Ayumi Hamasaki gets compared to ALOT of different western artists - Britney Spears and Madonna come up alot. But she's really only the Britney in popularity, not in who she is. She's only the Madonna in scale - how big & flashy her shows are.
But what western artist REALLY has the most things in common with Ayumi Hamasaki? Forgetting about how popular they are, forgetting about the superficial things - thinking about an artist who, at their core, is very similar to Ayu.
I want you all to read what's under the spoiler. This is something I've written about A DIFFERENT SINGER - but it could all easily apply to Ayu. I've shared it with a few other people & gotten some interesting comments.
Spoiler:
She recorded & released an album before she got famous, but it's generally considered not very good. It sold VERY poorly - it's really hard to find nowadays, and it's considered to be a collector's item - fans will pay hundreds of dollars for a copy of it, or of the single that accompanied it. (Technically the CD isn't her solo, it's her as part of a group, but fans usually consider it part of her discography regardless).
She suffered some trauma before she got famous, and used the experience as inspiration for the very personal lyrics on her first solo album. Her lyrics are really what got everyone's attention. She was unusually frank compared to other artists at the time. Her first album sold more than a million copies in the artist's home country alone by virtue of this lyrical honesty, despite the fact that the album had a bit of a rough-but-unassuming pop/rock sound. The album gave no indication of the type of experimentation and maturation of sound that was to come later on.
After a few albums, though, she stopped really resonating with people and her sales dropped, even though she continues to be very personal.
Alot of people outside her home country know of her remixes. For a period of time, she was something of a club queen, having released several singles packed with dance remixes in Europe, and even having released some remixes only available on vinyl. She's been remixed by famous DJs like Armand van Helden, and even people who don't listen to her normal material often know her voice from hearing it in clubs.
She's also found success as something of a gay icon, not something she sought out to achieve, but something about her resonates with the LGBT community.
No matter how successful or unsuccessful she may be, music is absolutely her life, something she's completely devoted herself to. She experiments with various sounds, genres, and even lyrical styles - it seem she has a new sound with every album.
She's devoted to her fans, and tries to connect with them as much as she can. Her fans, who look to her as a type of support, send her messages, letters, and sometimes even gifts during big events and when something is happening in her life. They have a special relationship to her lyrics, and feel like the songs are a sort of therapy to them, like a friend talking them through hard times, and the fans love to return this favor any way they can. The singer uses concerts as a way to sorta have a huge conversation with her fans - they all get to hang out and bond together over the course of the show.
Her concerts are, according to nearly everyone who's seen one, singular experiences. Watching her personality come out onstage is hypnotic to all in attendance.
She is completely self-created. The image she projects to her audience is entirely her own work, something she has done meticulously, deliberately, and with consideration. She is the one who comes up with all her concepts, decides what she's going to wear, and decides how an album should sound. She respects the opinions of her closest friends & staff, however, and does take their advice when she feels they have a good case.
Every video is a very deliberate work of art. She collaborates closely with the directors to convey a very specific message, story, or theme.
While CD covers aren't usually quite so deliberate, the albums themselves usually have a common running theme going through them, either lyrically or sound-wise. Sometimes she starts the recording process with a theme in mind, other times, the theme sort of builds itself based on the type of person she is at the time.
One common theme used in videos and photos is the idea of multiple versions of this artist. She is shown facing herself, coming to terms with herself, etc. fairly often. There's often a polar duality between her two incarnations.
Her fans love her unique sense of fashion as well. What she wears in concerts and videos will become a trend among her fans.
She's worked with the same group of people for years and even though she's a solo singer, her band members and other staff are part of a big on-stage family that all the fans have come to know & love. Her guitarist, for example, is someone she's worked with since the beginning and all her fans know him.
She's got a touch of the crazy, sure, but this makes her charming to her fans rather than driving them away. Besides, her fans are a little nuts themselves - they follow her around everywhere, trace her career in exhaustive detail, and in some cases get ink to show their devotion.
What's interesting to note, really, are the differences. At their core, Ayu and this singer are very similar in how they approach things, as well as how the die-hard fans see them. However, marketing and production teams have caused them to go in two different directions.
One has gone on to sell 50 million albums, the other, only about 15 million. One is not taken seriously as an "artist" by the general public and is instead considered a pop star, while the other is absolutely an artist, and not a pop star at all. One has made insane amounts of money with CD sales, merchandise, cartoon versions of herself, and commercial endorsements. The other one would never be taken seriously if she did things like that.
They're both prolific songwriters who write honestly about their thoughts & feelings, with very unique and epic concerts, whose style changes all the time, and who are very much in control of their image. So then why has one become a pop legend, an icon and goddess to so many more people, and why has the other faded into underground, artsy obscurity over time?
Is it a cultural difference, where lyrical honesty is more appreciated and more of a selling point in Japan? Was Ayu just lucky she had the production team she did? Was Ayu lucky she debuted as early in life as she did (releasing poker face at 19 where the other singer released her first solo album at 28), making her more cute and more eligible as a teen idol?
What makes Ayu so much more marketable than the other singer?
Click on the spoiler to find out who the other singer is, and if any of you out there are fans of hers, let me know your thoughts.