[luna7996]

Originally Posted by attractive nausea

I used to "hate" ASFXX because, idk, it was funny to hate this album. "Well this is her first album, all the songs sound soooo dated, almost cheap af sometimes (Hana or SIGNAL's intros), and her voice is unbearable" but i gave it a proper listen a few months ago and i liked it a lot, it's nice to listen to it.

Fun fact Hana is my guilty pleasure. First time I listened to it was like ''what the heck is this?'' but now I have it on replay.

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

The dated sound was a deliberate choice, too. I think a lot of the fans that dislike it don't realize that it was on purpose rather than just a cheap cop out or something. And to be fair, I wouldn't know it unless I'd read Yasuhiko Hoshino's comments in the Tell All book. But at the time I do think it was probably a bad move since they went with a sound that wasn't old enough yet to have gotten to "retro" status... so now that it's been so long, it DOES sound properly retro so I think fans are warming up to it more.

I do understand going with a slightly older style of music rather than going back to a retro-cool style, though. I mean Ayu's first image to the public was that mature-young-woman black pant suit look, so it made sense to go with a music style that would've appealed more to (and been more associated with) slightly more mature people. When ayu's handlers and producers read Ayu's lyrics & saw her work, they WERE mostly struck by her maturity & life experience rather than any youthful coolness she might have had, you know? So that aspect of her personality was probably what they most wanted to leverage when they were initially putting her image together.

I did not know this. It's super interesting. Thanks for sharing. It's always nice discovering new things about Ayu's career. How it all started and such. Thank you.