't know if it's true or not, so I'm asking everyone else...I was a fan before the whole A Best, I started off with her LOVEppears, but I never read news about her and such.

uhm, gomen ne, but this should be in Enquiries i believe. :[]

but to answer your question... i remember hearing or reading or watching something about that too... so i think was true :)

considering how popular she was at that time (just right after her selling the 3 mil album Duty) i don't think they would want to let her go that easily..<_< So maybe it was a rumor "planned" by avex to make the album sell higher..

Well I thought I should just put it in the chat area since I don't know if it's true or not, but if it needs to be moved, I'm sure a mod will.

and I was hoping I wasn't the only one who heard it...I just never knew if it was true.

the cover's idea came from her attempting to gain some control of her ever growing career in those days, as she didn't personally think it was time to put out a best album, but the label wanted to do something, possibly to counter the release of hikki's second album. her cover was her protest against the album in it's entirety. or so the rumor goes... although i believe this was confirmed in her interview in 2003, around the time of the release of memorial address...

i think her career was supposed to end original with the release of her A single, but due to the enormous success of the single she continued on.

This is what I've heard, as well. I've never actually heard of A BEST as her supposed "closing" album. :shrug

yeah~~ she had the crying poster because the album was not her happiness.
She felt it were too early for A BEST, and that she was being controlled in her environment..
remember the super tv interview?~

I don't think she had any plan to stop in that time... but I'm not sure again. ahaha.
EDIT: considering A song for sold sooo many copies...
and it was only her debut album,
I don't think there were anyyy plans for her to stop at that time,
Since avex wanted to continue on with an artist who could carry the name, since globe and trf werent selling as much anymore... =\

Watch the NTV 2004 Special Interview. It's all explained in there. She didn't want a BEST to be released so soon, but the company made her. After that she thought about leaving avex. Both her cover and the fact she resung the songs were little protests against her company.

Quoted from the NTV interview: "I didn't think I'd really retire per se, not that specific. But I had already been thinking about separating from the company anyway at that point."

i thought the reason she was crying is because Avex rushed the album to compete with hikki's distance, you can notice the A BEST pics in the pv ourselves, basically....i think the pv is a message to avex, maybe how angry she is?

That's the story I heard as well, for A BEST being a protest against her company. I thought that it was very very bold of Ayu to do so, and I admire her for it~

Me neither!
I only heard that she was forced to do it to compete with Utada.

Didn't Avex force her to make A BEST? And isn't that also the reason they used A BEST pics in the ourselves PV?

I think so,in the ourselves PV,I think she was transmitting:**** you Avex!
That's why they ripped the covers of A Best.

You can see that ayu also had a minimal participation in the booklet shots.
Her pics in A BEST's booklet are all with her not showing her face to the camera.

ayu talks about this on the light and shadow documentary, how she dreamed to create A BEST her way. basically, it seems like A BEST was released beyond her will...

I heard this story before, but the end of her career was her single A, but because of the high sales... well the story continues the same way as yours xDD

The story behind A BEST was that se was forced to do it... as everyone is saying ^

Nah, the reason Ayu has a tear on the cover is to show that she didn't like the rivalry that Avex put her through with Hikki's Distance album. Or the rivalry in general. I understand too, because Avex wanted to see who would come out the winner and such, it was pretty sad. Neither Hikki nor Ayu wanted that.

Yeah, neither Ayu nor Hikki were competing... The Distance release date was announced way before A Best, and then Avex decided to put out a compilation album just to compete with Utada

I think the reason why there is a tear on the cover is that ayu felt as though she was being controlled by avex...

The reason that I've heard the most is that she was protesting the supposed "rivalry" perpetuated by the media between herself and Utada Hikaru, like some have mentioned. People wanted to make it out to be like a personal vendetta against the two, but that wasn't the truth at all.

However I definitely have heard that Ayu was just displeased about A BEST all around, as it was too soon. Whether or not that feeling of Ayu's was the reason behind the tear, I don't know, but it could explain why she didn't promote it so much.