26 natl universities to abolish humanities, social sciences
The agenda of worldwide neoliberalism is to phase out any kind of substantial self-reflection, contemplation, and "feeling" of any kind in favor of individual contribution to the free market.
This mindset has spread to the arts, and inevitably to popular music. Ayu's contemplative lyrics and dated musical style (and by "dated" I mean that her music favors melody, harmony, and lyrics over "innovative" production-- I don't mean to use that term pejoratively like others here do) are simply unfit for the times.
As much as Ayu is selling a product at the end of the day (as are all popular musicians signed to a record label with a "marketing" staff), she has proved to me that she is an "artist" and not merely a "creative."
The above quote describes Namie, most (if not all) of the K-pop acts, and pretty much all of contemporary Western pop/EDM charting on Billboard. Increasingly there has become an algorithm to success, even to successful art.
In the far away future when neoliberalism/technocracy finally collapses and the dust settles, when humans return to valuing visceral "consciousness" over artificial intelligence, and mark my words on this,
no one is going to be checking for Namie's "hip-pop" music. But perhaps, just perhaps--future humans might stumble across an album called "A ONE" and be enchanted. When everyone else in 2015 was singing party anthems/"self-esteem" anthems (escapism), there was a little Japanese woman confronting the loneliness, anxiety, and alienation she was feeling in a postmodern world, just as she had been doing 16 years prior.