[Article] "Why Japanese pop matters"
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010...nese-pop-women

I think Ms. Nieman gave a fair assessment of Ayu. And it's the Guardian, so it's not like it's some obscure fanzine. Nice to see Ayu mentioned in a mainstream Western publication once in a while.

Gonna keep my mouth shut on the Lady Gaga comment.

""often used cosmetic surgery"" weh?
Sounds like the writer is a fan of hers but is actually diasppointed. tsk. i mean, she has the shortest paragraph for being one with the longest career?

" Musically, she has married accessible, mainstream hits with over-the-top costumes and high-concept videos long before Lady Gaga did." that's what I wanna hear!

I'm most disappointed with the random assortment of artists that were chosen.

Wtf at the selection imo. It was like they put their J-Pop playlist on shuffle and chose the 4 that came up.

I was gonna post this but got sidetracked lol

Its a good recent article from a western news source which i love, but for them to say shes the Queen of J-pop and then writing 2 tiny paragraphs is disappointing. The cosmetic part wasn't necessary, I mean she's had this amazing career and she focuses on that? (a tiny part be it but its also a tiny article..) but i like that she also puts some focus on her lyrics.

this D:

I mean Nana Kitade? wtf
and omg this cosmetic surgery thing again, that's annoying :|

But yes it's nice to see Ayu featured in a western pop music article lol

The selection actually struck me as very deliberate - each one is a different possible stereotype, and they're definitely the best examples of each. You wouldn't put Koda Kumi or Amuro Namie on a list where Ayu already is, for example. And as far as women who actually have a hand writing their own songs, these are definitely the most talented and most legendary for the music they make. Hikki is the only person who should have been on here but wasn't, although having Ayu on there already as the straight-up pop singer would have made her slightly redundant.

I don't think what she wrote about Ayu was at all good. She pretty much implies her career is basically over and then goes on to say she's the undisbuted queen...Huh?

Plus saying she had cosmetic surgery like it is a total fact. It just doesn't seem like very good writing to me.

Some of the stuff the writer said was good though, especially about the other singers.

alan was mentioned!!! omg

WOW, The Guardian!! O.O

I think they could have chosen a little more mainstream song than Ladies Night though, or something a little more signature which she composed.

I'm not gonna complain though. Good choices, I think.

You can't talk about recent jpop without saying anything about Hikaru Utada, sorry

And you can't talk about recent jpop without saying anything about Ayu too... but it sounded like some biased fan from the I am... era...

The article was weird and sarcastic...

Can you not praise someone without degrading them? like seriously
but I was happy Tomoko Kawase was there, she's not that popular but her music is really diverse.

And lol at the cosmetic surgery she make it sounds like Ayu gets cosmetic surgery when she'll release new stuffs.

Her ballads are "occasionally touching"? What kind of backhanded compliment is that? I guess I should expect it from someone who says Shiina Ringo is her favorite artist ever anywhere.

Usually, I think Shiina fans (even Hikki fans) like to put down the very "pop" female soloists because they've "sold out" or something. It's really weird and I don't understand why they'd do that... blah.

^ Because they think it makes their favourite artist look better and more original, therefore more worthy to listen to.

Some people just hate anything pop or mainstream, often without ever having listened to it.

Idk guys, I think the article was pretty fair. I mean, it wasn't someone from AHS writing it, it obviously wasn't a hardcore Ayu fan, it seemed to be just a casual listener, and taking that into consideration, that's a pretty positive light that she put Ayu in. Like, come on, she's not bashing her. Plus she gets bonus points for liking Ladies Night :laugh

They had some positive stuff in there, but there were also some backhanded compliments not found in any of the other artists' descriptions... -facepalm-

What I really liked was the nod to Ayu's "high-concept music videos". The depth and subtly overt symbolism of Ayu's videos is usually passed over in mainstream media reviews (in fact, her music videos rarely get much mention at all), except by Chinese papers every now and then like the Epoch Times who just give write blurbs about the themes of her music videos.

Oh well, at least she said that Ayu is already weird before Gaga :laugh

Cosmetic surgery :thud