[Coelacanth]

But couldn't "singing the old hits" backfire?

SEASONS is one of those songs that only sounds good in her old voice. The last time she sang it well was Stadium Tour 2002, and it was even a bit rough there. It was AWFUL both times at FNS (the acapella and the most recent rendition), and the "magic" wasn't there at Power of Music, either. She could nail it technically this time, but it doesn't mean she'll nail it emotively.

M and evolution are OK in her current voice, but she sounds exactly the same each and every time she performs either one.

How in the world would Ayu come off "desperate" to be "cool" or "relevant" singing new songs like Step by step, Summer diary, Anything for You, Out of control, Story, NO FUTURE, The GIFT etc. etc.? These songs sound like they could've been released by Ayu in 2004, and not a single person would have thought otherwise. This setlist, on the contrary, is the epitome of desperate, because she's pandering to exactly what the "whitebread" nostalgia-obsessed Japanese audience want. What's worse? "Grandma" getting up to sing a brand new song or "Grandma" getting up to sing a well-known classic, except now it's apparent that she actually sounds like a grandma compared to the old way she used to sing it? Not buying the logic there.