[Uemarasan]

Although very old, I don't believe these reviews have been posted here before. These are, in my opinion, the best written and most articulate reviews of Ayu's music from a musical standpoint I have ever come across. I wish more people would write this way about her songs.

Ayumi Hamasaki: Free & Easy

Much of my mixed emotion about the imminent possible death or marginalization of the album format comes from my rueful observation that if you separate album artists from singles artists, as the market is likely to, I like a whole lot more of the former than the latter. Roxette are the most prominent exception, of course, but in Roxette's case I treat all their songs as singles, so it's kind of the same thing. There are very few artists that I like intensely on some songs, and dislike intensely on some others. Ayumi Hamasaki may be my most extreme example: Rainbow, her most recent album, has so many songs I simply hate that trying to listen to the whole thing is futile. Focus her energies at single length, though, and it can still be thrilling. "Free & Easy" is on Rainbow, but it's much more appealing, to me, on this single from earlier last year. The song itself enters slowly, its hushed intro built on woodwinds, strings, piano and assorted keyboards, before erupting fitfully into a concussive Euro-trance stomp goaded by clanging piano runs and whirring guitar. The "Dolly Mix" of "Naturally" thins the song out and chops it up, to techno but interesting effect. The Warp Brothers turn "Still Alone", which was half understated pop and half power-ballad on I am..., into a relentless epic, complete with applause breaks, overbearing synth stabs and endless knob twiddling, but Ayumi's tiny little voice keeps it from getting completely out of control.

Ayumi Hamasaki: H

The most intensely I've so far loved Ayumi, though, is during the half hour of H, another single from last year. All three of these songs are on Rainbow, but context is critical. The album version of "independent" was remixed and distended, no match for the single version I put on my 2002 top-ten list. Echoey cheerleader handclaps, snarly guitar, burbling bass pulses, twitchy hi-hats and whip-crack kick-snare loops snap in and out under Ayumi's headlong vocal. An eerie guitar solo, somewhere in the middle, nearly outdoes the Buzzcocks by hanging on a single note. Pop can be punk, and Avril Lavigne isn't how. "July 1st", the second song, shifts the whole stop-start structure down the noise scale, banging back and forth between atmospheric acoustic guitar and bloopy DJ-scratching. And "HANABI" ("Fireworks", but not a cover of the Roxette song) is the quiet song to balance the other two, chirping and creaking and undulating like a deconstruction of Madonna's "Live to Tell". As is common Japanese practice, the EP then repeats the three tracks in karaoke versions (labeled "instrumental", but they include the backing vocals). This sounds redundant and annoying, and sometimes is one or both, but here I find that they've become part of the experience for me. In part they act like credits music, but in part Ayu's voice is so distinctive that without her lead vocals I end up hearing different aspects of the rest of the arrangement.

Source: The War Against Silence at http://www.furia.com/

There are more reviews of a few J-pop and J-rock artists on the site (including Ayu's I Am... album), but take note that the reviewer is highly opinionated and doesn't use a velvet glove most of the time. Also, he will not review an artist he does not like, so no Hikki (I asked).