[zyoeru]

Originally Posted by blackmage

Nothing like making an English debut or any of that nonsense. I love Ayu, just I don't particularly see her making it outside of Asia.

Well, I think she wouldn't have to make an English debut. If she can talk fluently in English to give interviews, she shouldn't have to sacrifice her lyrics to be in English.

Originally Posted by Aisha_Angel

Europe would be a much better area for Ayumi to start in. From what I have seen, their music scene is much more open to new and innovative products (musicians). If she arms herself with the right producers, learns to control her accent a little, and comes out with the right song she'll find a great amount of success in EU.

You're completely right. We're open to a lot of new styles of music and I think that with the right marketing she could do well. She should set up a myspace, an official facebook, all those social networking sites, word of mouth. I really think that viral marketing is the way to go with many artists making it like that these days.

Originally Posted by ストロボ・EdGE

I don't want her to come to America. BoA and Utada tried it and have (so far) failed, and I don't want to see that happen to her too.

She'll just be wasting her time.

Hikaru and BoA failed because in my opinion they were trying to be something they were not. Hikki even said she wasn't going to write in her usual style. She sold herself out, as did BoA. I think that if Ayumi went in there and decided to sing in her native language, but give interviews in fluent English it could work.

Originally Posted by waterballoon

And also, I think Ayu's album music style is gonna be a little too new and fresh for the west. Very few mainstream American singers actually have interludes in their albums... I'm really afraid and worried that if she focuses on the west, she's gonna fall very hard..

Interludes mean nothing, if the music is good and the publicity is right people will eat it up and actually I've seen many mainstream instrumentals.

Originally Posted by ren0210989

as always these news are doubthable, but it would really be interesting to see Ayu come to Europe
and like it was said, J-music is pretty well accepted in europe, unlike the US; she could get some attention from european fans

BoA and Utada have shown us that J-pop fails in america, so i'll keep my hopes up and wish she won't waste her time and energy for america and use it for europe

As I said before, Europe is the place to start, not the UK just yet, but take France, Germany, etc then come over to the UK then go to America when she has all of Europe.

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

In terms of Visual Kei bands...It really just depends on how you measure success. Most only go outside of Japan because of the fact that they really aren't well known inside Japan to start with. Its amazing how Visual Kei fans in the US/Europe know all these obscure bands that no one really cares about in Japan, yet they've never heard of B'z or Mr. Children.

Even so, most Visual Kei bands have niche audiences overseas at best. Dir en Grey would be closest to mainstream popular, but even they really haven't achieved that.

And people still keep on mentioning BoA and Utada as the only examples of asian artists trying to and ultimately failing to really make it big in the US and/or European department. But as I mentioned before, the list is actually quite a bit longer than just those two, so the hurdle is set even higher for making it happen.

I know that when my dad was younger X Japan and Loudness were big in America and the UK, in fact my dad loves Loudness~. So I think it's possible to make a debut and make it work...